What Are You Telling Yourself? [Academy]

What Are You Telling Yourself?

Have you ever been out in public and saw someone talking to themselves, out loud. Most often people doing this are labeled mentally disturbed and are often committed to a facility for treatment. 

But few people realize we all talk to ourselves all the time, just not out loud, unless you also want to find yourself in a strait jacket.  But the person we have conversations with most often is ourselves. Our internal dialogue goes on almost nonstop. It can range from singing a song in our head, rehearsing a speech or repeating a phone number. We may go through our plans for the day, internally critique someone we see for the way they look or talk to ourselves about a project we should have finished long ago. 

We may work through problems in our mind or hype ourselves up to meet a challenge. Very often we use internal dialogue to talk ourselves into doing something we’re afraid of doing. 

I’m always talking to myself, not out loud of course. Well sometimes I call myself a dumbass out loud when I do a mindless thing like knock over a lamp with my gorilla length arms or trip over a step with my clown size feet. But those things won’t get me committed. Most of my internal talk is about how I can be a better person, a better father, a better grandfather and a better mentor to my clients.

I’m constantly in conversation with myself, critiquing my last workout, my last training session or my last speech. I’m constantly discussing in my mind what I need to do each day as well as the rest of the week. I’m always thinking about the last conversation I had with a seed seller and how I could have done a better job explaining.  

It’s important to have internal dialogue when you’re in sales, especially seed sales. Since seed is a living breathing organism subject to more than a thousand variables and responsible for a farmer’s entire livelihood, there are plenty of things for reps to think about, or should I say, talk about in their minds.

When I was selling seed I never stopped thinking about every customer who bought seed from me. I was constantly discussing with myself whether or not I had prepared the grower well enough to raise my varieties properly. I was discussing with myself how I was going to explain a price raise to growers who challenged it, or why I couldn’t get a favorite variety they had on order. 

But one of the most common internal conversations salespeople have centers on making prospecting calls. Most of the dialogue seed sellers have going on in their minds is planning how to make prospecting as successful as possible. We’re all usually thinking about how to plan our approach. We go over in our minds what to talk about, including the size of the order we’re going to ask for and what we’re going to do if they don’t want to buy that much. But when we dialogue the concept of prospecting in our minds it usually creates guilty feelings for not having done enough of it. I used to beat myself up all year long for that one. Why didn’t I just make more prospecting calls and settle the argument in my mind?

What kind of dialogue do you have going on in your mind every day concerning seed selling? Are you telling yourself what a great job you do or are you feeling guilty for not getting more selling done prior to harvest?

Research shows that positive self-talk can improve self-esteem, stress management and wellbeing. It can reduce symptoms of depression and anxiety and reduce risk of self-harm and suicide. As we communicate more with ourselves, we’re more able to locate the sources of our feelings and experience them more fully. It also helps us work through problems by making them the forefront of our thoughts.

But regardless of the messages stirring around in your mind, the best way to enhance feelings of positivity and progress  is to get your ass out on the road and call on prospects and customers. I found after more than 45 years in sales, virtually every problem and every negative thought went away once I was out doing my job, calling on prospects and customers. Everything was suddenly right in the world. 

Make sure you spend enough time doing what you are supposed to be doing as a seller, selling seed. You’ll find that it will not only make you happy but it will also keep you from being put into a strait jacket for standing outside your seed warehouse talking out loud to yourself.

Happy Selling,

Rod Osthus