Everything Good or Bad Starts With an Attitude-Blog/Quiz #11
We used to have a drawing from when our daughter Lauren was pre-school age on our refrigerator. It was a sunny and positive little picture done in crayon with these words, “I love the wold, I think its beutiful.”
There is an old school country song by storyteller Tom T. Hall entitled “Old Dogs, Children and Watermelon Wine” and there is a line in there that goes, “and God Bless little children when they’re still too young to hate.”
I had a close relative who had a strong spiritual constitution and received the heartbreaking and gut-wrenching diagnosis of inoperable cancer. He was told that with medical advances he had 5 years to live. He replied, “I understand, let’s call it ten.” He had ten good years before he succumbed after eleven.
“A positive attitude causes a chain reaction of positive thoughts, events and outcomes. It is a catalyst and it sparks extraordinary results.” – Wade Boggs
“Everything good or bad starts with an attitude.” – Jack Klinefelter
I just had to add that last one, it is at the core of good sales coaching beliefs. I’ve seen people whose effervescent personalities have created sales despite a lack of technical knowledge or experience. In my years of selling, managing sales, and coaching I’ve often said that there are two things you can’t coach: curiosity and instincts. Like an athletic coach can’t coach “speed or size” and a piano teacher, who can help a student improve upon, but not install, natural “eye-hand coordination”, I’ve seen some improvements in these characteristics but for the most part, God either endows a person with an attribute or not. We all have strengths and weaknesses, but nothing in our repertoire of tools is more powerful than a good attitude. It is a catalyst for excellence and the motivational element that encourages one to study and practice their craft to achieve being the best version of their sales self. Thankfully, attitude is a voluntary element that can be intentionally applied (either well intended or not) and also thankfully can be improved upon.
Allow me to be accurate in describing what a good sales attitude is and is not. When you engage with a prospect, it is not going so “over the top” that you put them off, because they can tell that you are overemphasizing the good attitude to the point that it is obviously forced. Having an authentically good professional attitude usually starts with one choosing the right profession. It’s harder than hell to be positive and have fun doing something you wish you didn’t have to. One way to have a customer feel put off is to act like you’re putting up with being at work in the first place.
An appropriate good attitude isn’t necessarily going into “full on” entertainment mode, but having a demeanor that helps instill confidence in the prospect relative to allowing them to get comfortable with you as a caring specialist. Making the prospect comfortable is the goal. This is best accomplished by applying a good attitude.
One very valuable byproduct of a good attitude is patience. Have you ever seen an “unhappy to be at work” person be caring and patient? Rhetorical, I know.
What is another desirable byproduct of having the habit of a good attitude? Your professional performance is SO much better when you are doing something you like. Your level of perpetual pride in your work is deeper and you stay on top of your game best when you cultivate and feed the habit of having a good attitude.
Another fantastic benefit is the reputation you earn and referrals you enjoy by applying the proper amount of care to your sales and servicing duties. Here is something that NEVER HAPPENS: Your neighbor is talking to you about the car they just bought and they convey their experience like this: ”I just had the worst experience at the Prestige Luxury Car Lot. The salesperson didn’t listen to a thing I said…he never shut up and kept trying to sell me the car he thought I needed instead of the one I wanted. He was in such a hurry and I felt pressured, and I couldn’t get a word in edgewise… I was so glad it was over! Let me give you his name and direct phone number; you have to meet him!” Agreed? It never happens and never is an absolute term!
Attitude trumps product knowledge. Dear manufacturers, please read this: product orientation is NOT sales training! It is important, but even the rookie salesperson who has forged a good initial relationship can handle a product question by saying, “I’m not sure but allow me to get an answer for you.” They then can acquire the info and proceed to the finish line. The product-savvy salesperson who has no people skills or “warm and fuzzy” can have all the answers in the world and not sniff closing the deal if he hasn’t achieved getting the prospect to like them. Remember (80/20 rule invoked), people most generally buy on an emotion and back it up with logic, therefore your good attitude makes them feel more comfortable and confident then a boring, mechanical exchange, and will result in many more sales then the disseminating info of boring buying exchanges we’ve all forgotten because of how unmemorable they were.
I use car examples because they are universal and we’ve all had several car buying experiences. I’ll end with a real life experience I had while living in Tucson. I went to a Ford dealership and met the most kind Hispanic man who had broken English but overcame the slight barrier through good and patient listening to what I was looking for. He had me sit down and visit instead of walking around the lot and quoting prices on random vehicles. I wasn’t at CarMax where they always sit you down first to eliminate the wandering around the lot step, but he instinctively had adopted that chronological order of selling to folks. He got to know me, let me get to know him, asked questions and listened before giving any advice. After which he took me to a couple of cars he thought would fulfill my needs inside my price range… one of which I bought. His friendliness was infectious and not forced. It was a great buying experience. I’ve given his name to many people and every year within a day or two of my birthday he calls to see how the vehicle has treated me and wishes me a happy birthday. I actually like him enough that I’ve stopped by to see how he was doing and not surprisingly his sales are always at the top of the performance board.
I mentioned CarMax in referencing my old car salesman. They are a corporate example of a company, by virtue of the way they are set up physically, who stay in control of the chronological order of the sales process. You can’t get to the cars until there is some bonding and fact finding in a sales representative’s office. So as to be respectful of the buyer’s time, the sales professional’s time and the company’s time, someone, or a group of persons in creating the CarMax experience, installed a protocol that demanded the culture be to take immediate control of the sales process. There was some visionary thinking going on there.
I’ve advised some dealer’s to do something that, to my knowledge, not many have tried. I know that the piano industry knows how to set up a culture because years ago when the weekend event flow was mapped out by eventing companies, there was a greeter, a pretalk, designed to be the fact finding, and only then could the event visitors get to see the pianos. The greeting and pretalk was where the bonding occurred. It was where the sales persons put their best foot forward and made friends in record time, establishing themselves as trusted experts and then, and only then after the vetting out process took place, would the pianos that most fit the description of the buyer’s stated needs be shown. The attitude of the greeter and the pretalk by the salesperson accomplished “setting the tone” in a positive manner, making the nature of the experience relaxed and controlled… at least until closing time, LOL.The advice I’ve given, which I’ve seldom seen carried out, is to simulate the layout for day to day sales. Have a sitting area near the front door with comfortable furniture, snacks and a high end coffee and drink maker, and sit the prospect/visitor down (not at a desk) for a visit where the reputation of the gallery/showroom can be espoused and the visitor can, in a relaxed way, talk about what they are looking for in a piano, which is designed to eliminate a senseless wandering around which makes the showroom a place for unnecessary quotes about inappropriate pianos to consider. The attitude of the company, as CarMax has proven with its model, can be programmed for all sales associates to follow. This experience flow would smack of friendliness and good vibes as opposed to the age old, ”So what are we looking for today?” greeting which ignores the first two steps of the “5 Steps to Selling Success” method and leapfrogs prematurely into the fact finding. Maybe after this article circulates a dealer will give this idea a 6 month test and see an improved sell through? I can always hope and maintain a positive attitude as I promote it.
More and better sales are byproducts of a good attitude. If you don’t believe me, try to outsell someone who gives their prospects a friendlier experience and enjoys what they do more than you.
Norman Vincent Peal wrote a book entitled “The Power of Positive Thinking.” He had exhausted all the energy he had submitting it to publisher after publisher. He actually quit practicing what he preached and tossed the manuscript in the trash. He felt defeated and that his work was not meant to be circulated. His wife had seen the hard work he had invested and retrieved it from the trash can in his office and submitted it to some publishers, one of which accepted the work and brought the writing to the bookshelves where it became a classic. Her respect and attitude toward her husband’s work struck gold and the world was blessed with one of the first self-help books in history. A simple but powerful quote from that book is, ”Attitudes are More Important Than Facts.”
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Jack is a thirty year marketing and sales veteran with an insatiable appetite for contributing to the sales success of others. After leaving Cox communications in the late eighties Jack has serviced clients such as: Goodyear, Allstate, Verizon Wireless, Steinway & Sons, and numerous independent businesses. His knack for creating targeted strategies has endeared him to clients who he has been privileged to service in many instances for over two decades.
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