How to Eliminate Passivity from your Selling

By Larry Happiday

In the article entitled: How to be a sales Hero on eHow.com, I argued that passivity is a sine qua non for failure in salesmanship. Today, I want to contrast the heroism of the actor-salesmen with his opposite twin: the spectator-salesman, a docile bystander, who wants the world to stand still and wait for it to discover his brilliance. Perhaps in this mirror contrast, we would be able to show the habits and character traits that must be avoided like the plague.
A word of caution from the start: professional sales docility has nothing to do with introversion. As the expression is used her, it only refers a tendency towards dithering and postponing of action as a result of fear. It comes with the realisation that fear is the bedrock of the professional's actions and responses to situations. Fear of failure, fear of mockery, fear of error. It is the emotional baggage that delays actions until too late or too little. The best way to see this is to say that it is ruled by the operative principle: CAUTION. The result that though the actions may be right in the long run, they come too late to make any impact on the bottom line.
The followings are the key elements of the passive-salesman that should be avoided:
• Fear of rejection. Experienced salesmen know that there are no sales without objection, resistance or rejection. In fact, experience shows that sales objection is an integral part of any successful sale. Learn to discover the source of your fear and deal with it. Left unattended to, fear is a crippler of initiative and the tomb of good ideas.
• The second thing that leads to passivity in professional sales life is lack of planning. Nothing inspires and gives confidence like knowing that you have made enough preparation for a sales encounter. The passive sales person either relies on his gift of the garb or eloquence but the actor-sales man sees every sales effort as a battle that has to be won. He works hard to ensure that he wins by seeking information rather than knowledge.
• That brings us to the third step. the passive sales representative seeks knowledge. He wants to be seen as the guy who predicted right (often negative prediction of doom).So, when he reads, he does so with an eye on the thousands of reasons why the sale effort would not work. A sport writer once said that in Nigeria, there are 140million coaches. He meant that it is easier for the spectators to speculate about who and what should have been done to win matches than to go into the field to play. The passive sales man belongs rightly to the spectator side of the game.
• The result of being a spectator is that this kind often loses the opportunity to make it big. He abhors risk-taking and ends up being a mediocre. The dictum: NO VENTURE NO SUCCESS aptly captures the lot of this type of sales person. They see chance, luck or mere coincidence in any achievement recorded by the actor-sales man.
• Another feature of this type is that they are always cynical. Being cynics, they shun news and innovation rather they seek solace in history (again of failures). Hence, they often behind the times in terms of changes in government policies, trends and business directions. A writer said of them that they prefer to be on the side of antiquity.
•
• WHAT TO DO
• If the above characterization fits you, you need to change urgently. The three best cures for fear is: [1] take action, [2]take action and [3] take action
• On the problem of pessimistic view of things, the sales man needs to address his self hatred. Usually, the view arises from a condition of not liking one's self enough to trust one's self to make the right decision. He may have lived all his life being told how the world is a hopeless place. To change the view, he needs to begin by seeking information about himself and about his area of business. Information gives confidence. He needs to start asking questions and reading literature that help build up his sense of self worth. That way he would not be guided by jealousy but would applaud when someone else gets it right.
• Consistently done, he himself would become a sales hero admired by the boss and feared by the laggard sales colleagues who refuse to change.