Isn’t there an old sports axiom that states games are won or lost before you ever take the field? Well, at least some form of that saying. JustSell.com lists a handful of self-defeating thoughts from the sales world (email newsletter – sorry, no link).
Here they are:
- Defeatist (accepting, expecting, or being resigned to defeat)
- Cynical (contemptuously distrustful of human nature and motives)
- Vindictive (seeking revenge)
- Blame/ Fault (who cares? what are we going to do now?)
- Wishful (do what you can to influence the deal and keep moving)
- Self-pity (get over yourself… complain less… especially to yourself)
- Worrisome (it won’t help, costs time, and can drag you down)
- Jealous (want it? earn it)
- Pre-argumentative (the imaginary argument you have to prepare yourself for the argument that may never happen)
- Post-argumentative (the imaginary argument you have where you’re quicker than you were in the actual argument)
- Procrastinatory (if you’re going to procrastinate, you might as well do something fun instead of thinking about how bad it is that you’re procrastinating… dummy)
I find that fourth one (blame/fault) to be especially common in sales…and quite detrimental.