This mindset training isn't about what you already know and have heard hundreds of times before. It's about what you don't know. Stuff I can guarantee you haven't heard before.
I'm deep into studying human psychology and haven't heard many people talk about what I'm going to share with you today. Even if they did, they certainly haven't synthesized it in the way I have for you in this training.
By the end of this training, you'll have a stack of habits that, if you put them together in the sequence I have defined, will unleash consistent peak performance on sales calls and in your life as a whole.
What You Already Know About Mindset
But before we get into the training, let's do a quick summary of all the common concepts everyone knows.
You already know you need to find your purpose, to find your “why.”
You already know to define your goals and write them down. There's a Harvard study that showed people who had goals made twice as much money as those who didn't. And people who wrote down their goals made 10x as much.
You already know you'll do more for others than you will for yourself. So, if you're a parent or if you've got someone you care about that's depending on you, that'll push you.
You already know to find your strengths and unique drivers. Like me, for example, I love to prove people wrong. And you can figure this out by taking personality tests like MBTI, DiSC, or Kolbe.
You already know to be mindful of your thoughts. Because how you think is how you feel. And how you feel is how you behave. So, thoughts become actions and actions become habits.
The Pursuit Of Mastery
On the road to success, effort counts double.
- Talent x Effort = Skill
- Skill x Effort = Achievement
That's the thing about grit. People who stick it out and show up even they don't feel like it are the people who get results.
Look at The Rock, Dwayne Johnson. When you look at his work ethic and the results he's achieved in life, it's impossible to not be amazed.
People want to promote the laptop lifestyle and making money while chilling on a beach somewhere. Nothing great was ever built that way.
“Mastery demands all of a person.” – Albert Einstein
If you're in the game of Sales, pursue mastery.
Ultimately, the pursuit of mastery in Sales is the pursuit of mastery of Self. It's you understanding the human mind to such a degree that you can influence the behavior of people around you.
But the real magic happens if when you can influence your own behavior. The world can be burning down around you but you're that one man or woman with their sh*t together, making things happen.
Grit, Tenacity, And Perseverence
Once you understand what you're pursuing, it's much easier to put in the required effort. And so, you have to make up your mind that you're a person with grit, with tenacity, someone who's going to persevere.
Because when you're in sales, nothing is ever perfect. Maybe the ads aren't working right, you're taking sh*tty calls all week and you don't close any deals and it's a total waste of your time. How do you act when that happens?
Weak people give up. We had one sales rep who we put on an offer who quit after taking 2 calls! How can you be successful at anything in life if you quit after 2 tries?
I've spent 2 years getting my ass kicked on a problem to try to figure it out. I just kept showing up every day until I solved it.
How To Show Up Everyday (Even When You're Getting Beat Up)
My head recruiter Moose Reed and I have this joke about “the Shangri-La of offers.” Where the advertising is perfect, the offer is a no-brainer, there's no such thing as a bad lead, and the only people you talk to are perfect-fit prospects, who show up with their credit cards out, and never have any objections.
That's a fantasy. It doesn't exist.
Ads are weird. They're wonky sometimes. Some weeks you hit home runs every time you step up to the plate. Other weeks you get weirdos or prospects that are impossible to sell. That's normal.
The way you filter through those ups and downs and keep showing up is to learn to love the challenge.
The difference between people who stick and those who don't is how they perceive something that's difficult. When you encounter challenges or obstacles, are they a problem or an opportunity?
For me, something I've always told myself is that I want the work to be hard. I want to solve complex, difficult problems cause otherwise I'm going to be bored. And I don't want to be bored. I'd rather struggle to solve a complex problem over a long period of time, banging my head against it over and over, than be bored.
If you learn to love and embrace the challenge, that makes it fun.
These days I'm into bodybuilding to change my body composition and trust me, go to the gym every day is a challenge. It's not easy. It sucks half the time. But I love the challenge. I love the ability to best myself.
When I was younger, I lived with a family in Spain on a student exchange program with some other kids from my high school. One of the girls in our group thought Spanish was SO hard. She was so frustrated the family couldn't speak any English. She didn't like the food. Everything was a problem to her. And she went home after having the sh*ttiest experience.
As opposed to appreciating the opportunity to live with a family abroad who takes you into their home and takes care of you. That's a blessing if you think about it.
As opposed to looking at this experience as an opportunity to grow and become a better person. To lean into the problem of no one speaking a word of English and having to figure out a way to learn Spanish bit by bit. And turn it into like this playful game of trying to communicate with a totally alien culture.
You want to go from:
“Oh man, this is frustrating. I don't want to do it.”
To:
“Oh man, this is difficult! I wonder if I can figure it out?”
That subtle shift in your frame of reference is everything.
The 1% Rule: Play The Long Game
Most people give up too soon. That's really what it boils down to. And that's because challenges are frustrating and uncomfortable. They don't feel good, so people don't want to do them.
But they aren't considering the long game and the outcome of perseverance.
Challenges suck when you want them to miraculously solve themselves overnight. But what if you think:
“How do I get one step closer to solving my problem every single day? How do I get 1% better every single day?”
Progress compounds. That's why consistency is so important.
In 72 days, you're twice as good as you are now. In 6 months, you're 6 times better. In a year, you're 31 times better.
1.01^365 = 31.18
Thinking about challenges this way makes it easy to embrace them. Because you aren't looking for a magic pill. You're looking for an incremental gain that compounds over time.
The Power Of Negative Thinking
This, to me, is one of the most important aspects of mindset for sales success.
Everyone tells you to think positive, to visualize the outcome you want to achieve, to “manifest” your success. F*ck all that noise.
Astronauts don't think positive when they fly a gigantic rocket filled with thousands of pounds of explosive fuel into outer space. They plan, prepare, and practice for every single thing that could possibly go wrong.
It's only when you've prepared for everything that could go wrong, that things consistently go right. That's why they say an expert is someone who's made all the mistakes in a narrow domain.
When you encounter a new objection, that's awesome. Because you're learning how the sale can go wrong. And when you figure out how to handle the objection, you get 1% better or more.
If you stick with this domain long enough – converting inbound leads into paying clients – you'll make all the mistakes and encounter all the problems, and have solutions to every single one.
You'll have mastered a process that will make you $250,000 per year with little-to-no expenses. You'll be running it through a business and spending pre-tax money. You'll be able to do it from anywhere in the world. You'll have complete freedom over your time. You'll talk to interesting people and never get bored. You'll be in control, which is amazing.
Where in the world are you going to find an opportunity like that? In a lot of cases, salespeople take home more pay than their bosses because they don't have the overheads.
And it all starts with negative thinking. With you being able to find all the problems. With you constantly scanning for threats and looking for what can go wrong. So that you can be prepared.
When you're prepared, you show up and you don't panic. People panic when something happens on a call that they haven't prepared for. That's when they freak out and get upset at an objection or get upset at someone behaving a certain way.
People are irrational. They make emotional decisions. They're inconsistent because their conscious mind says one thing and their subconscious says another.
If you expect that, you can prepare for it. And it's not going to knock you out of your frame of certainty and strength. So, rather than sit there thinking every sale is going to close, figure out why every sale is not going to close and tie up those loose ends.
If you approach the sales process this way you'll close far more deals than trying to shove everyone through your script, ignore their objections or ignore anything that could be a threat. Everyone will be in alignment, everyone feels good about it, and everyone will agree that enrollment is the next logical step.
DON'T Be Yourself
Create an alter ego. An identity outside of yourself that allows you to perform at a level that you yourself cannot.
We're human and we're all going to have problems. Sh*t's gonna happen in our lives that'll spill over into our sales calls.
There'll be moments you don't want to get on a call. Or you'll have to get on a call after getting some bad news and if you show up as YOU…you are going to bring that sh*t to the call.
But you don't need to. You can leave it at the door and you can wear your mask.
You can put on whatever it is that your alter ego is and then play the person, play the role that you need to be. Because, ultimately, Sales is a performance.
We are performers and when you go on stage AKA talk to a prospect, you don't need to be you. You can be a version of you.
We all have a range of characters inside of ourselves. Sometimes we can be aggressive. Sometimes we can be soft and nice. Sometimes we can be hippie. Sometimes we can be hard-nosed business people.
You can like one thing and like another, seemingly contradictory things. You could love a Disney movie AND ALSO love a hardcore action movie or a murder mystery.
You don't have to just be one person all the time.
And so when you create an identity that you step into, it makes performing consistently that much easier. Because you're not showing up with baggage.
This is why method acting is so powerful. If you watch a movie with Daniel Day-Lewis, it's insane how he becomes his character. When he's on set he leaves Daniel Day-Lewis at the door.
When I first started in sales, my alter ego was this guy named is Jim Gissey. So Jim Gissey, he built this company here called Westgate. They're the biggest privately-held timeshare company in the world. They do over $1 billion a year in business.
Jim was a phenom. He almost quit his job because he couldn't close. Then one day he went home, revised his script, practiced it, memorized it. After that night, he'd win salesman of the month almost every single month from that point. Then he became the sales manager and doubled the performance of everybody else. Then they made him a sales director, then a VP of sales.
Jim makes about $3 million a year at Westgate. He's basically the sole reason they've been able to build their sales organization to $1 billion a year.
So whenever I got on calls, I wasn't Mike. I was Jim Gissey in my head. I would perform as Jim Gissey and I would play that role. I'd take on that persona and that alter ego and I would leave all the parts of me that weren't beneficial for the process of selling at the door.
Beyonce does this as well. Beyonce says that in her music videos and when she goes on stage, she's not Beyonce Knowles. Because Beyonce Knowles is this little girl who has the same problems as everybody else.
When Beyonce's on stage or filming a music video or doing a photo-shoot, she becomes Sasha Fierce. And Sasha fierce is the part of Beyonce that doesn't have all the personal insecurities that everyone else has. And that's how she became the “Beyonce” we know. She created this alter ego that makes her in our minds and in the world's mind, a certain character.
For you to create that same impact in prospect's minds, design an alter ego. And that will make your performance consistent and easy so that when something does happen outside of the realm of sales, in your personal life, it won't spill over into your sales calls.
Focus On What You Can Control
Sales is a head game. You can't control if someone buys or not. It's just a fact.
We're not in the business of controlling people. We're in the business of influencing people.
In a sales conversation, that means that you can't make the decision for someone. You're not pulling the credit card out of their pocket for them. You can only design the conversation to influence them into pulling it out themselves.
When you don't have control over the outcome, you have to focus on the things you do have control over. This is why process goals are important.
If you look at the parts of your calls that you want to improve, or if you look at the number of conversations you want to have, or you look at the number of followups you do…thing's like that…it's going to make your life a lot easier.
Take the pre-call confirmation, for example.
The more calls you confirm, the more calls you take. The more calls you take the more offers you make. The more offers you make the more money you make. It's just math. And you consistently focusing on what you can control.
The 3-Point Checklist For Discovery
Here's an example of a process goal while you're on calls. They're 3 points you must check off mentally when in discovery mode.
One: does the prospect feel understood?
“That's it!”
“Bang! Spot on!”
“You nailed it!”
If they say something like that to you after you summarize one of their points, they feel understood.
You want to practice repeating what people say back to them, not just on calls but also in your everyday interactions. Just don't parrot exactly what they said back to them.
Use your own words, and different metaphors and analogies. When you do this, they'll think, “this guy gets it!” And they're going to respect you and buy from you.
Two: did you get to their deep, root motive
When a buyer's at a lower level of sophistication they're motivated by things like helping their wife quit her job, or they want to buy a home, or they're about to have a baby and really need to step it up, or they want to be able to travel the world with their girlfriend.
At higher levels, growth becomes its own motive. Once their basic needs are met – typically at the $10,000 to $20,000 per month income range – their motives become more vision- and impact-oriented. It's about growing into the best possible version of themselves.
Three: the temperature-check
“On a scale of 1 to 10, how do you feel about everything so far? Are you a 9 or 10, or a 6 or 7?”
This is going to tell you whether or not you can make the offer. If they're at 8 or below, something's wrong.
Because Desire times Belief equals Conviction. And Conviction is what makes them buy.
If they have the desire but they don't believe you can actually do it, or they don't believe something about the process, they're not going to buy. If they have the belief you can do it but they don't have the desire, again, they're not going to buy.
If they have the desire and they have the belief that what you're saying is true, they're going to buy. Making the sale is just a matter of logistics and maybe a little bit of overcoming resistance. But most of the time it's going to be logistics like timing, money, things like that. And we can easily navigate logistics because we're just solving problems.
To Be Continued…
When you're ready to delegate your sales calls, click on our link below to watch our free case study.