Your Sales Beliefs

“Whether you think you can or you think you can’t – – you’re right” – Henry Ford

 

“Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve” – W. Clement Stone

 

What are your beliefs?

 

Are they all serving you?

 

And not only that, why do you believe what you believe?

 

Beliefs are powerful.  And beliefs are dangerous.

 

Your beliefs are one of the most important aspects when it comes to selling.

 

If you don’t believe in sales then you can’t sell.

 

If you don’t believe in your product then you can’t sell it.

 

If you don’t believe in your company then you can’t sell it.

 

If you don’t believe you will succeed then you won’t.

 

Now this brings up and excellent question: What is a belief?

 

A belief is a feeling of absolutely certainty about what something means. And the two major kinds of beliefs are General beliefs and Rules beliefs.

 

Examples of General beliefs:

 

I am…

 

People are…

 

Life is….

 

Sales is…..

 

Examples of Rules Beliefs:

 

If….   Then…

 

Humans are great at creating a meaning for everything. The most exciting part about learning about beliefs is we get to determine the meaning. You get to determine what you believe.  You cannot control what happens but you can control how you respond to what happens and the meaning that you give to what happens.

 

“For there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so. .” – Hamlet

 

There are two types of beliefs and there are also two classifications of these two types of beliefs.

 

You either have an empowering belief or a limiting belief.

 

“Having no way as way, having no limitation as limitation.” – Bruce Lee

 

Examples of empowering beliefs:

 

There is always a way and I’ll find it.
 

 

The harder I work the luckier I get.
 

 

Success is easy.
 

 

Success comes naturally to me.

 

 
Selling is easy!
 

 

Selling is fun!

 

 
Success flows to me.

 

 
People are generally good.
 

 

If I enjoy the process then I’ll be even more effective.
 

 

If I prepare then there is nothing to fear.

 

Examples of Limiting Beliefs:

 

 
I’m too young to be successful.
 

 

I’m too old to go back to school or learn something new.

 

 
Success is hard.

 

 
Selling is hard.

 

 
Selling is difficult.

 

 
Customers are annoying.

 

 
They are wasting my time.

 

 
There is not enough time.

 

 
If I work hard I might not get to my goal then why try in the first place?

 

Those are just a few examples of limiting beliefs. And actually they are painful to even write down.

 

Many beliefs are unconscious, not something you consciously think about in your day to day life. Most beliefs are typically running in the background. You can think of a belief almost like an operating system on a computer that all other programs run on top of.  If the operating system is old and outdated it’s going to be very challenging the run the latest and greatest programs (happiness, success, fulfillment…).

 

If subconsciously you believe sales is not a good profession, how good of a sales person are you going to become?

 

I think you know the answer.

 

Now, we know what limiting beliefs are and what empowering beliefs are.  And we know that it’s better to have beliefs that serve you instead of beliefs that break you down or prevent you from taking action.

 

I am sure this is leading you to a few questions, how do you know what your limiting beliefs are?

 

How do you eliminate limiting beliefs?

 

How do you create and install new beliefs that empower you?

 

Remember we said a belief is a feeling of absolute certainty about what something means.  That means that if you truly had held a limiting belief in the past you would not question it in the slightest or doubt it in any way.  The most dangerous thing about a limiting belief is that you may not even be fully aware of the fact that you have had it because it hangs around in the background.

 

A limiting belief can be thought of like a weed in the garden of your mind. Some weeds you may not notice at first, but once you become aware of the fact that you have a weed in your garden you can then pull it out of the garden.  Some weeds are easy to pull out, others take more time.

 

How to eliminate a limiting belief and install a new empowering belief in five easy steps:

 

Step 1 –  Become aware of your limiting beliefs:  Take a moment to write down limiting beliefs you’ve had in the past and list three that come to mind.
 

 

Step 2 – Write down what the limiting beliefs have cost you in the past – Write down what these limiting beliefs you’ve had in the past have cost you personally in time, money, happiness……

 

Step 3 – Scramble the limiting belief – Give you self a pat on the back, the simple act of writing these limiting beliefs down takes away the power that they may have had over you in the past.  Now you will notice how silly and outdated some of these things truly are.  Now ask yourself did I really believe that in the past?  Go ahead, ask yourself out-loud?  Did I really believe that?

 

Now that it’s written down and it’s out of your subconscious, let’s take a moment to scramble this belief.  It’s like a record, if you scratch record or a cd enough times it can never be played again.

 

1) Repeat your old limiting beliefs in a Donald Duck voice three times.

 

2) Repeat your old limiting beliefs while plugging your nose and say it in a really strange voice three times.

 

3)  Repeat your old limiting beliefs in a really high pitched voice three times.

 

Now try to get back to how the limiting belief you had in the past felt before…

 

Step 4 – Pick three new empowering beliefs – The irony is that the empowering belief is usually something that is the exact opposite of the limiting belief you had in the past.  Take a moment to write three of these new empowering beliefs down.  Make sure that your new empowering beliefs truly resonate with you and make you feel powerful, because you are going to be hearing them a lot in the near future.

 

Step 5Install the new belief –  This in my opinion is the most important and life changing part of this process, so take it seriously.  Anything that is repeated over and over and over again with certainty can easily become a new belief. The key is certainty.  The nice thing about an empowering belief is that the more you repeat it, the more powerful it gets.  And the more you repeat the empowering belief the more certain you will become.

 

Use the power of the Reticular Activating System to install the new belief. 

 

The Reticular Activating System is the part of the brain that controls what our mind determines is important and what we pay attention to.
The truth is our brain deletes, distorts, and generalizes the majority of the stimulus going on around us, if it didn’t we would probably go crazy or we simply wouldn’t be able to process the all the different input.

 

Let me explain.

 

Have you every noticed the same exact car that you drive seems to appear everywhere you go?

 

For most people when we see our same car we recognize it immediately and it comes into our “awareness” or what we pay attention to and focus on while the majority of the other cars on the road do not. This is simply because we don’t find them important enough to bring into our awareness or pay attention to.  This is the Reticular Activating System at work.

 

Activity – Make Use of the Reticular Activating System to install your new empowering beliefs:
 

 

1)  Write your top 3 empowering beliefs.

 

2)  Write them in the notes program on your smart phone.

 

3)  Set this note as the background image and the wall paper on your phone. 

 

4) Write down your empowering beliefs on three 3×5 cards.  Place one card at work.  Carry one with you and have one at home by your bed.

 

5) Display your empowering beliefs on a poster board in a place you will see them every single day at your home.

 

6) Extra Credit – Write down your empowering beliefs 3 times each, every single morning.  Say your empowering belief every single morning with certainty. 

7) Extra Credit – Create a Success Tape – I learned this from Chet Holmes in the book, The Ultimate Sales Machine.  He created a success tape.  The tape had meditation music with his own voice reading empowering beliefs with certainty.  He would listen to this every single night for almost 10 years.  I’ve done the same, it’s very easy with todays recording technology and would maybe take you about an hour or two to create.  It’s extremely power because your mind will easily accept the belief that you yourself are reading because it’s in your own voice.  I did this for about a period of 3 months.  The beliefs have stuck with me to this day, even though I did this almost 5 years ago.

 

 Now you are aware of the power of beliefs.  Make sure you beliefs are empowering you and not holding you back!

 

This is just one of many exercises that you can do with beliefs.  A very powerful belief change program is through the Tony Robbins event, Unleash The Power Within.  I would highly recommend this program for anyone in sales as it has an excellent belief change component.

When you align your purpose, your identity, your beliefs and your values your sales will skyrocket!  We talked about the power of identity last week, and an Identity is really just a cluster of different beliefs you have about yourself.

 

Now the real question is what do you truly believe?
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2 Replies to “Your Sales Beliefs”

  1. Powerful stuff! Especially once you realize that if you’ve been repeating a limiting belief for years that it’s not going to go away overnight.

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