Oren Klaff

He gave me a long, rambling rant about unfair treatment at the hands of the company that managed his team, while I placed him on mute and cursed him loudly. Finally, he reached the end of his monologue and I took the phone off mute to get down to business.

“OK

Everyone loves an optimist. A positive outlook is one of the most important traits we look for in friends, employees, leaders, and especially salespeople. We teach our kids that a can-do attitude is the key to success. And almost every self-help book starts with the mantra “You can do it!” (once you meditate, visualize what you want, and eliminate all forms of negativity). After all, positive thinking works wonders, right? We actualize what we visualize. Maybe and maybe not

A positive outlook can motivate people toward incredible accomplishments. Optimists are the ones who put a man on the moon last century, and in this century, they’ll put another one on Mars. Optimists climbed Mount Everest, created nuclear energy, and sequenced the human genome

Given the nature of their profession, salespeople are programmed to be optimistic and push you in that direction

There’s no question about it: entrepreneurs and salespeople. By definition, their job is to seed optimism

But does projecting optimism work as well as we think?

Just consider how the typical sales sequence goes

Introduce the product; explain the offer.

Be exceedingly optimistic; encourage the buyer to feel good about the product.

Try to close: “So what do you think? Do we have a deal today?” At which point the buyer raises his or her concerns and objections.

Work hard to crush each objection, one by one. Tell the buyer none of his fears will materialize, and all of her dreams will come true.

Try to close again—and keep trying (try till you die

problem with this pattern is it is closer to debate and argumentation than it is to selling and convincing. The result?

says yes, he hasn’t really bought in; most likely he didn’t have the time or energy to debate the purchase any further with you, so he said yes to end the standoff and get out of the conversation. But he may or may not have had any real intention of going through with it. This is why it’s such a common occurrence for salespeople to think they’ve closed a deal, only to watch it fall apart as time goes on

bubbles up from the emotional core of salespeople—actually creates stress for the typical buyer