Success Usually Depends on THIS FINAL CHOICE
All the world's a stage.
You are a great actor on that stage.
When it is your turn to appear in a scene, be enthusiastic! Especially if you have something to sell. If you have something to sell, try being REALLY enthusiastic about what you have to sell. Simply as a place to come from.
When your client speaks, be enthusiastic. Glow. Sparkle. Radiate service and solutions. Pump yourself up. Take it to an even higher level.
When you're ready to close the sale, don't fade out...remember you are ACTING enthusiastic. Finish strong. Enthusiasm is contagious. People love to be around it. It makes them smile and shake their heads...it can even make them laugh with pleasure at the dynamo that is you.
Most salespeople make the mistake of not doing this. They act reserved and cool and "professional." They don't act professional this because they ARE professional, they do it because they're scared and they think if they act cool they won't seem so scared.
But they don't sell as much as they could. Cool doesn't sell. A chilly professionalism doesn't make much of an impression. It is immediately forgotten, along with the product.
But enthusiasm comes from the Greek words "en theos," which mean "the God within." The most spirited and spiritual you. You times ten. You when you were a little kid riding your bike with no hands.
Enthusiasm is contagious. If YOU are excited about your product, so will everyone else be. That's how it works. Emerson said, "Nothing great was ever created without enthusiasm."
You can sell with enthusiasm, or you can sell without enthusiasm. Those are your choices. One leads to prosperity and the other leads to problems.
"But how can I be enthusiastic when I'm not?"
I have people ask me that all the time. The answer is easy. The way to be enthusiastic is to ACT enthusiastic. There isn't a person in the world who can tell the difference if you put your heart and soul into your acting. And about a minute and a half into your acting the funniest thing starts to happen: the enthusiasm becomes real. You do feel it. And so does your customer.
You may really ENJOY thinking of your life as a mathematical equation:
I first saw the fun and benefit of this when my good friend Duane Black solved the equation on two flipcharts in front of a grateful gathering of leaders and sales professionals.
Here it is:
When you are positive, (picturing the math sign: +) you ADD something to any conversation or meeting you are in. That's what being positive does, it adds.
When you are negative (-) you subtract (-) something from the conversation, the meeting or the relationship you are in. (If you are negative enough times, you subtract so much from the relationship that there is no more relationship. It's simple math. It's the law of the universe up there on the flip chart of life: positive adds, negative subtracts.)
As in math, when you add a negative it diminishes the total. Add a negative person to the team, and the morale and spirit (and, therefore, productivity and profit) of the team is diminished.
When you are a positive leader and a positive sales professional with positive thoughts about the future and the people you lead, you ADD to every person you talk to. You bring something of value to every communication. Even every email and voicemail (that's positive) adds something to the life of the person who receives it. Because positive (+) always adds something. It's a definite plus.
It runs even deeper than that. If you think positive thoughts throughout the day, you are adding (+) to your own deep inner experience of living. You are bringing a PLUS to your own spirit and energy with each positive thought.
Your negative thoughts take away (-) from the experience of being alive. They rob you of your energy.
I, myself, like this math. I like its simplicity. I now do this math throughout my selling day. When I am experiencing negative thoughts about my team, my clients, my work or my to-do list, I know it's time to take a break and regroup and refresh. It's time to call a time out, close my eyes and relax into my purpose and my mission. It's time to slow down and breathe into it. I take a lot of quick breaks like that during the day, and I have my purposes and strengths written on index cards in my pocket to refresh my thinking with. This practice is changing my life for the better. It is making me stronger and more energetic than ever before.
"We either make ourselves miserable,
or we make ourselves strong,
the amount of work is the same."
---Carlos Castaned
