Harness Your Desire to Break Bad Sales Habits

It's reality. Salespeople fail. Maybe even you. Sadly, thousands of salespeople are fired or quit each day because they failed to attain quota. When you ask these salespeople what went wrong most are quick to point out that their failure was due to some external factor, which prevented them from achieving their goal. Poor territories, bad managers, difficult environments, lack of training, and defective products are fodder for these conversations.

However, when studying successful Sales Professionals in those same organizations, we find, that when faced with identical difficulties, they still managed to succeed. Why did some salespeople succeed where others didn't?

The answer is simple. The successful salespeople have developed the habit of looking inward for inspiration, motivation, and accountability when things get difficult. They have developed the disciplined habit of finding solutions to problems while the less successful people have developed the habit of finding excuses for failure. I'm sure for some this seems a bit harsh, but the truth is the truth. Success or failure has a lot more to do with our thoughts and actions than the difficulties we face.

A habit is defined as a pattern of behavior that is followed regularly until it becomes automatic. In other words we do things we are comfortable with and we keep doing them. When we do the same thing over and over again an amazing thing happens: we get the same result over and over again!

Unfortunately, many people become so comfortable with their habits that they will continue the behavior even if that habit is causing them to fail. This is called a bad habit and anyone who has worked to quit smoking or even correct a poor golf swing, will attest that bad habits die hard. In many ways, failure is just the manifestation of our bad habits.

Stepping out of a comfort zone is very difficult and one of the core reasons so many salespeople find themselves moving from company to company and failing time and time again. Despite the training each new company provides, despite the coaching, despite the mentoring from successful Sales Professionals, eventually these salespeople revert back to their old habits and ultimately failure. The good news is, that though difficult, it is possible to break this cycle of failure. But to change your habits, you must first change your thoughts and actions. And who has control of your thoughts and actions?

You.