I had an interesting situation this week with a new client who is a lady jockey that I was doing a roofing quote for, and she made me think about how some sales people could be losing a lot of sales for the reasons you will find out about below.
Now this lady was a very tough lady as most lady jockey's are and she doesn't like men because men usually give lady jockeys a hard time because they control the racing industry and they don't like to give women a chance.
So I had to be very supportive and I told her how I totally understood as for most of my life, especially when I was young trying to get an apprenticeship as a builder, I got turned down a lot because I was too small (my father was a jockey also so I didn't have much of a chance).
I told her that I know of people that don't get jobs because their skin is too dark, or yellow or whatever. I said to her just because you're a female jockey doesn't mean you're the only person that doesn't get a fair go because of something discriminatory.
What I had to explain to her was that if she wanted to get over this, she had to not let it take control of her life and to keep doing the things she does really well, for example, ride as much track work as you can, get your name around as much as you can and the breaks will come.
But if you go around with an attitude, trainers will pick up on it and other people will pick up on it and they will just think to themselves that she is just too much trouble and we just don't want to deal with it even if she is good at what she does.
So we had a good talk about her attitude and how it comes over so badly that it could be the cause of a lot of her problems and not the effect.
Now this is a lady that has a full size training horse that moves just like a real horse in her living room so that she could practice her riding, changing her whip hand and role playing all the things that are needed to be a good jockey.
I said to her that what she is doing shows dedication and told her I own a few horses and the chances are that I might be able to give you a ride here or there but that I just had to clear it with the trainer.
And she said straight up "Oh No, if he is a man forget about it!" and I said "so what do I look like, am I a cardboard cut out. At the end of the day I own the horses and I will put whoever I want on them. But I also respect my trainer and listen to what he has to say as well, so I won't make any promises because if I do and something goes wrong, than you are going to hate me as well (said in a joking fashion) and you might be better of getting a roofing quote from a company that is run by a woman", and we had a good laugh about.
This woman definitely had the determination to be a good jockey but if her attitude didn't change quickly than it wouldn't matter how good she is because no one likes to deal with people they don't get on with or that rub them up the wrong way.
So this is the same with sales - if you think you are too young, too small, not pretty or handsome enough, you don't drive a nice enough car, or you don't have what it takes, whatever it is, you are going to have to get over it, as this could be one of your biggest reasons for failing.
A negative attitude is usually the cause and not the effect!
Your Goal Is To:
1. Ask friends and family if you give off any negative attitude and then work on changing this.
2. Find a way to argue with the little voice in your head that is feeding your negative attitude with positive rebuttals.
http://www.articleclone.com/aid17701/-Sales-Training-Without-The-Right-Attitude-Can-Equal-Zero-Sales-.html
