By George Brontén
Humans are not logical.
We think we are, but the science says otherwise.
In general, we make decisions based on complex interactions among a large number of non-rational factors, including emotions, hormones, cognitive biases, and unconscious beliefs. We then justify the decision with logic.
This only feels untrue to us because our brains have a sophisticated and lightning-fast system for making us believe our own justifications.
The good news is that many of these unconscious and non-rational processes are actually supportive of our success. The bad news is that some of them are not.
In this paper, we discuss one type of unsupportive subconscious pattern, called a limiting belief. We’ll
A limiting belief is a type of core belief that inhibits a person’s ability to achieve what they want to achieve. Core beliefs are generally formed in early childhood, though they can develop later. They can include supportive beliefs like, “I am loved,” and “I am good at math,” or unsupportive beliefs like, “I am weak,” and “I am no good at English.”
Unsupportive core beliefs are also called “limiting beliefs,” because they limit your ability to find fulfillment in that aspect of your life. The core belief that you are weak, for instance, might prevent you from bothering to exercise and build your strength, which in turn might prevent you from participating in activities you wish you could participate in, or from remaining healthy enough to do other things you like to do.
Limiting beliefs tend to be self-protective, which means that our unconscious minds act to make reality match our belief. This, in turn, causes limiting beliefs to become self-fulfilling prophecies.
To understand how this happens, imagine a person with the limiting belief that they don’t deserve to have nice things. If this person should happen to receive a gift of something nice, perhaps a lovely piece of furniture, their limiting belief may activate to make itself true in spite of the evidence.
The person, for instance, may not take good care of the item, without consciously understanding why they’re neglecting or abusing it. Due to this neglect or abuse, the item may become damaged or prematurely worn out. When the item is no longer in good condition, the person might correctly blame themselves for its deterioration, thus reinforcing the belief that they don’t deserve to have nice things.
It’s important to understand that we are very rarely aware of our limiting beliefs. The person in our example probably has no idea that their belief is driving their behavior, and may instead feel that they didn’t have time to care for the item or that they are simply too lazy. Limiting beliefs operate most effectively when they exist well below our consciousness, informing our actions without informing us that they exist.
In this way they truly become the invisible obstacle to our success.
Indeed, limiting beliefs can play a major unseen role in sales.
In this paper, we’ll examine three primary types of limiting beliefs, and 13 specific beliefs that impact sales. Then we’ll show you how to combat limiting beliefs on your sales teams.
Limiting beliefs can be categorized according to whether the belief is about the self, others, or the world.
Limiting beliefs about the self include ideas such as “I don’t deserve love,” “I’m no good at sports,” and “I always mess everything up.” These beliefs can, for example, cause you to behave in unlovable ways, avoid exercise, or sabotage your success.
Limiting beliefs about others include ideas such as “People don’t like me,” “People can’t be trusted,” and “People are always out to get me.” These beliefs can, for example, cause you to avoid people, behave in untrustworthy ways, or act in a suspicious manner.
Limiting beliefs about the world include ideas such as “Hard work never pays off,” “The world is a dangerous and scary place,” and “People are either lucky or unlucky.” These beliefs can cause you to avoid work, avoid taking risks, or fail to learn from mistakes due to the assumption that bad outcomes are just “bad luck.”
Any limiting belief can impact sales, even ones that seems unrelated. For instance, a core belief about your lovability can impact whether you use warmth and compassion to interact with prospects.
But some limiting beliefs are particularly common in the sales profession, and have an outsized impact on results. Here are 13 of them.
Limiting beliefs can kill deals and reduce sales team effectiveness. Any time your team is underperforming without obvious cause, you should suspect limiting beliefs as part of the problem.
The good news is that limiting beliefs can be converted into supportive beliefs, and doing so is a worthwhile investment. Once limiting beliefs are cleared and replaced with supportive beliefs, everything else gets easier and sales results improve.
Here’s how to do it.
Limiting beliefs live and thrive in our unconscious minds. They’re a little like a vampire in this regard. They suck the life right out of you, but only as long as the light of awareness never touches them.
Thus, the first step in combating a limiting belief is to bring it into the light and name it.
When a salesperson consistently fails to improve some aspect of performance, even after being given the tools to do so, there’s a good chance that a limiting belief is the culprit.
How to identify the presence of a limiting belief:
Some beliefs that limit behaviors are actually true. For instance, you probably believe that you cannot fly from tall buildings without assistance. This limits your willingness to try. In this case, although it limits what you are willing to do, it is not a limiting belief, because it protects you from a negative outcome. Therefore, even though it “limits” what you will try, it does not limit your achievement.
On the other hand, the belief that people will never be able to fly was indeed a limiting belief for humanity until the aircraft was invented. Likewise, people used to believe that it was impossible for a human to run a mile in a minute–until someone decided not to believe it anymore, and achieved it.
Likewise, there may be beliefs that limit your salespeople’s willingness to try something, that are true beliefs. For instance, it is probably true that a buyer with a $1 million budget will not purchase a $30 million product. This (probably) true belief may prevent your salespeople from touting your $30 million product to a $1 million customer.
But there are also beliefs that limit your salespeople’s performance that are not true, even if they seem true. Just like the one-minute-mile was achievable once someone believed it was achievable, most of your salespeople’s reasonable goals are achievable once their limiting beliefs are removed and replaced with supportive beliefs.
To help your salespeople understand that their limiting beliefs are not true beliefs, help them uncover evidence of more supportive beliefs. For instance, if their belief is that they are not experienced enough to reach decision makers, demonstrate that other salespeople with less experience are in fact reaching decision makers. This evidence can help them accept that their limiting belief is not true.
In some cases, a limiting belief is supported by evidence because a salesperson lacks the correct skills to make the limiting belief untrue. For instance, a salesperson who lacks business acumen may be correct in believing that decision makers don’t trust them.
This is a limiting belief, indeed, but it is also one supported by facts. In cases like this, help your salespeople close their skills gaps and access the training and practice they need to make the limiting belief not true.
In these cases, however, it is not likely to be enough to close the skills gap. Even with the right skills, if the limiting belief continues to exist, the salesperson’s subconscious mind may continue to sabotage them. You still need to move on to step four.
Nature hates a vacuum. In the case of limiting beliefs, even once you acknowledge and defeat the limiting belief, your job is not done. When limiting beliefs are not replaced with something else, they are almost guaranteed to creep back into our subconscious.
To avoid this, help your salespeople craft new, supportive belief statements to counter each limiting belief they hold. For instance, if the limiting belief is “nobody likes salespeople,” the new belief statement may be, “people like salespeople who can help them solve problems.”
Note: The new supportive belief must be believable to the salesperson. If it is too far-fetched, the subconscious will vehemently reject it. For instance, the statement, “everyone loves salespeople all the time!” would make anyone guffaw, and certainly would not help a salesperson replace their limiting belief that decision makers don’t like salespeople.
By qualifying the statement “people like salespeople” with “who can help them solve problems,” the salesperson can make the statement more acceptable to the unconscious mind.
Once the new belief statement has been crafted, have the salesperson post it somewhere visible and refer to it daily. Repeating it in writing or out loud helps to cement it in the mind.
This activity may feel silly at first, but it’s critical to overcoming the limiting belief.
As soon as you and your salespeople start using new belief statements, you will notice an interesting phenomenon: Your mind will throw up lots of objections. This is because limiting beliefs really hate to die, and they will fight for survival.
For instance, imagine that a salesperson’s new belief statement is that “people like salespeople who can help them solve problems.” While the salesperson is repeating this statement to themselves, they find themselves thinking, “But I don’t help people! I just sell them stuff!”
This is simply the limiting belief defending its territory.
To win this battle, you have to teach salespeople to overcome these objections as they arise.
To do so, the first key is to simply notice when it happens, and to write down the objection. They should then treat this objection as a new limiting belief and walk through steps 2 through 4 with the new one. They will end up with a new belief statement that counters the objection.
In our example, for instance, they may arrive at the belief statement, “I care about solving problems and I am learning to do it better and better every day.”
The new statement should now become part of their daily practice. Each time a new objection arises, the salesperson should follow this process again. Over time, this process will eliminate the old, unsupportive beliefs, and replace them with better ones that enable them to accomplish what they want to accomplish.
If limiting beliefs are substantially impacting your team’s performance, or blocking a promising salesperson in a meaningful way, consider hiring a sales coach or consultant with experience in limiting beliefs. They can help you root out what’s interfering in performance, and may use a variety of professional modalities including hypnosis, affirmations, and cognitive behavioral therapy to help salespeople fast track to better, more supportive beliefs.
Many of the limits our salespeople experience in their performance can be traced to subconscious beliefs, patterns, and responses that are not supportive of our success. By making the subconscious conscious, we support our team members in becoming better salespeople. And by supporting them in becoming better salespeople, we support our organization in meeting its goals.
Know Your Customers. Grow Your Customers.
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