The first contractor got a proposal to us within a few days, the second contractor got a proposal to us later the same day and the third contractor gave us a price on the spot.  On the responsive scale, the third contractor was the best. 

Certainly, responsiveness is not the only criteria that prospects weigh as part of their decision-making process.    They may also consider:

• Trustworthiness
• Timeline of the deliverable(s)
• Referrals
• Expertise
• Credibility
• Personality
• Understanding of your needs
• Fit
• Price
• Chemistry
• Ease of working with
• Capabilities
• Your comfort level
• Reputation
• Proximity
• Flexibility

The list isn't complete as I'm sure there are more.  

Although price is only one of 18 criteria listed, it's the only objection salespeople ask for help with.  Salespeople don't ask if we can help with the reputation objection, chemistry objection or personality objection.  With salespeople it's always about price.

The thing is, if you have a reputation problem, or any of the others on the list that aren't price, they may be difficult or impossible to overcome.  Price, the criteria salespeople obsess about, can be eliminated when salespeople sell value.  That's not accomplished by talking about value, saying there's value, or adding value.  It occurs when salespeople bringing the actual value to the customer.  Salespeople must be the value.  When customers perceive that you provide a value that others don't, your higher price won't matter.

Objective Management Group (OMG), which has evaluated and assessed 1,879,518 salespeople, has some data on selling value, one of the 21 sales core competencies we measure.  41% of all salespeople are strong at value selling, but that's deceiving because only 11% of the bottom half of all salespeople have selling value as a strength and that group's average score is just 46%.  On the other hand, 97% of the top 5% of all salespeople have selling value as a strength and their average score is 87%.  Top salespeople are 791% more effective at selling value!

Why is there such a difference?

72% of all salespeople have non-supportive buying habits and understand it when their prospects shop for the lowest price, comparison shop or think it over.  Yet, if you break it down by performance, it's quite a different story.

Only 23% of elite (top 5%) salespeople have non-supportive buying habits but it gets a lot worse from there and quickly.

46% of strong (next 15%) salespeople have it, 72% of serviceable (the next 30%) salespeople have it and 89% of weak (the bottom 50%) salespeople have non-supportive buying habits.

You might be thinking, "It can't be that big of a deal if almost a quarter of the best salespeople in the world have this weakness and they're doing fine," and you couldn't be more wrong.  Understand that if the best salespeople have this weakness, it's likely the only weakness they have and their considerable strengths, grit and tactical selling competencies make up for it.  On the other hand, most of the weak salespeople have many more weaknesses and too few strengths to compensate.

Almost ALL of the bottom 50% buy in such a way that their habits don't support ideal sales outcomes.  And sales training won't fix that.

What does?

You have to change the way you buy things!

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86% of all salespeople have beliefs that don't support ideal sales outcomes.  That's important because beliefs influence behavior, and appropriate sales behavior drives results.  Think about sales process, sales methodology, sales strategy and sales tactics. Salespeople who have the ability to execute those four elements of success are less dependent on their knowledge of selling than what they believe.  While most salespeople have self-limiting beliefs, it should not surprise you that only 18% of the elite salespeople - the top 5% - have self-limiting beliefs.  But it drops off rapidly from there.  Below I have listed the percentage of salespeople with self-limiting Beliefs by performance levels.

• Elite (the top 5%) 18% self-limiting
• Strong (the next 15%) 49% self-limiting
• Serviceable (the next 30%) 78% self-limiting
• Weak (the bottom half of all salespeople) 97% self-limiting

In other words, the best salespeople (top 5%) are 2733% more likely to have Supportive Beliefs than the worst salespeople (bottom 50%).  Supportive Beliefs is one of the 21 Sales Core Competencies, each of which correlates perfectly to the four levels of performance. It's also one of six competencies that make up Sales DNA and no competency correlates more to performance than Supportive Beliefs. I'll repeat it.

2733%!

The data is from Objective Management Group (OMG) which  has evaluated and assessed 1,879,518 salespeople.

You probably have two questions by now:

1. How many beliefs - supportive or self-limiting does OMG measure?
2. What are some examples of self-limiting beliefs?

A salesperson's beliefs are deemed to be self-limiting if they have more than 6 that are self-limiting.  Most salespeople have upwards of a dozen!

Just a Few Examples:

• Prospects will buy only if I have the lowest price
• I need my prospects to like me
• It's not OK to ask my prospects about their finances
• Prospects that think it over will eventually buy from me
• It's impolite to ask a lot of questions
• If I challenge or confront a prospect they'll get upset with me
• It's OK if my prospects want to comparison shop

Today is a great time to begin working on your self-limiting beliefs and there is an easy way do that.

Use the Sales DNA Modifier to reprogram your beliefs and overcome your sales weaknesses with our powerful tool for just $119/year.  The Sales DNA Modifier will help you overcome 12 major sales weaknesses through powerful self-hypnosis and it really works.  All you have to do is stare at the computer screen while listening to the audio twice per day for 21 days and then move on to the next weakness.  If you subscribe today, as a bonus I'll send you my powerful 5-page exercise for reprogramming your Self-Limiting Beliefs.  The exercise includes every potential self-limiting sales belief and the appropriate replacement beliefs as well as instructions for how to make it work.  Subscribe today!

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