What’s the difference between selling with ‘inspiration’ and ‘desperation’?

Inspirational selling comes from a place of contribution. Desperation is selling from a place of contradiction.

Selling in contradiction is when you sell a product or service without believing in it. What you say and believe is not the same. In these sales models the monetary exchange takes priority over the value and benefits being created. Conversely, selling with inspiration means you don’t need to sell, but the customer wants to buy. Why? Because your proposition adds real value and benefits you and the customer understand. Therefore the line between you, your value and the customer’s benefit is congruent. This makes selling relatively easy if you’re talking with the right customers.

Being desperate is not pleasant and it’s an exhausting place to be in all the time. To achieve and sustain long-term sales success you need to sell with inspiration. If you can’t get up every morning motivated by ‘what’ and ‘how’ you sell you’re in real trouble, because no one else is going to do it for you.

One of the biggest tests for any salesperson is how they perform under immense pressure – yet if you’re resilient and made of the right stuff you may even thrive in it. Many salespeople crack under pressure. They have a couple of poor months and then get desperate. They start cutting corners and looking for quick-wins. This is the beginning of the end. The quick wins seldom come, particularly when you’re desperate.

When people get desperate they gamble, make poor decisions and take uncalculated risks – hoping to get lucky. Don’t bank on luck, ever. It’s impossible to replicate. Desperate salespeople rely on luck. They have no strategy and no passion and most certainly no interest in their customers’ best interest. How can they when solely focused on their own survival? Desperate salespeople simply sell to get paid.

If your success relies on selling, you need to be a ‘sales athlete!’ To be the best you need to take an approach akin to any professional sportsperson. Elite athletes are dedicated to their craft. They are focused, passionate, determined and disciplined in their approach and they have a strategy and process refined and developed on an on-going basis. They have benchmarks, goals and targets. And in highly competitive sports they spend time collaborating with team members and studying competitors to develop their game theory and relevant tactics.

Sales athletes compete at a small percentage of their time and then rest, refine, and develop skills. On the contrary most salespeople compete 48+ weeks a year and invest little, if any, time in reflection, refinement and skill development. Elite athletes seldom focus on the money – it’s a by-product of being exceptional at what they do. And very rarely will an elite athlete not love their chosen sport, and when the love is gone they retire and move on.

Now compare all the above characteristics to the average salesperson and you understand why most are desperate and ineffective. There is a proverbial chasm between ‘sales athletes’ and all-so-ran salespeople’s mindsets, behaviours and habits.

Sales tips to sell with inspiration instead of desperation:

• Make sure you’re selling from a place of contribution – not contradiction.
• Become a ‘sales athlete’ and be focused, passionate, determined and disciplined!
• Compete less and spend more time developing successful habits and skills.
• Take regular breaks (and holidays) to rest, recover, and rejuvenate.
• Understand your competitors and develop game theory and tactics.
• If you dont enjoy selling – get out of the sales kitchen.
• Train yourself to enjoy pressure – it’s all in your head and part of the game.
• Don’t bank on luck, ever – have a process and continue to develop it.

When all else fails just love what you do and have the passion and courage to see it through.

Oh, and one more thing: inspiration is highly contagious, so when you catch it those you come in contact with will also.

For more Selling Strategies advice, click here.

Trent Leyshan is the founder and CEO of BOOM Sales! a leading sales training and sales development specialist. He is also the creator of The NAKED Salesman, BOOMOLOGY! RetroService, and the Empathy Selling Process.