The Psychology of Selling: Increase Your Sales Faster and Easier Than You Ever Thought Possible pdfdrive com

Your Self-Concept in Selling
For example, in selling you have a self-concept with regard to yourself and
prospecting. If you have a high, positive self-concept, then prospecting is no
problem for you. You get up in the morning eager to call on new people. You are
competent and confident in the area of prospecting, so your sales pipeline is
always full.
If you have a poor self-concept with regard to prospecting, you will approach
prospecting with fear and anxiety. You will avoid it wherever possible. The very
idea of prospecting will make you tense and uneasy. You will do as little of it as
possible and continually look for ways to avoid the activity. This is true in every
other area of selling as well.

---

What Determines Your Income
Every salesperson already has a self-concept for the amount of money that he
or she earns. Psychologists have found that you can never earn 10 percent more
or less than your self-concept level of income. If you earn 10 percent more than
you think you are entitled to, you will immediately engage in compensating
behaviors to get rid of the money. If you have a great month and earn more than
you had expected, you will have an irresistible urge to spend it on dinners,
travel, clothes, or something else. It will burn a hole in your pocket.
If you earn 10 percent or more below your self-concept level of income, you
will engage in scrambling behaviors. You will start thinking about working
longer, harder, smarter, better, in order to get your income back up into your
“comfort zone.” Once you get into your comfort zone, you will relax and breathe
a deep sigh of relief.

---

Change Your Comfort Zone
The only way you can increase your sales income is by expanding your
comfort zone with regard to the amount you earn. Some people have a comfort
zone of $50,000 a year. At that level, they relax and coast. Others have a comfort
zone of $100,000 a year. That is the level that they strive toward, and they only
relax when they hit that target.
Here is the cosmic joke: there is usually very little difference in talent between
the person who earns $50,000 per year and the one who earns $100,000 per year.
The only difference is that one has settled at a lower level while the other has
refused to settle for less than $100,000.