Sales managers are juggling a lot of balls right now. Some days you are the sales leader, another day the chief problem solver and still others, head cheerleader.
Well, it’s time to add one more hat to your wardrobe:
Chief Belief Officer.
The research is clear that what a person believes influences the actions they will or won’t take.
Sales managers, you aren’t just a sales leader.
You are the Chief Belief Officer at your company. And with that title comes the responsibility of helping your team identify and change self-limiting beliefs that might be holding them back.
For example, you can teach a salesperson really effective prospecting approaches, however, if they believe that:
- It’s too soon to call on anyone. I need to wait a couple of months.
- Budgets are frozen. No one is spending money right now.
- Their target prospect going to switch from an established vendor in the middle of a pandemic.
You can teach and preach all you want. But until you change your seller’s core belief, you will be talking to yourself.
It’s time to stop preaching and teaching.
It’s time to start asking questions.
Ask questions that will shift your seller’s current paradigm, their self-limiting belief. One way to shift a paradigm is to ask a pivot question, one that gets your seller to stop, reflect and say, “Hmm…that’s an interesting perspective.”
Let’s look at the scenario where a salesperson emphatically states, “No one has a budget right now to invest in our services.” A sales manager’s knee-jerk reaction might be to start telling and pointing out the many other prospects and customers investing right now.
Stop. Apply the EQ skill of impulse control. Ask, don’t tell.
“I’m curious; is that based on perception or data? Because these five opportunities had no budget, are you assuming that is the case with all of your prospects?”
Sales managers, you are the chief belief officer at your company. Change a seller’s belief and you will change their actions and sales outcomes.
Good Selling!
