On Guard? Stop Being Defensive

How often do you go into shock after a disastrous sales loss?

As a sales strategist, I’ve watched sales professionals panic when they don’t know how to deal with a challenge. It’s easy to yield to your emotions rather than using them to your advantage. Mental preparedness will assist in controlling your next steps.

Your best move? Get off the defense. Let go of the defensive attitude—it’s limiting your growth and development as a salesperson, impeding your progress and sabotaging your success. Train yourself to stifle the voices in your head that cause your defensive behaviors. Tell them to shut up so you can start listening to new ideas.

Remember learning that in order to be successful in sales, you must listen to your customer to qualify them properly? I’m challenging you to qualify yourself. Who are you? What do you need and want to become? How will you get there? You can’t hear the answers if you’re not paying attention to the opportunities presenting themselves to you.

It might take a lot of energy and discipline to be receptive at all times. But the more you put this technique into practice, the more you’ll condition your mind to these positive behaviors—and I guarantee you’ll reap the benefits.

The next time you have to attend a meeting or a seminar with your new “mind in training,” exercise your ability to sit back, listen intently and take in any information that might actually benefit you. Mental preparedness will lead you to experience countless “a-ha moments” of a life-changing breed.

Sales masters search for mental and physical ways to take fear of failure out of possibilities, leaving room to refocus. It’s not a plan of escape—it’s a plan of actions and solutions. There is always a way.

Anthony Caliendo is author of “The Sales Assassin: Master Your Black Belt in Sales.”