YOU’RE SMARTER THAN YOU THINK YOU ARE
How much do you trust yourself?
Do you trust your own judgment?
Do you trust in, believe in, and act on your intuition?
I can remember the moment when I started trusting myself.
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One day it suddenly occurred to me that every deal I had ever won, and every deal I had ever lost I knew within the first one or two sales calls what the outcome would be.
I call this intuition.
You can call it gut feel if you want. I sometimes call it that too.
This was an important moment for me.
Important because I realized that I could, and should trust my own judgment about my deals more than anyone else.
I reached this point around 5 years into my selling career (which was back in the early 70s if you are just getting to know me).
It was a freeing revelation, because I now knew that I could put more faith in my gut intuition than in what my sales management might want me to do.
I stopped trying to convince myself that I could close every deal.
I stopped trying to use “will power” and “positive thinking”
and “hope” to close sales.
And I started paying more attention – much closer attention
– to what I was discovering about each deal, about each prospect, early on when I was first interacting with them and qualifying them.
Because people will tell you the truth if you ask them. And if you are willing to hear it.
Last week my intuition flared up for me again. The City Council for the small town that I live in announced that they were going to vote on banning the use of all fireworks here (even the simple stuff like sparklers).
When I heard about this, I instantly knew that the ban was likely to pass.
My intuition was telling me this. My brain was telling me this because I’ve seen many committee type decisions like this before in business and government. And the key thing that gave this away was that they were moving fast with the decision. There was little notice, which really meant little time for an opposition to gather and prepare a defense.
Regardless of what my intuition told me, I went to my City Council meeting and spoke vehemently against the ban and in support of our right to celebrate America’s Independence Day with fireworks. I had hoped a lot more people like me would’ve shown up. And I had hoped to influence the outcome of the vote.
Not a lot of people showed up. And the result was the ban on fireworks usage passed.
Sad.
Yes, I did ignore my intuition. But I did so because it mattered to me to speak up in defense of something I believed in.
Selling products though isn’t defending your rights. Selling isn’t missionary work.
When selling, you need to trust your intuition, to follow your gut feel.
Because when you don’t trust your intuition, you’ll just find yourself pushing people to buy your stuff.
You don’t want to do that. I doesn’t work.
You want people to want your stuff, to want to buy from you, to pull you through the sale.
Find out what people want. Listen to their truth.
Spend your precious sales time on the people who want and are most likely to buy from you and you’ll start closing the majority of your deals. A 50% close rate or better is totally achievable if you just follow this one tip alone.
Brandon Hardison
Champion Strategies
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