Over the decades, incremental sales have been a major concern for most organisations. Many people consider marketing as sales, but in practice, sale is a result of marketing. Sales only occurs where there is exchange of money for a services or product.

To sell effectively, the marketer must study, understand and analyze market, understand customer needs and develop strategies and techniques to the customer. Marketing and sales go hand-in-hand as most marketing activities are expected to lead to sales at the end of the day.

Selling requires certain skills and mindset which most people fail to either recognize or imbibe. This goes a long way to affect sales performance. Poor sales performances have made some sales persons to quit their job or have being sacked for lack of performance. In this article, we will discuss the mindset for growth vis-a-vis fixed mindsets that affect our performance.

Growth Mindset Versus Fixed Mindset

The growth mindset takes up challenges and finds solutions to them, whereas persons with fixed mindset believe that intelligence is in-born and try to validate themselves.

With a fixed mindset it is difficult for one to succeed in whatever he or she does. People with fixed mindset spend time and energy trying to be smart rather than learning and developing their skills and abilities. To a fixed mindset, failure is akin to humiliation, hence they decide not to try again by adopting a defeatist stance that the task doesn’t suit their skillset. These people further avoid challenges because they are afraid of being judged.

In furtherance to the above, fixed mindset people feel jealous and envious of others’ success because they are unable to develop their potential and thus easily give up. According to Abraham Maslow, “If you deliberately plan to be less than you are capable of being, then I warn you that you’ll be deeply unhappy for the rest of your life. You will be evading your own capacities, your own possibilities.” He described it as “aborted self-actualization.”

Growth mindset is a key element if one desires to succeed as a sales person.  

Leadership Support

Every organisation faces some kind of challenge at any given point. Some of these challenges could be as a result of technological innovations, economic factors, political factors or legal factors. These developments could be positive or negative depending on how the organisation’s leadership embraces the change in the system. This is where showing leadership is critical for employees to emulate and ensure that they build a growth mindset culture in the organization.

Leadership support in having a growth mindset is critical to increasing sales. Individuals in leadership role with fixed mindset do not have the ability to change and inspire confidence in their team members. Additionally, they have no motivation to try or learn new things and these attitudes become negative energies around the entire team thereby retarding growth within the organisation.

According to Burnette et al (2010), leaders with fixed mindset are likely to experience high levels of anxiety and fear when given task thereby failing to excel. But leaders with growth mindset are able to take up challenging task and succeed through commitment and determination. They believe that failure helps them develop their skills and ability to overcome other challenges in the future.

Growth mindset from the leadership of any organisation or even a department can boost the morale of the team members to achieve greater heights. It is therefore important for people who are given leadership roles to develop a positive mindset and spread positive vibes among the workers rather than make excuses for the failures. 

Nurturing the Growth Mindset

There are many ways to develop a growth mindset whether you are a sales person or business professional. First and foremost, it is important to recognize your fixed mindset inner dialogue. This will propel you to identify the setbacks and resolve to start practicing a growth mindset approach to your business.

A fixed mindset focuses more on challenges, criticism and negativities while a growth mindset focuses on the best options to overcome the challenges wholeheartedly. People with growth mindset see failure as learning opportunity and are determined to persevere during the most difficult moments.

A growth mindset has no limitation and believes that everything is achievable thereby making effort each day to perfect and succeed in everything they do. These mindsets and hunger for success moves them to embrace every challenge and learn as fast as possible.

For people with growth mindset, inspiration is found in others’ success unlike fixed mindset people who become jealous.

Conclusion

In conclusion, it is important for sales people and every individual to move from a fixed mindset position to a growth mindset. Success in the field of sales or any endeavor requires a growth mindset where challenges are motivation for success.

Additionally, sales is a difficult job if one focuses on the complaints of the client rather than revising the notes on how to convince the client and convert a prospect to sales. Failure to conclude and ensure sales takes place in every business transaction leaves a wide gap to fill in the marketing process.

However, sales can be made easier with effective marketing strategies and tactics. Marketing leads to identification of customer needs, product development and provision of services that satisfy the needs of the customer. These services and products are then given to the customer in exchange of cash as sales.

To develop a growth mindset, it is important for one to be flexible and open-minded to embrace new approaches, and pay attention to details. Appreciating the fact that there will be challenges and bracing one’s self to face your fears and make the choice to stay positive is your sure way out of every challenging situation.

The writer is the Corporate Communications and Events Manager at Origin8, one of Ghana’s leading Marketing, Advertising, Public Relations and Events company.