Jason Mascia, a car salesmen at Town and Country auto dealer, is less than half the age of most of the salespeople in his company, but has doubled everyone else’s sales volume. While most of the sales guys strive for fifteen car sales per month, Jason shoots for 30 or 40.
When the other salespeople were asked what Jason did differently, they spoke in platitudes like, “He’s a good-looking kid,” or, “He makes a friend.” But according to Sean Cole of This American Life, who followed Jason around for a week, there’s much more to it than that.
Sean called Jason’s success “Constructive Delusion.”
Jason knows a certain percentage of customers will walk out without buying anything, but it doesn’t faze him.
He not only doesn’t see the glass as half full, he sees it as overflowing.
He views each and every customer as a potential buyer no matter who they are or where they’re from. Call him delusional, but it seems to serve him well.
After talking to thousands of salespeople about their success, I’ve found this phenomenon is common among the very best. They not only look for reasons their (qualified) customers will purchase; they’re dumbfounded when they don’t. In short,
You will see what you expect to see.
There’s a scientific phenomenon that explains this idea called “Confirmation Bias.” Cognitive researchers have found that we have an unconscious tendency to seek out and readily accept information that confirms our preconceptions, and to ignore, distort, or discount information that contradicts (or disconfirms) them.
In other words, when you begin a sales call believing that engineers don’t buy or that Human Resource people always muck up the deal, you wind up looking for signs that confirm your beliefs. The problem is that when you do this, you act on those negative signs and often lose the deal.
Watch my video and learn and learn Three Simple Tips to Practice “Constructive Delusion”.
