Greg Bennett's Rambling Thought #14

Greg Bennett's Rambling Thought #14: We MUST Be Out of Our Minds

To succeed at the highest levels in sales, I believe you must be out of your mind...but not in the way you would normally think of such a thing...I don't mean you must be crazy, I mean you must learn to get out of your mind long enough to realize what is really going on in the world around you.

Our mind is our greatest tool, and it's our worst enemy. 

Our  worst enemy because it's tricked us into believing that we are nothing more than our mind...we are sustained by a never-ending stream of thoughts, ideas, visions, stories, beliefs...all generated by a 24/7 engine that sits packed inside our dome.   Our mind creates the ego.  Then the mind works to sustain, support and defend the ego. 

In sales, our minds go into hyper-drive, working overtime because the emotions are so raw and the dramas are more passionate.  You've got two humans engaged in a battle, each bringing a past, each wanting something from the other (money or power), each deep in roles acting out little melodramas as the seller tries to move the ball down the field.

And because our mind is always working and always spinning and defending, it makes it very hard to find any silence...any space...in which to fully engage the client. 

See our problem in sales is NOT that we don't know enough...it's that we know TOO MUCH...and we THINK TOO MUCH...and we PROCESS TOO MUCH...

The reality we must discover is that we are something much more...much deeper than just our mind...there is another part of us...an infinitely bigger, deeper thing (God?)...that can actually observe our mind at work...fully detached from thought...in a sense, we can step away from our mind and can watch it in action.  And when we can watch it...we discover that we can make choices about the thoughts, ideas and emotions the mind spins out.   This is very deep self awareness, and a great place to be as a salesperson.

Also (and this might be the best part of detachment), when we are out of our minds...we are in silence...open and able to focus on something or some one else...and to give that something our full attention.

This is how you form relationships...this is how you establish trust...this is how you sell in the coming years.

GB

(Just one of Greg Bennett's "99 Rambling Thoughts on Successful Selling")