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Optimism
There is one book that all sales managers and sales people should read: ‘Learned Optimism’ by Seligman. Although you may think you can, you cannot tell by gut feel alone whether you are an optimist or a pessimist. In Seligman’s remarkable book he has a self-scoring test comprising of some 48 questions, which will give you a rating and confirm where you really are.
Why is this important? Well if you are in the sales business you are going to get a lot of rejection and how you deal with that rejection will be just about the # 1 reason behind your success or failure in sales and many other aspects of your life. You don’t have to be an optimist to succeed. I was surprised when my test results indicated that I am a mild pessimist!
The important issue is HOW you deal with rejection once you know what your preference is. This moves into the area of self-talk and internal dialogue. That little voice inside your head which gives you praise comment or critique, sometimes just when you don’t need it!
Seligman’s research uncovered that when bad things happen to pessimists, such as a rude customer response from a cold call, they tend to internalize their self dialogue and ‘talk’ using language that is Personal, Pervasive and Permanent.
Look at this typical example of negative self talk by a sales person after being rejected:
“I’ll never be any good at this”.
Let’s break it down and look at each element in turn:
‘I’ll’ – It is my fault, it’s personal
‘never’ – it’s permanent
‘at this’ – it’s pervasive or non specific
Whereas optimists tend to do the opposite. A typical self dialogue for an optimist might be;
“He was in a bad mood when I called”.
This language is External, Specific and Temporary.
‘He was’ – It is their fault, its external
‘in a bad mood’ – there was a specific reason why
‘when I called’ – it’s temporary
It is not better or worse to be one or the other, however there are some real dangers in being either extremely optimistic or extremely pessimistic. If I am hopping onto a 747 to London, I don’t want an extreme optimist as a pilot. If anything I want someone who is slightly pessimistic and will double-check everything.
As sales professionals our #1 task is managing ourselves and that means controlling the messages we send ourselves when things get tough.
The next time you make a call and get rejected, challenge your internal dialogue and make it external, specific and temporary. And if you are managing others look for all the nuances in their everyday language. You can quickly tell what a person’s preference may be.
Download PDF version (51KB)
Buy your copy of the book here
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