HTSS200 - Celebrate all wins in sales - Scott Sylvan Bell

celebrate all wins in sales

Sometimes in sales, we are our own worst enemies. It's easy to discount the accomplishments made over the course of a day, week, month, quarter, or year. You may have achieved something great only to tell yourself it wasn't that good. What you tell yourself after you close a deal matters. So often salespeople struggle because they ont see the good in what they have done. Part of this conversation comes from content from Blair Singer and part of it from coaching salespeople. 

What you say to yourself in sales matters

Your inner voice is your operating system. How you talk to yourself about your wins can either propel you to close more deals or give up on winning. Its easy to look at others and minimize what sales have been made because someone else was able to do more.  In sales, we have a way of minimizing what we do because it isn’t big enough. If you look at social media everyone is crushing it. In your mind, you end up with a "success measuring contest". The universe feels small when you want it to. 

Deal size and deal flow can play games with you 

You can literally psych yourself out of closing deals. You can look at a skinny deal and say it isn't good enough. You may think the easy win was too quick. You may say the difficult sale was not worth it or the tough buyer was not a good deal. When we minimize deals we invalidate our work and may not even realize it. The comparisons you make can cause havoc with your closing process. 

Minimizing accomplishments hurts sales 

You can work your but off to close a deal and then look for reasons why it wasn’t a good deal. You close a deal with ease because of your learned skills and you invalidate it. You can ask yourself this tough question "Is this a deal I would have won as a previous version of myself" There is a point where looking to improve in places crushes the work you have done. Sales training and kaizen hurt sometimes, sit down and marvel in all of your glory for a moment. We have enough people that beat us down in life:

• The evil manager / boss
• The horrible co-worker
• The jerk neighbor xx
• The family troll

You don’t have to add yourself into that mix. In fact, you should do everything possible to not include yourself in those groups. 

What you can do to celebrate your wins 

"Success is 20% skill and 80% psychological" – Tony Robbins, think about what this quote means and how it applies to what you do. You can focus on the outcome.  You sold the job, product, service, and or offering you should make a big deal about it. Sometimes you do have to work towards mile markers. You can take a large goal and break it into smaller ones. 

Head trash hurts sales 

Negative self-talk is one way to describe head trash. Sometimes we pile the trash in our heads deep and it causes repercussions. Sometimes we are our own worst critics and hold ourselves back. The self-talk can range from fantastic to horrible. Your goal is to give the focus of the win the fuel and not everything that went wrong. 

The 4321 Process in sales 

The close-out you do with your sales process matters. You can use the 4321 processes to help remind yourself of what you did. Here is how the process works 

• Find 4 things that you did great in the sales presentation 
• Find 3 things that went well 
• Find 2 things you can improve on 
• Find 1 thing that was completely wrong 

That list will give you 7 things right and 4 things that need work. You end up with better than 2:1 odds. The 4.3.2.1. process is meant to show you did things correctly and not everything is wrong. 

What to do when you close a deal 

There are multiple things you can do when you close a deal. The sky is the limit for you to find what works for you. You have to get started somewhere to make this happen. Here are a few ways for you to memorialize your win. 

• Write the sale in a journal – what you went through and why you think you closed the deal
• Anchor the feeling
• Make it a big deal or celebration to enter the win in your CRM
• Thermometer like little kids do at schools and for fundraisers
• Record your win in an awesomeness swipe file
• You talk it out to the universe – I am the greatest man alive (A take on the I am the smartest man alive – Billy Maddison)
• The whole idea is for you to create a celebration routine in whatever way you do it

Where focus goes energy flows

There is a saying that where focus goes energy flows. When you focus on the success of the deal and not the outside scope it helps with the reframe. Here are some external things to focus on:

• You can have a team or a squad to celebrate with
• You can put something on social media
• You can call someone you love that will be there