What is a sales mindset?
A sales mindset is a set of beliefs that shapes the way salespeople make sense of their sales efforts to achieve the expected results. It influences how they think, feel and behave when managing their business and customer interactions. And without identifying the mindsets that limit salespeople’s performance, sales managers cannot see real improvement, even when salespeople are trained in new skills.
1. Sales success is inherently cyclical.
Know that sales success can be constant.
Many salespeople have the mindset that their sales success will naturally follow peaks and valleys. They expect the seasonality that comes with times of hot streaks and slumps. This idea limits performance because it disempowers salespeople; it can lead to complacency and variations in effort and growth.
Managers can help salespeople overcome this mindset and replace it with the idea that the salesperson is in control of his or her own performance. To do this, leverage data and analytics to show salespeople that the right activities and efforts are the biggest determinants of success.
2. Salespeople’s responsiveness can manifest sales.
Set the right expectations with prospects or customers and de-prioritise non-sales activities.
Some sales reps make it a point to respond to every call or lead. After all, salespeople believe that the more responsive they are to customer requests, the more likely customers are to buy. Surprisingly, this is not good sales behaviour. With this mindset, salespeople end up prioritising problem solving, answering questions that are not urgent or pursuing opportunities that are not viable, while neglecting critical sales activities that drive more business. One example: A survey revealed that salespeople spend about 65% of their time on activities that don’t generate revenue.
To help sales reps overcome this mindset and replace it with a more productive one, sales managers must help salespeople see the benefit of setting clear expectations with customers and prospects. Of course, this means that sales managers need to endorse and encourage boundaries. Expectations around time and responsiveness can help salespeople follow a plan that allows them to perhaps connect with a neglected contact with a new prospect, set up a meeting with a customer, prospect a new account, or prepare more strategic account plans.
3. What has worked in the past will continue to work in the future.
Analyse sales approaches and allow them to evolve.
Sales managers should find every opportunity to proactively inform salespeople about the impact on the business if they do not progress their sales practices. Point out how the business is changing and why it is critical to evolve. For example, discuss the ramifications the pandemic has had on customers’ expectations of face-to-face selling and how they might evolve their practices accordingly. Give examples like this and have salespeople practice agility and flexibility.
The most important aspect of successful selling is often overlooked, and that is mindset. No matter how much training or experience a sales rep receives, he or she can only achieve sustainable success by changing his or her mindset. Sales managers must look for evidence of these and other limiting mindsets and help salespeople adopt growth-based, performance-enhancing viewpoints. Through mindset coaching, sales managers can lead sales reps to much higher close rates.
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