The A-B-T in Selling

The A-B-T in Selling

Whatever we do, whenever we interact with the world, we do so through our attitude, behavior and technique.

As managers, you must get to know your salespeople well enough to be conscious of how these three dimensions may appear to prospects and how they may affect the sales efforts of your sales people.  And that’s not always easy.  After all, when you attempt to understand any of theses three traits, you quickly move into the realm of psychology or the social sciences.  But there is nothing to fear if you keep it simple.

Attitude often can be controlled and directed.  But that requires people to explore the roots of their attitudes, and then take positive steps to erase negative feelings by focusing on the positive.  As managers, you must encourage the spread of the positive roots, and “root out” all the sources of negativity.

As sales managers, you have a remarkably unselfish job.  Think about it, your people come to work hoping that if they are down, not currently performing, or just in a bad mood, you have the role of leaving yourself behind and moving in to help support your team member.  They often don’t think of the impact their performance is having on you personally and professionally.  Your salesperson hasn’t thought about the impact that their lackluster performance is having on your overall team performance.  To tell you the truth, they really shouldn’t have to.  But it is safe to say, that you have to set your own plans aside occasionally, in order to further the execution of plans for your team. 

Attitude influences people’s choices in life…..your beliefs.  A positive attitude/belief moves you toward a positive result, and a negative attitude/belief toward a negative result.  Even better, positive results lead to even more positive attitudes and beliefs.  Attitude, then, affects behavior.

Your attitude and beliefs surely impact the attitudes and beliefs of your team.  The responsibility that goes with that is enormous.  Think about that responsibility.  You can affect the goals, the dreams, the aspirations and families of others.  Whether or not your salespeople are successful can in some part be traced back to you.  The earlier on, one experiences success, the longer they tend to experience it.  Unfortunately, the opposite is true as well.  The longer it takes a salesperson to get that taste of success, the less time they have to experience it.  At the end of the day, it is a responsibility we should take seriously.  Attitude is very key in helping your salespeople identify those beliefs that are conducive to good selling, identifying those beliefs that are NOT conducive to good selling, learning the difference between the two and helping develop new beliefs that will lend itself to success for the future.

Behavior is affected by other influences, as well.  Some influences can be controlled, while others cannot.  But you can’t know what influences are controllable until you attempt to master your fate and guide your behavior consciously.  Encourage salespeople to repeat positive behavior until it becomes habit.

Behavior is often the simple acting out of a role.  But, again, you must try to control the performance.  Help your salespeople determine who they want be, then, encourage them to play the role until they become it.  That’s not masquerading, that’s personal growth.  After all, if you are not “behaving” as managers in a way that helps your salespeople grow personally as well as professionally, why do you bother getting up to come to work in the first place.  Fair?

One important thought on behavior would suggest that through appropriate sales behavior, one can keep themselves from being held hostage by those difficult prospects.  It helps the salesperson behave in a way of “not needing the business”.  If a salesperson’s pipeline is full and there is no fear of losing the deal they are currently working on because the pipeline IS full, it enables them to work more effectively on that end result by doing the right thing.  After all, when you are doing your buying, do you want to buy from salesperson who appears desperate?  Not many do.

Technique, too, stems from conscious striving combined with unconscious impulses.  But technique can be mastered even easier than behavior, through training, observation, practice, and mentoring.  The sky is the limit with technique.

Technique can compensate for poor attitude and poor behaviors, but only to a very minor degree.  A bad attitude and inconsistent behavior will destroy even the most polished technique.  All three aspects of your professional tool kit must work together for you to be complete and successful as a sales professional. 

If you focus on attaining a positive set of attitudes, repeatable, systematic behavior, and consistent, professional technique, then over time we can begin to guarantee ourselves and our salespeople’s success.