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THIS WEEK: Mental Toughness; Grit; Outlearn = Outearn; Attitude
RRB workflow chart from Montana
PERPETUALLY PROSPECTING
Fanatical Prospecting by Jeb Blount Chapter 21 “Developing Mental Toughness”
Fanatical prospectors receive more rejection before 9:00 AM than the average person gets in an entire year. The fact is, most people wouldn’t last a minute in sales. They are so afraid of rejection that they’d rather starve to death than make a single prospecting call.
This is why salespeople are the elite athletes of the business world.
Like top athletes, you must train hard to deliver peak performance.
Data from multiple research studies tells us that mental toughness is more important than talent, experience, education, skills, or technique.
James Loehr was one of the first experts to identify the “psychology of winning.” He described seven core dimensions of mental toughness:
* Self-confidence
* Attention control
* Minimizing negative energy
* Increasing positive energy
* Maintaining motivation levels
* Attitude control
* Visual and imagery control
The formula is simple: Change your mindset. Change your game.
It takes grit. ( Angela Duckworth’s TED Talk on GRIT: The Power of Passion and Perseverance)
Faith is crucial. Faith that by doing the right things every day, the cumulative impact of these actions will pay off. Faith keeps you focused on your goal when no tangible evidence exists that the hard work you are doing will get you there
Everybody wants the glory of the close, but most people are unwilling to grind—to pay the price for success. In any endeavor, success is paid for in advance with hard work. In sales, success is paid for in advance with prospecting. You will never excel at anything if you don’t put the hard work in first.
In their book Never Hire a Bad Salesperson again, Dr. Chris Croner and Richard Abraham describe mental toughness in salespeople using three dimensions.
Optimism: When you get knocked down, optimism tells you that if you can look up, you can get up. Optimism is the mother of perseverance. It powers a positive belief system and attracts positive energy.
Competitiveness: Do you hate to lose or love to win? The drive to avoid losing is what keeps superstars working longer, harder, and doing whatever it takes to win. Competitiveness is the mother of persistence.
Need for achievement: Psychologist and researcher Henry Murray defined the need for achievement as “intense, prolonged and repeated efforts to accomplish something difficult. To work with singleness of purpose towards a high and distant goal. To have the determination to win.”5 The need for achievement is the mother of self-motivation.
Four Pillars of Mental Toughness in Sales
Desire
Mental Resilience
The most successful people are constantly investing in themselves to increase their knowledge, gain insight, and sharpen their skills. They understand a principle that was true with my chainsaw and true in life. Sometimes you need to slow down to speed up. It is not always about trying harder. Sometimes it is doing or thinking differently.
Outlearn = Outearn
Learners invest their own money in books, seminars, and workshops to keep their skills updated and sharp. They subscribe to newsletters, trade magazines, industry publications, blogs, and sales publications to stay current on their own industry and the sales profession. They follow top experts on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google+. They listen to podcasts, show up for webinars, and watch educational videos online.
