Want To Sell More? Break These 5 Habits!

By Geoffrey James | September 13, 2010

Geoffrey James has sold and written hundreds of features, articles and columns for national publications including Wired, Men's Health, Business 2.0, SellingPower, Brand World, Computer Gaming World, CIO, The New York Times and (of course) BNET. He is the author of seven books, including Business Wisdom of the Electronic Elite (translated into seven languages and selected by four book clubs), and The Tao of Programming (widely quoted on the Web as a "canonical book of computer humor".) He was also co-host of Funny Business, a program on New England's largest all-talk radio station and has given seminars and keynotes at numerous corporations, including Rackspace, Gartner, Lucent and Houston Industries. Geoffrey attributes his success to the uncommon realization that freelancing is "50 percent sales and 50 percent delivery." When writing about Sales, he draws on his prior experience marketing and selling multi-million dollar computer systems, his daily experience selling his own services, and the fact that every month he's personally being coached, one-on-one, by the world's top sales trainers.

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If you’re going to be successful in sales, you need to be the kind of person that draws other people to want to work with them.  With the exception of the mentally ill, most people want to work with people who have an upbeat and positive attitude.

Unfortunately, many people (including some sales pros that I know) have sloppy habits of thinking and speaking that drain the energy of the people around them.  With that in mind, here are five quick techniques that will immediately improve your attitude in ways that will increase your ability to influence others:

• Technique #1: Stop using negative phrases such as “It’s impossible,” or “This won’t work,” which  program you for negative results.  Instead, substitute phrases like “That might be challenging” or “We’ll need some alternatives” that leave the possibility of eventual success open and available.
• Technique #2: Whenever somebody asks “How are you?”, don’t come out with the something depressing like “Hangin’ in there” or “Same old, same old.”  Instead, respond enthusiastically with “Terrific!” or “Fabulous!” or “I’ve never felt better!”  Then make that your reality, too.
• Technique #3: Stop complaining about things over which you have no control, such as the economy, your company, the customers, etc.  Focus on what you can change, what you can accomplish, and what you can do for your firm, your customers, and your customers’ customers.
• Technique #4: Stop griping about your personal problems and illnesses. What good does it do other than to depress you and everyone else? Remember: this, too, shall pass. Do what you can to deal with your problems and then use your energy to keep yourself on track and in high spirits.
• Technique #5: Substitute neutral words for emotionally loaded ones. For example, rather than saying “I’m enraged!” say “I’m a bit annoyed…” or (better yet) “I’ve got a real challenge…”  Neutral words keep your mind from getting into emotional feedback loops that keep you miserable.

Yeah, I know these techniques sound a bit trivial, but actually they’re very important. The bad habits that these techniques correct are like holes in a inner tube.  If you don’t plug them up, you’ll end up pumping yourself all the time, just to keep yourself afloat!

BTW, the above is based on a conversation with Jeff Keller, author of the bestseller Attitude is Everything.

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