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The Surviving Outside Sales Podcast hosted by Mike O'Kelley, presented by Sales Builder Academy, the goal is to survive and thrive all phases of outside sales, whether you're getting in, dominating or getting out.

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Surviving Outside Sales. Now on with the show. Welcome to the Surviving Outside Sales podcast. Hope everybody is having a fantastic Q4 and you're on your way hitting your goals. Today I just want to talk about one of the things that you can do as far as your mindset on how to get yourself prepared to actually hit your goal and exceed it, and this is the one thing that I've talked about before on other episodes.

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Mindset is very important. If you don't believe you can do something, you're not going to do it. It's as simple as that. And there are two types of people in this world ones that have growth mindsets and ones that have limiting mindsets. The growth mindset is I can do it. I don't know how, but I'm going to do it. I'll figure out a way. I will examine everything. I will check my ego at the door, because I don't know everything. I can learn new things. I can learn new things, I can try new things, and I'm going to reach out for help and I'm going to get it done. I don't know how I'm going to do it yet, but I'm gonna get it done. That's a growth mindset Understanding that you are never a finished product.

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Your business is never finished. It's not a set it and forget it. There's very few things in this world that is set it and forget it, especially your business. A limiting mindset, on the other hand, it is devastating. It is the can't mentality. You've already given up. Someone's against you. I don't have enough budget, there's not enough time, I can't make an impact, my product isn't good enough. My product's too expensive. Folks, I have sold half a million dollar pieces of equipment and not once did anybody say that was expensive because of the value and the revenue that that half a million dollar device was going to bring in was going to be tenfold. It's about the value, it's not about the price. Anybody can sell something if it's free. That doesn't mean you're good at sales, and just because the price is low doesn't mean people are going to buy it either. But a limiting mindset there's nowhere to go from that. You're stuck. You're never going to rise above where you are currently with that type of mindset.

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On the flip side, a growth mindset those are the people that you see progress, that get promoted, are successful and you know what else. In my experience, this is not. This is in my experience of talking with maybe 50 to 60,000 sales professionals, executives, business owners, et cetera. In my life and I'm just throwing a number out there it's a lot. The people that have the growth mindset are the happiest people that I know because they don't have any doubts what their mission is in life. It's to grow and expand and they expect it. And going back to the last episode their habits, processes and systems they have it down. There's no confusion on what they are, who they are, what they're selling, what they're trying to achieve.

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So the question you have to ask yourself is do you have a growth mindset or a limiting mindset? If you have a growth mindset, you're ahead of the curve, but if you have a limiting mindset or a limited mindset, there's only two ways to go Either you figure out a way to turn that around or I have news for you You're probably not going to do very well in sales. You probably should look elsewhere, and you know what. That's okay. Not everybody is built for sales, not everybody's built for outside sales, not everybody's built for business, but the people that are successful have the growth mindset. They are willing to adjust, they're willing to adapt and they have the habits, the processes and the systems down pat. That is what success looks like Constant complainers, constant people who don't take action.

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They sit back. They're very passive. That's another thing about limiting mindset People. They're very passive. They're very passive. That's another thing about limiting mindset people. They're very passive. They're passive in what they do and they allow everything to happen to them. They don't take action. So in that case, you're going to be a product of your circumstance, you're going to be a product of your environment, and that's not what successful people do. Successful people take action and if they are in a bad environment, if they are being held down by something, they break through and they figure out a way to get it done.

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I wish I could say that I've had a growth mindset my entire sales career, but I took a turn to the dark side about 15 years ago. I was working for a company. I was listening to all the salespeople in the company. I was listening to my manager complain nonstop about what corporate wasn't doing, about this, that and the other, about products. Products didn't work very well. They were too expensive. Our rebate program was, was awful and corporate was ridiculous.

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I heard it all and I kept hearing it over and over and over again. Now, mind you, this was obviously the days before LinkedIn, youtube, well, youtube as it is now I don't know if YouTube was. I can't remember days before LinkedIn. Youtube, well, youtube as it is now. I don't know if YouTube was. I can't remember when YouTube started, but there was no YouTube. Podcasts were not a thing.

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So now, having the ability to be mentored by some great people, but also to learn through books, podcasts, courses that I've purchased, conferences that I've attended, I've expanded my sphere of influence, people who influence me and people that I have influenced, and every single one of them talks about a growth mindset. So what I'm talking about right now is not new, but if you are hearing it for the first time, it is one of your keys to success, especially right now in Q4. It's getting your mind right. I don't know what you need to do to get your mind right, but this negative, self-doubt, limiting mindset. What happens is it starts to creep into who you are as a person. Everything you see is a direct attack. Everything you see is a result of somebody else doing something to you. Once that happens, your fight or flight kicks in and you get very defensive and you start projecting. It's never your fault, you just project. And I can tell you, if you don't take ownership of what you do professionally, you're never going to be successful in this world. You're going to bounce around from job to job, a job, a job, and you're not going to see the level of success that you wish you had.

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And I was very fortunate. I happened to leave one company and go to another that had a growth mindset I had. I had managers at the time that were growth mindset oriented and really kind of snapped me out of it and mentored me. So if you're listening right now and you feel like you're underachieving, you feel like you've you, you have so much more that you can offer. There's so much more that you can do with your territory. Look in the mirror. Look in the mirror and take 100% accountability.

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Folks, folks, I have sold products that were not the industry leader. They worked, they just were not the industry leader. I've sold products that I'd mentioned before were high five figures to products that were between $10 and $20 a unit. So I've sold on all sides of the spectrum and I can tell you that it didn't matter what it was, didn't matter who I was calling on when I adopted that growth mindset. It catapulted wasn't. I wasn't stuck, couldn't see the force through the trees. I started to widen my gaze, looking at the macro environment, not just the micro, not just looking at the day-to-day, the little, the calls here and there, the sales reports. This email was sent and I started picturing the long game and realizing that Rome was not built in a day, and neither would my business be. Once that happened, once that growth mindset took over, it was amazing just to see everything fall into place.

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It's one of those things they say it's an overnight success, 20 years in the making. So the first thing I'd like you to do is I'd like you to think about, look in the mirror. If you're not getting the results that you want, is it your mindset? And then, once you have started to, if you have a growth mindset, fantastic, guess what? You're going to hit your number this, this quarter. I guarantee it. It From what I'm about to say next.

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But if you don't think you're going to hit it, if you say, oh, it's too expensive, I'm telling you, when you talk to people and you believe your product is too expensive, or you believe your product doesn't work, or you have doubt or all of these negative things the prospect or the client you talk to, they're going to pick up on that. They're going to read it in your face and you know words, talk, numbers, scream and your facial expression and everything. If you don't believe it, you know. If you don't believe it, they won't either, and that's probably one of the reasons why I can tell you this no matter what product is on the market, if the product is on the market, it's a. It works the product. There's not, there's not many products on the market that don't work at all.

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Okay, and if you think I mean, I hear this all the time Well, my product is too expensive, okay, then you're not providing the correct value, because I know lots of people who pay for very expensive things and they never asked what the price tag was before. They said yes when it was explained what the benefits would be for them long-term in the future. Their future, their future state would be much better. Then, when the price tag came, they said okay, okay, so once you have that, we're talking now Q4, let's transition into Q4. Okay, q4.

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All right, once you have that growth mentality, whatever your number is, that you have to hit for quota, I want you to bump that up by 25%. Okay, we got about six to six to seven weeks left. Okay, we got about six to six to seven weeks left. Seven weeks left. Seven weeks left in Q4, whatever your number is, forget about where you are right now. Whatever your number is. Let's just say your number for the quarter is a hundred thousand. Okay, that's what you got to hit for the quarter, all right. Well, your goal should be it's not a hundred thousand, okay, cause you don't want to give. You don't want to give it, you want to give yourself some wiggle room. So if you fall a little bit short of where you're trying to achieve, you still end in the outcome that you want. Okay.

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So I would not make your goal 100,000. If that's your quota. I would make your goal about 125 K, 125 K, all right, 125 K, and then break it up into weeks. So we've got seven weeks and I picked a wrong number. Let's just say six weeks, cause let's let's not count on a lot of things happening during that week of Christmas, between new years. Now you can still get sales. But let's just say six weeks, okay. All right, 125 K divided by six Okay, that's about just under $21,000 a week that you need to sell.

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All right. Now we don't need to talk about what you sell, but let's just say 21,000. Okay, and let's say you sell something that's a thousand dollars per unit. All right, you got to sell 21 of them per week, all right. That is some of the things you need to focus on. You have your micro goal I'm sorry, your macro goal, which is above your quota, and then you break it down into micro goals. Okay, the micro goals are how you can focus your daily habits and then you can execute with your processes and systems. Okay, that is the key is figuring out where you got to be as kind of a guidepost, where you need to be each week throughout the rest of the quarter and then figure out what you need to do to hit that number. That is how you can hit your goal. Figure out what do you have to do to hit $21,000 plus per week in this example I mentioned on the last podcast episode to get back to your habits, your processes, your systems. Podcast episode to get back to your habits, your processes, your systems.

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Right now it's a great time to dump out your bag, reset everything, reset your mind and focus on finishing out the quarter and hitting your goal and don't worry about where you end up. Okay, don't worry about where you end up. Don't worry about where you end up. Let's say you do like 25, 26k in the first week. This next week, don't give up, don't ease off the gas. And here's another thing no sandbagging. I absolutely hate sandbagging.

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You make the sale, you put the sale in period point blank, but push yourself past what the expectation level is. And what happens is, once you start doing that, once you start pushing past even what your company is requiring of you, what happens is, subconsciously, you start holding yourself accountable for your success and by creating your own goal that is way beyond what your quota is, you start to develop your own growth mindset. That is one of the ways to get out of this limiting mindset is to create your own goal. You break it down by week how are you going to get there? And if you want to break it down even further, okay, 21,000, five days. Okay, I got to sell 4,000 plus say, we'll say 4,100. See, we're even bumping it up to 4,100. Keeps getting bigger 4,100 a day, all right.

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Then you start breaking it down to who's in your pipeline. If you have a product or service that is a recurring revenue where people need refills, have you reached out to your big time clients? Have you gotten referrals from those big time clients? And then how do you pull through those accounts? How do you pull through those people that are in your funnel, those prospects that you've already been working out throughout the year and possibly started in 2023 or before? Do you have a list of all of your accounts that use your competitor? Do you have a competition report? Do you know where your competition is? Do you know where your product is in the market? Do you know what your offering is? Are you an expert in your product or service and everything behind the scenes that revolves around the business?

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If the answer is no, you might need to tend to spend about 10 to 15 hours this week at night or on the weekend figuring that out, because you can get blown out of a sales call. You can get blown out of a negotiation meeting by not knowing the facts. You need to know this market better than the person you're trying to sell to, because they're looking at you as the expert. So get your mind right. Rev up your goal 25% over what your quote is supposed to be. Break it down per week. Figure out how many units that is and then start to flush out. Where is that business coming from? Where can that business coming from? Be laser-like, focused on your approach. Practice, practice, practice what you're going to say, how you're going to open your opening questions, your closing statements. Practice, be prepared and take massive action. Get up early, stay up late. You can sleep next year in January. Thank you for listening.

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If you want to have any specific conversations, I do one-on-one coaching. You can reach out to me. You can email me at mike, at survivingoutsidesalescom, or you can reach out to me on LinkedIn. I am changing all of the formats on my coaching programs that are on my website, so please don't just go to my website. I had a bunch of people go to my website, uh, the other day, and um, download a preview and I'm going to be changing all of that. So, um, whatever you see online, I'm changing the format. I'm making it more streamlined, more efficient, um, cause that's what you do you bring something to market, you work with it for a while and then you realize that it needs to be more efficient, it needs to be more streamlined and it needs to meet people where they are. That's what I love about this business is. So reach out to me personally If you want help with your Q4 strategy.

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Reach out to me at Mike at surviving outside salescom, or reach out to me on LinkedIn. If you're not following me on LinkedIn, please go follow me, mike O'Kelly, and send me a DM and I'll get back to you in 24, 48 hours. But let me know I've been in your shoes. I know what it's like to be looking down the barrel of Q4 and you feel like you're really far behind. It's never too late. It is never too late as long as you stick to the fundamentals, you have the right mindset and you get after it. So thank you so much for listening. This has been Surviving Outside Sales. Hope you all have a great rest of your day. Cheers.