Mark sits at his desk with his eyes closed, pen in hand, apparently deep in thought. Or is he dozing? Actually, he’s about to take a crucial first step in winning a new account.
Holly is on her way to see a potential client when a flash of insight radically changes her strategy for the meeting. An hour later she has a contract for a six-figure account plus a substantial signing bonus.
Mark ponders and Holly has an ah-hah moment. Yet they’re both doing the same thing - they’re checking in with their intuition before making a sales call. Why? They’ve discovered that the insights and promptings they get from their “inner voices” can help them score more sales more easily than when they go it alone.
Make Intuition Your Ally - Intuition is the secret weapon of many successful sales leaders. Ask them about it, though, and they’re likely to describe it as “gut instinct.” Sound familiar? Of course it does, because whether you admit it or not, you’re highly likely to have experienced it yourself, and just as likely to have ignored its messages.
The fact is, everyone receives intuitive information. It’s both a gift and a skill, and the more you practice it the better you get at it. How does your intuition speak to you? Do you receive information in words, feelings, a flash of insight, a gut reaction? Do you simply just know? Roy Rowan, author of a study on intuition, said, “This feeling, this little whisper from deep inside your brain, may contain far more information - both facts and impressions - than you’re likely to obtain from hours of analyzing data.”
Ask Your Intuition Questions - My friend Mark, who you met at the beginning of this article, is a national sales leader in his industry. When I asked him how he explains his success he told me that before he meets with a client he asks his intuition a series of questions such as, “What do I need to know about this company?” “What is the best way to approach the decision maker?” “What should I know about who I’m competing against for this sale?” “What can I do to win this account?” He sits with pen in hand and quiets his thoughts. The answers come to him as he writes. Mark’s competition scratches their heads.
Keep Your “Inner Sales Person” Positive - Pay attention to what you tell yourself about your sales prospects and your life. If your “self-talk” is positive and optimistic your personal and business life will reflect that. Try a simple experiment. Close your eyes and say the following to yourself for about 30 seconds: “I’ll never get ahead. I’m not good at sales. I won’t make my quota this month.” How do you feel? Depressed? Demoralized? Hopeless?
Now do the same experiment and focus on these statements: “Things have a way of working out.” “I’m learning some new skills and things are beginning to change for me.” “Today I’ll take steps that will open up opportunities for more income.” Now how do you feel? Hopeful? Optimistic? More confident? When you’re in this state it’s much easier for you to be open to intuitive messages pointing you to avenues of increased prosperity.
Know Your Gut, Know Your Client - Successfully making the sale requires that you process hundreds of pieces of information subconsciously. You must develop and trust your ability to use your intuition to read between the lines. Do you press a client for the sale, or do you back off and wait? Are they motivated by the lowest price you can offer or is the quality of your product or service the prime impetus for buying from you? Many times, logic and analysis will provide that information. On other occasions, your gut feelings or instincts - your intuition - will provide the answers.
Use the Power of Silence - As any good salesperson will tell you, “Sometimes the best thing to do is ’shut up.’” But there are times when you also need to silence your mind to receive valuable intuitive insight. When you need help making a decision - pause - take a deep breath, reflect on the question and allow the intuitive impressions to come to you. Intuition is often described as “still and quiet.” It doesn’t usually answer in a big, booming voice. It is much subtler. Pay attention to any images you receive, words you hear, physical sensations you experience or emotions you feel. These are all ways that intuition will communicate with you. Write down any impressions you receive. Some people find that intuitive insights will pop into their mind immediately. For others, it may come later in the day when they least expect it.
Make Your Enthusiasm Work for You - Intuition often communicates its message through passion and excitement. The root of the word enthusiasm comes from the Greek, entheos. It literally means, “God within.” If a sales strategy or decision leaves you feeling drained or bored, that’s a clear message from your “inner guidance” saying, “Don’t go there.” Conversely, if you feel energized and enthusiastic, your intuition is giving you the green light to continue with your plan of action.
Envision Your Success - Spend time each day imagining your ideal life. Envision the details of that life. Imagine you are living it now. What are you wearing? What are you feeling? Who are the people around you? We are often quite clear about what we don’t want. The path to success comes from spending time thinking about what you do want. What does an ideal day, month or year look like to you? Being clear about what you want is often the first step in being able to create it. Successful people visualize their goals and dreams. Your intuition can help you achieve success when you know what you want to achieve.
Write it Down - Many people have great success receiving intuitive information through writing. This technique is similar to brainstorming. Write a series of questions about your choices. Suppose you have to make a decision to fill a position in your company. You might write, “If I hire Mary will the company’s sales increase?” “If I hire her will this be a positive choice? “What are her strengths?” “What are her weaknesses?” When you’ve completed your questions, write the answers quickly just as they come to you. Repeat your intuitive Q&A about each potential employee and then assess the results.
Take the time, make the sale - Be sure to set aside time to routinely check in with your intuition. It won’t be long before you’ll be experiencing faster, stronger and more accurate insights. Though intuition can be described as a secret weapon, there’s no big secret about how to use it. Follow the suggestions I’ve outlined above, and begin now to enjoy the rewards of this powerful competitive advantage.
2003 Lynn Robinson, M.Ed. All rights reserved in all media.
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Lynn Robinson is one of the nation’s leading experts on intuition. As a business advisor, she provides vital insights on goals, strategies and critical decisions. She is a best-selling author of three books, including Compass of the Soul. Lynn has appeared on Fox Cable News and in The New York Times, USA Today, Boston Globe and Boston Business Journal. Contact: 1-800-925-4002 or www.LynnRobinson.com.
Intuition was a wonderful gift. It was also an awful curse. By instantly recognizing patterns, intuition was nature’s vital tool for survival. Life ceaselessly faced a train of unlimited choices and, often, baffling problems. These demanded instant decisions. An animal could not remain undecided, whether to drink water, or to eat grass. Should it be aggressive and fight, run away, or relax and accept the situation? It was intuition, which interpreted events to trigger emotions. Anger made them aggressive. Fear made them retreat. And familiarity supported relaxation. Each emotion eliminated groups of thoughts. If fighting was the option, amicable thoughts did not fit. If the decision was to cut and run, it was useless to marshal one’s militant strengths. The intuitive process eliminated mental activity, which did not fit the chosen course of action. Sadly, this elimination process was also the biggest weakness of the system.
Each emotion set off a focused drive seeking solutions. Anger, fear, or friendliness triggered competing drives. Intuition focused each drive by eliminating views that did not fit its compulsive focus. Anger eliminated amicable memories. Fear lost sight of fighting strengths. As any situation evolved, the emotional strengths of these partisan drives varied. Opposing emotions competed for control. Intuition acted in the emotional center, the limbic system, to select the most powerful emotion, which then ruled. If it was anger, it pulled the trigger. When the choice was made, the process inhibited competing drives, with contrary feelings. Opposing views were largely lost to consciousness.
Across species, fear dictated an escape drive, which sought safety. A deer bounded away. A bird took flight. A fish swam off. While the activities of running, flying and swimming differed, it was the drive, which achieved the objective of escaping. Each drive evaluated experience and the environment. Escape was hardly possible by heading into the predator. Getting away demanded evaluation of many escape routes, including slipping into a safe sanctuary, inaccessible to the predator. Like the underside of a rock. Drives involved a search of multiple contexts to uncover the right answer. While intuitive drives usually delivered the answer instantly, some drives failed to uncover solutions.
Modern life offered few speedy answers. Senior positions had added problems. The higher the position, more the solutions needed for the myriad problems faced by a venture. Intuition, driven by emotions, was the creative force, which delivered answers. Hidden from view, drives constantly sought solutions. While one problem was consciously evaluated, subconscious drives continued search processes to solve other issues. Since, anger, fear or jealousy powered such searches, they often sought to achieve conflicting objectives. These hidden emotions troubled the mind, creating distressing internal conflicts. Sadly, this was the negative face of intuition, standing in the way of achieving peace of mind.
Conflicting viewpoints surged in the subconscious. How could they be integrated? In a harsh and unforgiving world, how could a multitude of clashing drives be graciously focused? How could the mind be stilled? Across the ages, many solutions were offered to focus the mind and still conflicts. Meditation, chanting and breathing routines were found to be beneficial. But, those practices treated the symptom, not the problem. The long term solution was to quiet the internal battles of these competing drives. All knowledge and experience lived within. These same drives were powerful search processes, which could delve deep, to deliver answers. Unique new insights and solutions waited to be discovered.
Drives provided windows into the mind. It was a drive, which assisted in the preparation of a simple shopping list. It searched memory and current context to deliver, line by line, a list of all the items you needed to buy. By contextually searching the mind, drives could be made to play a valuable, creative role. When particularly burdened by a problem, drives could draw out a list of one’s deepest concerns. With its sort facility, a spreadsheet could be used to list and comprehend the turmoils of the mind. The routine could begin by listing, line by line, different aspects of a problem, as it came to mind. Each, a short entry in a single cell of the spread sheet. It may have just begun with, say, “Feel awful” and gone on down. That was the first thought. Many conflicting emotions surged in the background. Each line would sum up a single feeling and its concern. It could be “Negative departmental report” Or, it could be just a hunch. “David will support me.” The worst fears were noted down. “Mortgage payments.” And the common sense thoughts. “This too will pass.”
Writing a list was a calming process. The questioning drive helped still the mind. Differing viewpoints were noted down. These views would arrive in conspicuous sequence. Each entry brought one viewpoint into consciousness - into the general view of isolated and competing drives. Sensible viewpoints would normally have been eliminated from view by angry emotions. Typically, about 60 odd entries would empty the mind of every related thought. Entering opposing viewpoints usually brought balance. The inquiry process stilled background turmoil. The most critical part of this process came next.
A label was entered for each line in an adjacent cell on the spreadsheet. “Fear,” “Opportunity”, or even “Unlikely” could be the labels. With every aspect already considered, it was easier to label an entry. Each label fitted a few more entries. The picture slowly cleared. Underground fears surfaced. Solutions emerged. The closing of one door usually opened another. Those 60 entries would fit a dozen or so categories. A “sort” of the labels column would arrange similar ones together, in alphabetic order. Listing similarly labeled ideas together would bring clarity. They became groups of consistent, allied thoughts. The sorted spreadsheet list integrated the mind.
Isolated drives were forced into the open and a balanced view emerged. Viewed together, “Unlikely” put a label on needless worries. The less likely outcomes could be ignored. The inevitable ones had to be accepted. That left you with the actions you could take. “Opportunities” formed the basis for a future plan. The rest of the list just climbed off your chest. Another threatening issue would have been acknowledged, accepted and foreseen. The spreadsheet evaluation balanced the mind and stilled hidden anxieties and conflicts. Lifted burdens. Anger and fear, love and altruism cooperated to search for solutions which met all the concerns of the mind. With the power of intuition, an integrated mind became the most creative force in the world.
About the Author
Abraham Thomas is the author of The Intuitive Algorithm, a book, which suggests that intuition is a pattern recognition algorithm. The ebook version is available at www.intuition.co.in. The book may be purchased only in India. The website, provides a free movie and a walk through to explain the ideas.
