IT’S ALL GOOD

I have been working with, training and developing sales reps for nearly 4 decades now. In all my years working with sales reps the most popular question I am asked is, “How can I become a positive thinker”? I usually ask the person what they think a positive thinker is. The answer I get 99% of the time is, “Someone who ONLY sees the positive side of situations”.

This tells me something, 99% of the people who want to be positive thinkers don’t have an idea what a positive thinker is. Ignoring negatives doesn’t make you a positive thinker, it more or less makes you a fool. If you ignore the negatives you are leaving yourself open to failure and defeat.

Being a positive thinker doesn’t eliminate negatives, as a matter of fact it actually highlights the negatives. If you are a positive thinker you see all the negatives and then develop positive plans on how to handle and overcome them. So what I am saying is to be a good positive thinker you let negative ideas mold your actions.

One of the basic concepts I have always tried to teach a rep is to anticipate what negatives the customer will bring up and be prepared to counter them with solid positive concepts. I will usually spend more time thinking about everything that is wrong with my proposal than I do what it right with it. I want to shoot all the holes I can in what I am going to say so I am ready for it when the customer does it. If I get no surprises I can be in constant control of the sales process. If I am in control, I can tell you that I will close the vast majority of the sales.

So Positive Thinking isn’t turning your head and ignoring negatives, it is looking them right in the eye, acknowledging them, and planning for them. As a matter of fact if you are going to be a true positive thinker you will have not one plan but several plans for getting past the negatives. You need to think about what happens if plan “A” doesn’t work? Is this being negative? Nope, it is being SMART! Every plan you make isn’t going to work, every idea you have isn’t a good idea, and every time you try something it isn’t going to work. LIVE WITH IT! This isn’t negative thinking it is reality. Keep in mind being positive doesn’t mean making believe that no negatives exist.

Be positive, not stupid. Be positive, prepare for the negatives. Be positive, by using every negative you can think of to plan your positive responses.

Lorin