Getting More Sales: Are You Getting In Your Own Way?

What Do You Think You Want?

When I ask entrepreneurs and small business owners and managers what they want, among the common answers I receive is: “More sales!”

Certainly, it’s easy to understand what you mean, if this is something you say you want. It probably means that you think that more sales will be better for your business financially.

Is That How It Really Is?

But stop to consider this a moment.

If you sell products, “more sales” often means more manufacturing and associated costs if you are your own producer, more inventory, more customer service, more up-front costs, more processing fees, more time spent working.

More, more, more. More of what you probably don’t want.

There’s a part of you that knows this, inside. Whether you call it your sub-conscious, your unconscious, or your pre-conscious mind, that part of you doesn’t want any of this. It’s too much work, spending too much time doing exactly what you’re hoping to do less of.

So you’ve got a battle going on inside. Your mouth and your “conscious” mind are saying you you want more sales. But it’s likely that inside, without your even being aware of it, the stronger part of you is fighting against you. And winning.

All you need to do to see what’s really happening is to just look at the amount of sales you’re getting now. They’re the result of the battle between your outer utterances and your inner worries, fears, and awareness of the “cost” of what “more sales” would REALLY mean to your life.

I can hear you saying: “Maybe. But that’s not REALLY why I don’t have more sales. If I only had ___________ (fill in the blank), I’d have more sales. Your “fill in the blank” might be “money,” “time,” “Inventory,” advertising,” etc. And you might be right. But then you have to ask yourself: “Why don’t I have this to begin with?”

Could Your Thoughts and Beliefs Be Holding You Back?

Plenty of people with no money have learned how to legally, ethically and morally make a fortune. Plenty of people with no advertising and no advertising budget have lots of customers. Plenty of people with no inventory let other people handle that for them.

What’s holding you back isn’t only what you think you don’t have. It’s what’s going on inside you that you can overcome only when you bring to greater awareness and address with full consciousness.

Change Your Thinking; Change Your Outcomes. Change Your Beliefs; Change Your Results.

This kind of change CAN be difficult and take a long time. Or it can be easy and happen in an instant. One way to speed up the process is to change the words you speak out loud, and put full attention on them when you do. Then ask you mind to go to work solving the puzzle of how to bring your new words into reality.

This is not about “The Secret,” the “Law of Attraction,” or some “New Age Froo-Froo.” It’s not about “magic.” It’s about a simple reality: Your thoughts and your beliefs have an impact on what choices you make, what actions you take, and what results/consequences you get. If you want a different outcome than what you’re getting now, you can begin by examining and changing your thoughts and beliefs. Very simple. But how easy or difficult you make it is up to you.

“Make More Profit!”

Focus once again on the phrase: “Get more customers.” To many, that sounds like a it will take a lot of time and effort doing a lot of undesirable tasks at too great a financial and emotional cost.

But what happens when you change the words and the idea behind them?

Say instead: “Make more PROFIT.” (Be careful NOT to say “Make more money.” It’s not the same.)

For most people in business, it’s PROFIT that you want. Wouldn’t you rather sell one thing and make $1000 profit then sell one thing for $1,000 and only make $100 profit? It’s not the income that matters. It’s not only the number of items you sell or the number of hours you get paid for. It’s how much is left over for YOU at the end of the transaction that truly matters.

More profit? That sounds GOOD. It sounds DESIRABLE. It sounds like it’s worth putting some effort toward figuring out how to do, and then doing. It sounds like something that your sub-conscious and your conscious can finally be in agreement about.

“How Do I Do That?

So change your words. Change your thinking. Once you’ve determined to make a simple change from saying: “Make more sales” to: “Make more profit,” you’re mind automatically begins the process of asking the question: “How do I do that?”

It’s likely that you already have great answers to that question inside yourself. And even if you do, or if you don’t, now you know the question you can pose to others who ARE making more profit than you. Or ask others to brainstorm with you, and do the same for them. Just ask: “How can I make more profit?”

Are you getting in your own way? Only you know. Put yourself to the test.

Stop thinking, or saying: “I need/want more sales.” Or “I need/want more customers.”

Start saying, instead: “I want more profit.” And then put your pre-conscious mind AND your conscious mind to the test to figure out and learn what you can do with only the resources you have right now to make more profit without only having to make more sales.

Share Your Thoughts

What do you think?

Do you believe that your pre-conscious thoughts and beliefs control your outcomes equal to – or even more than – your conscious mind? Do the words you say out loud and inside yourself have an impact on the results you get in your outer world?

And if so, is it possible to make an inner shift – to bring what has been in your unconscious out into the open, so you can examine it consciously and ask yourself to change, simply through a process of coming to greater awareness and putting what you learn into play?

Share your thoughts on this. Leave your comments and your questions here.

Jay Aaron
Strategic Visionary / Visionary Strategist
Follow me on Twitter: http://Twitter.com/newthoughts

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