Techniques To Skyrocket Your Performance

Often, salespeople we focus on the negative -- that lost sale or what they didn't achieve. Instead, we need to focus on what we have achieved. Traditional sales training programs often ignore or miss the biggest obstacles to success - the internal, mental and emotional barriers that sales professionals face on a daily basis.

This week, Promotional Consultant Today looked at three powerful components of the mindset of a champion. Put these techniques into action and watch your sales performance skyrocket. Wednesday we looked at the first component, Your Internal Dialogue, yesterday we reviewed Mind Power and today we'll examine Optimistic Expectations.

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TOP SHELF TIP NO. 164

"No man ever listened himself out of a job." 

Calvin Coolidge, 30^th president of the United States

Fill Your Mind with Optimistic Expectations

Unleash the most powerful mental tool that drives championship performance

Research conducted over 30 years with more than one million participants has determined there is a single, powerful predictor of sales achievement -- optimistic expectations. Ability and motivation are not always enough to guarantee consistent results. Expectations of success or failure are self-fulfilling prophecies that often determine the outcomes, regardless of ability and motivation.  The research also shows that people who develop learned optimism live longer and healthier lives, so there are major benefits that go far beyond your career.

The key is to believe that you will succeed, despite the challenges, obstacles and setbacks that are inevitable in your sales career. Continue to believe you will succeed, even in the face of resistance, rejection and hostility.  How you explain to yourself and react to setbacks is a crucial determinant of your ultimate success. Training yourself to look at setbacks as temporary challenges and minimizing those setbacks with the knowledge that you can find a solution and overcome them, predicts ultimate success.

Action Plan: Developing optimistic expectations can be learned. Even if you are a chronic pessimist and your parents or spouse is a pessimistic thinker, you can absolutely learn ways to overcome the negative beliefs that underlie your pessimistic explanatory style.

Revisit the Action Plan in the Wednesday, August 18, PCT, which describes the best way to develop an optimistic explanatory style -- by understanding your own negative thinking patterns and practicing changing them. You can also get cognitive training from a professional psychologist or by attending training seminars directed at teaching you learned optimism.

Such training will do wonders for your career and in your life.

Source: Dr. Jack Singer is a professional speaker, trainer and licensed psychologist. He has been speaking for and training Fortune 1000 companies, associations, CEO's, sales teams and elite athletes for 34 years. He is a frequent guest on CNN, MSNBC, FOX SPORTS and other radio talk shows across the U.S. and Canada. He is the author of The Teacher's Ultimate Stress Mastery Guide, and several series of audio programs.