One’s beliefs can have an enormous effect on the success or failure of your sales team. Whether they believe in your products and service or they don’t, the difference will show in their sales results. There is a phenomenon I refer to as the “belief cycle”. Simply put it suggests that if you really believe in something your attitude will support that belief, if your attitude supports the belief then your actions will support your attitude and if your actions are congruent with your attitude you will be successful in selling anything. This certainly holds true in the world of travel sales. If your team is committed to your product and your organization they will be much more successful in selling your products or service.
Sales in the travel industry have been described as many things, but I like the term “selling dreams”. For many years I was selling dreams to clients. This can be tricky if you don’t clearly understand what you’re selling and paint an accurate picture. I was fortunate enough to have worked with a few outstanding travel products so delivering on a dream was easy. That said, I always fully believed in what I was selling and the dream I was creating.
Does your sales team believe in your product? Has everyone bought in or are they just going through the motions? You have to respond with honesty here. If not, they will never deliver anything more than fair results. A salesperson that does believe and has taken personal ownership of the product will always out perform others.
If know your sales team are not believers, you might want to bring in some help to turn that around or take a good long look at why. Is it the sales people, management staff or the product? Either way it has to be corrected. As a travel industry sales consultant, I see it everyday. Poor sales performance can usually be chunked down to two or three key points, the people on the sales team, the strategy, disconnect from the management team or a weak product. In any case, the sales team does not possess the belief needed to be successful.
When you look at an organizations sales team from the 30,000 foot view the problem can be very obvious. When you’re working at ground level, it can be hard for company leaders to spot the problem. I suggest that all leaders take a step back and really determine if everyone on the team is committed. Maybe it’s time for a little attitude adjustment.