Sales Thermostats

This is so easy to overlook...

But we all have 'mental thermostats'

Which govern our results until we consciously dial them up.

Although today, I’m writing in the context of business and sales, this applies to everything.

The image above is of a framework I used when coaching businesses on ‘revenue’ growth.

It's a brilliant tool for highlighting where issues actually are in a business vs. where they appear to be.

For example, what appears as a 'marketing' or a 'sales' issue may well be a 'product' or 'positioning' issue or an 'infrastructure' issue and not a marketing or sales issue at all.

And resolving the problem at it's source vs. where it ‘appears’ (as an outcome) is always the fastest, most effective, efficient and certain way to unlock desired results.

The message being that the issue is almost never the issue.

The issue is the thing that sits behind what appears to be the issue.

This true of anything.

For example, if we're struggling to get in shape, the issue is not diet or exercise or a lack of time, they're just outcomes. The issue is where our awareness dominantly is.

Problems persist only because we’ve not addressed the issue at source.

So this framework is great...

Except for one thing.

It doesn’t go far enough...

It doesn't cover habitual patterns of thinking and behaving...

Led by personal mental paradigms and beliefs around selling, money and self.

And these are ALWAYS 100% relevant.

Because they determine everything downstream.

They act like a thermostat in a room or a cruise control in a car.

Dictating the maximum temperature or maximum speed.

Governing the thinking we have access to and entertain

And determining what we believe possible and entertain, accept or reject emotionally.

Meaning that until we dial up our 'mental thermostats', we may as well forget getting too much warmer or going too much faster.

We may of course invest in all kinds of strategies or training and coaching and - if these support a sustained shift in our thinking and beliefs and assumptions - the thermostat moves...

And the results then follow automatically.

But for most who do invest in strategies to shift the dial, the outcomes are often incremental, non-existent or simply don't last.

Or they just feel too effortful and are therefore unsustainable!

The reason being that if we don’t recognise that the underlying source of our outcomes isn't what we do or how we do it but the way we're thinking, we’re likely to remain in or slip back to our 'default setting'.

And we may then ‘yo-yo’ around for years playing 'whac-a-mole'...

Or attempting new things and attributing the results (or the absence of them) to the 'things' we've tried…

When the 'things' we're doing aren’t any 'thing' to do with the underlying outcomes at all.

They're just permission slips for believing and assuming something new or different.

And it's this that shifts our results.

Because the mind faithfully pushes out, as experience, what it is we're thinking and believing into it.

And so, if we mistake our own projections for something independent of us, we may keep encountering similar issues or spin in circles wondering why it's so hard!

So how do we do to shift our thermostats?

Whether it’s to do with business revenue, sales, health or something else?

What's key is to firstly understand how the mind works:

That it pushes out our inner-world as our experience and...

We can't experience anything outside our perception or awareness of it.

We may like to believe we have objective experiences but it's not possible.

All experiences are subjective.

When we acknowledge and accept this, we re-empower ourself to step back into our power, choose our preferences and to align our thinking with them independently of the circumstances.

However this presents a challenge if we go set out to fight the mind at the level of its projections...

We set a goal, create a plan and, metaphorically speaking, we go into battle with ourself...

Fighting the mind with the mind, we win only to the degree that our actions support us to think and believe differently.

And we may become stuck on the hamster wheel of believing our actions are what led results when in fact our actions stem from what we're identified with and it's the belief in the action that determines results and never the action itself....

Shifting our 'mental thermostats' to align with the results we'd love predominantly depends on 2 things:

1. Ensuring our Vision is for what we really Love and not for what we think will make us feel better, more safe, secure, worthy, approved of, in control, etc.

Because it's the nature of our emotional connection with our vision that matters.

When we establish a 'structural tension' in consciousness, it must be resolved.

And if we create this based on what we love and stay true to our vision - which is easy to do when it's for what we love - the tension in consciousness must be resolved through it's realisation.

It's the law of mind.

In contrast, if our vision is for what we think will help us to be something - eg. when I have this, then I'll feel safe, secure, relaxed, relieved, approved of, healthy etc - it's going to be much more of an uphill struggle...

Because the tension we've set up is then one of "push" and not pull.

Our awareness is on where we are and on the current absence of what we'd love which is very different...

And we always get more of what we're being aware of!

Equally, we may then find that our successes don't bring us the lasting fulfilment that we believed they might.

And business then becomes a game of pushing and striving for happiness and fulfilment which is going against our nature and we pay the price for this.

It's structurally and therefore emotionally and energetically much more challenging.

So, how do we know our vision is for what we Love?

The answer is because it has no why.

Why do you love your children?

Why do you love your friends and family?

Because you do.

And so when we're being truly authentic and have created a vision for what we love, there is no why for it.

It's for the love of it and not from fear of the lack of it!

And we're then pulled to move heaven and earth if we need to.

Without it feeling exhausting,

And, not only do we get to fulfil our vision, we get to love and enjoy the journey too!

2. The second thing is to be aware of our 'subjective tendencies'.

By this I mean our tendencies to revert to our familiar way of being and thinking and to create stories for justifying this.

When we have a vision for what we love and are true to it, such tendencies become irrelevant. Old habits and behaviours resolve themselves.

The challenges arise or remain only when we're more aware of and emotionally involved with our problems than with what we'd love... because we always get more of what we're giving our awareness to!

So, in the absence of our connection with our vision, we may revert to what's familiar and known and the danger is our awareness moves to believing we have a problem we need to fix or overcome..

And the mind, as our ever faithful servant, then shows us the evidence of our awareness and focus.

Because it has to.

When inspiration stems from the avoidance of something or from fear or lack instead of for the love of something, we invariably suffer the consequences.

So whenever we experience what we perceive is a glass ceiling, brick wall or some kind of 'thermostat' on our results, it's not an invitation to focus on fixing the problem!

It's an invitation to shift our awareness to what implies fulfilment.

👉 Want to know more? Ping me a DM and let me know.