Why leading an examined life is good for sales

“Leading an examined life” was voted as the number 10 of Sales Trends for 2011. For many years you could lead an intuitive sales life because your product was your edge, but not anymore. With products replicated in minutes, the spotlight is well and truly on the specific ingredients of being an effective sales person and sales leader and managing oneself in volatile times. This all begins and ends with neuroscience.

The latest scientific research into neuroscience confirms how we manage our brain. The brain is known to be like an electro-chemical machine and it’s our thoughts that affect the flow of our neurotransmitters across synaptic connections, especially the likes of adrenaline and dopamine. This in turn affects how we manage ourselves, make decisions and even recover from adversity. Living under the feeling of constant excessive pressure is not good for us on any level, particularly for sales teams who are often subject to achieving under the demands of sales targets and tight timeframes.

One of the biggest detractors from achieving effective long-term sales performance is being in a distressed state for a prolonged period of time, reducing one’s ability to bounce back from adversity, make effective decisions and manage ourselves. The scientific research is showing that putting sales people under “constant pressure” to achieve sales targets with no consideration given to time allocation, preparation and resources is leading to poor quality decision-making, poor overall performance and unhealthy life practices. This leads to negative behaviour such as excessive alcohol consumption, and poor eating and sleeping habits which all contribute to the prevalence of poor sales results.

So how is your team holding up in these challenging times? Could they benefit from knowing how to manage their emotions?

In 2011 smart companies are now taking the time to uncover and develop the essential personal knowledge, skills and mindset needed to be resilient under pressure in their sales and leadership teams.  In particular, there’s a focus on helping people develop a ”mastery mindset” and accompanying body awareness where self-reflection, self-awareness, compassion, candor, caring, learning agility and developing resilience are key.

Far from being self-indulgent, neuroscience combined with personal insight and continuous learning is helping salespeople and leaders take control of their careers, manage their emotions, harness their energies, reduce their distress and sell more effectively than ever before.

Neuroscience, psychology, the brain and sales, the science of selling if you like, go well together. Think about it, it makes sense. Understanding our brains, how they work, what works well for them and what doesn’t work so well, and the skill of selling our business’ product and services all tie in together. If you understand what is happening at a brain level, you can further understand your responses and behaviours, the way you’re feeling, and in turn why you’re getting the results you are getting.

Furthermore, if you’re not performing at your best as a sales professional, why wouldn’t it make sense to understand what is happening at a brain level or what neurotransmitters you’re creating to be responding and behaving in a certain way?

Chemical messengers that transmit a thought from one cell to the next, allowing brain cells to “talk to each other” are neurotransmitters. What is most fascinating is how you experience emotion and how you feel is dictated by certain neurotransmitters.

Kelly Rothwell, Barrett’s organisational psychologist and neuroscience expert explains: “Think about a time when you were successful, when everything was going ‘right’… think about it for at least 30 seconds… how do you feel? What are you doing, are you smiling, do you feel good? I am going to assume you’re at least feeling good. This is the power of your thoughts and neurotransmitters. You have a ‘feel good’ thought and you release certain kinds of neurotransmitters such as, endorphins, norepinephrine, dopamine, acetylcholine and PEA. The flip side is that if you have ‘unhelpful’ thoughts in an environment where you think you are ‘failing’ and ‘unable to make change’ the epinephrine (or adrenaline) neurotransmitter is released.”

“Epinephrine or adrenaline as a neurotransmitter is imperative for our ‘survival instinct’. The challenge is our brain does not know the difference to a threat to our lives or a threat to our lifestyle unless we manage our thoughts and mindsets appropriately in the ‘stressful’ situation. It just responds to a threat as it would when our lives are at stake. If we leave it unmanaged, this is where the challenges occur.”

“Increased adrenaline production causes the body to step up its metabolism of proteins, fats and carbohydrates to quickly produce energy for the body to use. The pituitary gland increases its production of the andrenocorticotropic hormone which stimulates the release of the hormones cortisone and cortisol. These have the effect of inhibiting the functioning of disease fighting white blood cells and suppressing the immune system response. Moreover, we have elevation of blood pressure, acceleration of the heartbeat and greater tension in the muscles. Digestion slows or even stops. This complex weave of physical changes is known as the “fight or flight” response, which is helpful when our lives are at threat. It’s not so helpful when we are in potentially long-term ‘stressful’ situations as trying to reach sales targets, for instance, that have not been strategised as well as they could be.”

Kelly highlights a fascinating yet tragic true story about the life threatening aspects of prolonged stress: “What we know is that a continual stressed state such as what has just been described eventually wears out the body. Think about it this way – only a few veterans who fought during the siege of Stalingrad (both Russian and German soldiers) lived to the age of 50. Few even lived to the age of 45 and most died soon after their 40^th birthday. All of these individuals suffered extreme stress 24 hours a day for more than six months.”

We may not personally be fighting in a war, yet our brains and bodies can respond in similar ways if our stress or neurotransmitters are unmanaged. Within the 21^st century marketplaces, leading an unexamined life is not only detrimental to your health, it can be detrimental to many results you are seeking. If we’re unable to learn about ourselves, how we work and in turn our strengths, how are we to help ourselves excel at the work and profession we have chosen?’

Some very simple tips on managing perceived “stressful” situations or even days are as follows. What needs to be noted here is being aware of what is actually going on within yourself and to yourself. The tips include:

• Take control of your breathing – be aware of your breathing rate and take slow deep breaths.
• Take command of your muscle tension – be aware of which muscles are tense and let go of that tension.
• Take control of your cognitive processes – be aware of that internal “self-talk”, your thoughts, and be honest about the situation (our brains are very effective lie detectors, don’t sugar-coat the reality) and change your focus through asking helpful questions of yourself – it’s amazing what answers you can be provided.

So avoid the brain drain. Those who lead an examined life know that we can’t know another if we do not know ourselves first. Ultimately you need to take the time to build awareness of yourself, how you are feeling and behaving. What is going on in your brain? Are you engaged and consciously aware of yourself and what’s going on? Without awareness and giving yourself an opportunity to lead an examined life through learning about yourself, you’re not likely to be able to do something about it if you don’t like the results you are getting. If you aren’t achieving your goals at work (or at home), knowing yourself and what you’re doing to influence situations is key. Take control of what you can control. There is no need for unconscious or disengaged selling in 2011. Smart companies will make conscious, mindful selling a part of their daily working lives. To achieve sales mastery we will need to lead an examined life in 2011.

Remember, everybody lives by selling something.

Sue Barrett practices as a coach, advisor, speaker, facilitator, consultant and writer and works across all market segments with her skilful team at BARRETT. Sue and her team take the guess work out of selling and help people from many different careers become aware of their sales capabilities and enable them to take the steps to becoming effective and productive when it comes to selling, sales coaching or sales leadership.To hone your sales skills or learn how to sell go to www.barrett.com.au.