Sales Strategy

Jimmy DeGroot: The New Self Talk - Inspired by the Book, ‘To Sell is Human’ by Daniel Pink January 15, 2025 (0 comments)

Green Bay, WI--In his book, The Greatest Salesman in the World, Og Mandino wrote “I am nature’s greatest miracle! I am the greatest sales professional the world has ever known!” In Napoleon Hill’s book, “Think and Grow Rich,” one of the best-selling American Books of the last century, the author writes that the first step in salesmanship is auto suggestion, the principle through which the salesperson saturates his own mind with belief in the products as well as in his or her own ability to sell. Go to any Tony Robbins class and you’ll hear the same thing, “Tell yourself you can do it and build yourself up so much that any negativity or rejection will just bounce off you.”

But social science might tell us otherwise. We talk to ourselves all the time anyway. Some of it is negative, “I’m not good enough to speak in front of an audience.” Or “I could never run in a marathon.” Sometimes it’s positive. “I got this!” “If my brother can be great at Tennis, I know I can too.” The issue with this type of self-talk, whether negative or positive, is that it’s declarative, meaning it states what is or what will be. Researchers at the University of Southern Illinois suggest that to produce the best results, we ask ourselves questions.  

Questions elicit answers that will always provide you with great information and last longer than just a quick fix statement like, “I’m the greatest.” Let’s say you ask yourself, “Can I hit my sales goal this month?” What might follow in your head is … “Of course I can, I know that as long as I meet with enough customers, I know the key questions, I know I can get to their big WHY if I ask these questions, I know we have some incredible merchandise in the store and I know how to match that merchandise up with the customers wants and needs!” 

So rather than a flippant statement that might just be positive self-talk, a question naturally leads to the answers that give you the ammunition to support that question. You might also give yourself tactical advice such as, “In the last few sales, I talked too much and didn’t listen well to their answers. This time I’m gonna listen more attentively.” Thus, good questions actually turn into great self coaching.  

Practice this every day. Instead circling downward into a sea of negativity of trying to overcome fear and doubt with old fashioned self talk. Try asking yourself some great questions. And then pay close attention to your thought answers as your brain supports why you truly ARE going to be successful.

James (Jimmy) DeGroot is a professional jewelry sales and operations trainer from the jeweler’s side of the counter. Having been in management and the jewelry business for over 20 years, Jimmy offers weekly training to jewelers nationwide via the Train Retail website. Jimmy is an AGS titleholder and specializes in training relevant and timely methods for jewelry teams. He can do a full training on making Bridal Presentations the best they can be, among many other regular training options. Contact Jimmy at jimmy@trainretail.com or call 920-492-1191.