Generalizing from a Negative can Sabotage Your Mindset | Sales Strategies

I was working with a group of high performing salespeople years ago—well before the pandemic. And one of them was whining and complaining to me about how he was losing all of his business to the competition. The competition was crushing him on price and all of his customers were price-sensitive. Everything was coming down to pennies on the dollar, resulting in him losing business.

I then asked him a simple question: “How are your results this year compared to last?” He perked up and replied, “We’re up!” He then admitted that he was generalizing from a specific negative. That’s the damaging part of sales.

Look at Your Wins and Don’t Overreact 

Let’s face it: as salespeople, we all have a little bit of diva in us. It’s what keeps us competitive, but it also has a dark side. That dark side can unnecessarily consume us. We can easily take a big loss, like this salesperson did, and make it feel like the sky is falling. When in reality, we only lost one piece of business.

When we suffer a big loss, it’s okay to momentarily vent. However, take a look at the wins you’ve had this year and make sure you’re not overreacting because of one single loss when you’ve had 50 wins.

Changing your mindset to really focus on specific positives will help ensure that you continue to win based on what you’re good at. If you only focus on the negative, you’re going to take that negative attitude to your team and customers. Thus, make sure you’re generalizing from a specific positive and not a specific negative. That’s how you’ll create a non-stop sales boom.