The Sales Consultancy: How your unconscious mind sabotages your sales‏

Who is your inner critic?

You know, that little voice in your head that says things like “you’ll never hit your target this month” or “I told you so” or “you never were any good at presentations”.

We all have an inner voice. Your inner voice is effectively your unconscious mind and its primary function is to look after you and keep you safe, though it doesn’t always feel that way does it? It's great when your inner voice is saying positive and empowering things to you. However, on many occasions, when it’s actually trying to protect you, it can seem as if it’s sabotaging you.

Whose voice is it?

So whose voice is this that you hear in your head when things don't go as planned? When you lose a sale? When you can't get an appointment? In short (very short!) your inner voice develops as a result of all the stuff you've heard from others in your life. It can be your best friend. It can be your worst enemy. Is it your voice? Is it an imaginary critic? Is it someone from your past? Could it be someone who’s still in your life now?

Take control

Whoever is feeding your inner voice, the key is to control it. Whether your inner voice is saying positive or negative things it's really important to recognise that there's a positive intention in the message. What could it be for you? Maybe you haven't had great success with a new sales strategy or technique and it causes you lots of angst every time you try it, so you stop trying it. Or there's a particular client or prospect that takes lots of your energy to communicate with, so you don’t!

One positive intention is to stop you feeling the pain of the disappointment or trauma of communication with this person...so you don’t bother doing it again. You get to avoid the short term pain - but the long term impact is that you won't get any better at your craft and your sales are less likely to increase. Sound familiar?

What's the positive intention?

It's really useful to think about the ‘positive intention’ when your inner critic stops you moving forward. Once you know what the positive intention is you can get this in other ways, allowing you to focus on the task in hand and keep the inner critic happy at the same time!! If you’re going to keep hearing this inner voice, you may as well make sure that it’s providing you with empowering phrases that help inspire you to your goals, your targets – and overall sales success.

Action

Start recording the negative things your inner critic says and, once you have enough to go on, ask yourself the following questions...rather than letting it crush you, just be curious...

Whose voice is this?

What is the positive intention of those negative statements?

For example what might it be stopping you doing? How might it be protecting you? Think deep.

How can you preserve this positive intention but in a new strategy?

Take your time.

These questions will give you greater awareness of what's going on within you and give you greater control. They allow you to make friends with your unconscious mind, change your reaction to those negative statements that come out of it, and ultimately ensure those messages are positive and empowering.

On my training sessions this issue of the inner critic comes up over and over again. One thing for sure...cracking this one makes you unstoppable!

Let me know how you get on.

Until next time.

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Leigh