How to Conquer the 6 Most Crippling Habits

People pay a lot of money to get better at golf. What if you could identify and solve the six biggest errors people make in their daily diets? That would be worth a lot of money too, wouldn't it?

Let's take a look at the 6 most destructive, horrible, crippling habits ever to enter the mind of a want-to-be sales person.

As we talk about them I am going to suggest you take a look at some Recommended Resources at the end that can help you improve immediately!

CRIPPLING HABIT #1:

Not maintaining a constant presence in the minds of your prospects or customers.

Quite simply, this is a failure to prospect consistently both outside and inside of your existing accounts. You may not be networking enough or effectively. Maybe you are not having an integrated follow up system where you check in regularly with your prospects and clients looking for up sell and backend sales opportunities.

CRIPPLING HABIT #2:

Focusing on the process over the results.

This is a poor system of prioritization that will virtually paralyze you. You just won't be able to deliver proper bottom line results. You wind up spending your time getting ready to get ready. Your days are filled with activities rather than results. When people walk by your office they assume you are busy (and you are). It's just that you are busy doing all of the wrong things!

CRIPPLING HABIT #3:

Subscribing to "Me too" thinking.

You do the same things as every other salesperson in your industry. Once you have habits, you can easily stifle your creativity and innovativeness. Over time, this habit keeps you tied to average results. Your prospects cannot differentiate you or your products from anything else in the marketplace.

CRIPPLING HABIT #4:

Talking too much and listening too little.

We all learned to speak, but few of us have ever learned to listen. This is, perhaps, the most classic and common error. You hear but you don't internalize what is being said, you are often guilty of interrupting your prospects, and sometimes, you find yourself delivering solutions that are off-target, or simply overwhelming the prospects and customers with dialogue that is often unnecessary.

CRIPPLING HABIT #5:

Presuming you already know.

One of the quickest ways to end your sales career is to presume you know what all your prospects do or do not want or need. Once you think you know - it causes you to stop really listening when your prospect is talking to you. So you miss all the information and clues that would bring you to a sale.

CRIPPLING HABIT #6:

Blaming everything and everyone.

You must accept responsibility for what is going on around you. YOU are the only thing YOU can change. It's true that the economy, the product, and the company are easy scapegoats for you to blame for your lack of performance. But when you do that - you stop yourself from coming up with a better alternative and lose all your personal power. Take control and take responsibility and see if you don't make things happen.