Develop the mindset of a champion

3. Maintain an optimistic orientation in life and business.
This means remaining upbeat and positive about your performance regardless of what happens during any given day. Look at unfortunate errors you make as temporary and not reflective of your overall skill and knowledge. Use self-talk that will help you bounce back after setbacks, rather than focusing on the setback itself. “That conference is over. It’s time to focus on my next opportunity to succeed.”

An optimistic orientation also means knowing that you can control only what you do, not what the client does. He has much more going on in his life that can affect his decisions about buying what you are pitching him. “I can control my emotions, my self-talk, my anxiety level, my breathing and my focus.” All of my energy will go into this control and I’ll let all other thoughts, including worries about failure to get the business, just fade away.”

An optimistic orientation also includes maintaining positive expectations of future outcomes. Successful advisors fully expect to do well regardless of the economy, governmental restrictions, etc. Advisors who worry about failing, develop negative self-fulfilling prophesies, and therefore, they do fail, which reinforces that prophesy. Advisors with positive expectations develop positive self-fulfilling prophesies and succeed most of the time.

4. Visualize your sales success before approaching each potential client.
Your subconscious mind takes orders from you without judging success or failure. As noted above, internal dialogue and beliefs are one means of directing your subconscious mind. Another powerful technique for directing the subconscious mind is actually visualizing success. Professional golfers, for example, who visualize each shot before they make it, find a tremendous similarity between their vision of that shot and the subsequent shot that they make.

So visualize yourself preparing for the sales call, gathering your materials and feeling really encouraged because you know your products and feel confident as you enter the room where the pitch will take place. Visualize the sights and sounds around you as you begin the perfect sales presentation. Then visualize the client smiling and nodding in agreement as you show him/her how much your services will help. Finally, visualize yourself shaking hands with the client and filling out the paperwork.

5. Practice powerful goal setting strategies.
People are 11 times more likely to reach a goal when they write it down, as opposed to simply thinking about the goal. Write down short- and long-term goals that are specific and action-oriented. For example, “For this month, I will arrange for 12 meetings with prospective clients.” Notice that the goal is not how much you will sell, or how much you will accumulate in fees, but simply how many meetings you will have.

Next, visualize yourself feeling wonderful once you have accomplished that goal. Imagine it as if you have already accomplished the goal. Finally, perhaps most importantly, write down ways in which you can sabotage yourself so that you will not accomplish that goal. This is a critical way of recognizing ways you perhaps did not realize you were undermining your success and how you will now stop that self-defeating behavior.

6. Keep anxiety at the optimal level.
Successful advisors recognize that some degree of anxiety at crunch time is not only normal but necessary to perform at peak levels. If their anxiety level raises too high, they recognize warning signs, such as rapid breathing, feeling increasingly tight and tense sensations throughout their bodies.

Since too much anxiety follows negative self-talk, the first step is to use the techniques listed here to stop that talk and replace it instantly. Next, take a series of slow, deep breaths and stretch your leg muscles out, which calms the whole body. Finally, visualize success in your next series of contacts or meetings.