This Simple Mindset Shift Will Help You Succeed

Mindset

Jan 12

Several years ago, I learned something that fundamentally altered the way I sold and dramatically changed the trajectory of my career. It wasn’t a new piece of technology. I didn’t read a book that gave me a tremendous new insight. I didn’t even find a new mentor.

I simply acted and sold as if I had already hit my number.

Let me give you some context.

The Day I had a Revelation about my Sales Goals

I was a couple of years into a new gig and I was having a lot of success. There were a lot of reasons for that (I’ll detail the value of a fresh start in another post), but I noticed something. Once I had my number covered for the month, I was different.

The monkey was off my back. I wasn’t anxious about every sales call, and I knew that I had done my job for the period successfully. Being a guy who has always thrived on recognition, I took a deep breath. But that was barely half of it…

I don’t know what caused me to recognize this, but I also sold a lot better during that last week of the month. This was almost counterintuitive. There was no bonus or incentive for revenue above quota, no short-term reason for me to sell harder. A lot of reps would have taken it easy and saved those orders for the following month to lighten that load.

This is not the time or the place to call anybody out for sandbagging. Something far more interesting was at work here. I couldn’t help but make more and better sales in the last week of the month. I could sell in a way that I just didn’t think possible with that quota hanging over my head. I was mentally free to be more creative, take more risks, and have more fun. I was the best version of my sales self, and it was paying off.

A few months after recognizing and validating this, I asked myself why I couldn’t just put myself in that frame of mind all the time. This was much easier said than done, but I had built a little extra cushion in my numbers (you know, by not having been a sandbagger for the past quarter), and I had certainly validated the concept. I took the leap, it didn’t take long to pay off. I had a huge year.

Does this seem too simplistic? Why is this even important?

Sell As if You’ve Already Succeeded

Most quotas are given arbitrarily and without much merit. A percentage is often pulled out of thin air that suggests your growth should outpace the market and is given to you for “approval” and a signature.

Despite the best intentions by upper management to use those goal lines to encourage people, those very quotas often end up having the opposite effect. Some sellers perceive them to be unfair and never really engage. Others see them as the ceiling of their potential, and they stop when they get there.

When I decided to act as if I had already hit my quota, I eliminated any self-limiting implications of that number by ignoring it, and I became a better seller by doing so.

By now, you’ve probably been given your number for 2021. I’m sure you’ve looked at it, even if you haven’t given much thought to what it would take to achieve it. You have a choice. You can let that number constrain you and worry about hitting it until you do. But, is worrying about hitting it going to put you in the right place to do so?

When you act as if success is a foregone conclusion, you have a lot more swagger, and you set your best sales self free. I’m not saying fake it til you make it, that’s not the same thing. You’re not faking anything here. You just believe so completely that you’re going to succeed, you barely pay attention to when it happens.

Do you believe you will succeed in 2021? Do you know in your bones that this will be your best year ever or are you still waiting for proof? What will it take to get you to that point? Visit the Rethink The Way You Sell Community and see how your peers answered.

Jeff Bajorek

Real. Authentic. Experience.

There’s a big difference between knowing how to sell and being able to. Jeff Bajorek spent over a decade in the field as a top performer. He’s been in your shoes. He knows what it will take. He can help you succeed.