We think it’s the company that sells the same as us,

Or the paperwork we have to do,

Or the meetings we have to run,

Or the slackness of our admin team,

Or the lack of urgency of our buyers.

The real competition is ‘no change’.

If we don’t move with times,

Predict the future,

Be prepared to read and learn,

Ask better questions,

If instead, we just…”

Believe the world is flat,

Or smoking won’t kill us,

Or mindfulness is for hippies,

Or our brains don’t need fuelling,

We will become our own biggest competitor.”

I see it every single day. I hear the excuses, I notice the blame. It just slips out, it’s ingrained in our thinking, it’s a default mechanism. But guess what?

Your competition love you for all of that old school thinking, and more….”

They love that you don’t make the calls,

Love that you discount,

Love that your questioning is surface based,

Love that you lead with product because you don’t know what to say,

Love that you leave the closing to them,

Love that decision makers intimidate you,

Love that you don’t find time and energy to upskill yourself,

So who is your biggest competitor?”

It’s not who you think it is, is it?

So, a couple of ideas to use as food for thought to ace yourself this week?

Know Your Rituals: In his autobiography, Rafael Nadal writes as to what gets him into the right frame of mind to take on his competitor: “Freezing cold water. I do this before every match. It’s the point before the point of no return. Under the cold shower I enter a new space in which I feel my power and resilience grow. I’m a different man when I emerge. I’m activated. I’m in “the ﬂow”, as sports psychologists describe a state of alert concentration in which the body moves by pure instinct, like a ﬁsh in a current. Nothing else exists but the battle ahead.
Know Your Crew: “Titín bandaged the ﬁngers of my left hand, my playing hand, his moves as mechanical and silent as mine when I wrap the grips around my rackets. There’s nothing cosmetic about this. Without the bandages, the skin would stretch and tear during the game.” We need others around us, those who we can share our strengths, our weaknesses, our vulnerabilities with. Those we know are in our corner. Who are yours?

Know Your Stuff: “Not only is Nadal an allrounder who can play on all surfaces but he taught himself to play left handed so that he could get the edge on the majority of players who happen to be right handed”. He is committed to his craft with a top spin that leaves his competition in the dust – and they know it! What can you hone more of? Product, demonstrations, public speaking, industry expertise?

Commit and…

Let the game begin!

Be Bold, Brave and Brilliant

Bernadette McClelland is CEO of 3 Red Folders – a modern day saleswoman and keynote speaker on business growth, personal leadership and sales performance.

BIO: Business environments wanting to increase their revenue and profits, and differentiate themselves in a competitive market, ask for Bernadette McClelland because of her thought leadership on sales performance, her ideas on thinking beyond resilience and her fresh perspectives surrounding personal leadership skills — all designed to master the outcomes that matter.

Bernadette has proudly coached Harvard MBA students on their sales enablement curriculum, been the Master Asia Pacific coach for Anthony Robbins across twelve countries, authored five books on leadership and sales transformation, won a coveted Telstra award for Business Excellence, and continually shares her ideas around behaviour, the brain and business growth on stages in the UK, Europe, Thailand, India, NZ, Australia and North America.

Believing that sales performance is a leadership issue, you will also find her heading Melbourne’s human potential based sales performance consultancy, 3 Red Folders, as she navigates lead generation, message to market and digs deep into sales process activities with her clients in the mid-tier sector as well as founding ‘Women Who Sell’, an initiative designed to bring more women up to speed in their sales success.

Book your Conference or Sales Kick Off Meeting today!
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