Self Fulfilling Prophecy

Most of selling is in your head. How you view your selling environment determines how effectively you are able to find and close business. Abundance and scarcity are two of the most important mindsets.

Abundance provides endless opportunities. Scarcity provides very few. Whatever your current mentality, it can change quickly.

It is important to identify the characteristics of each perspective. In doing so, you can create a path back to abundance.

Endless Opportunities vs. No Opportunities

An abundance mentality shows that there is opportunity everywhere. Everyone is buying and the word ‘no’ just roles off your back.

A seller that is looking at the world through a lens of abundance is typically open to new opportunities. They will take risks and have more confidence.

A seller stuck in scarcity will see things very differently. This seller will see very few opportunities. Almost everything will have a negative spin.

They may have prejudices against entire market segments. These thoughts are usually based on one or two bad experiences. These prejudices become literal poison.

Negativity starts to creep in when things do not go a seller’s way. Their judgement gets clouded and the seller becomes jaded about new opportunities.

Dangers of Scarcity

A scarcity mentality becomes self fulfilling prophecy. The seller believes that there are few or no opportunities. With this belief, the seller approaches fewer opportunities.

In doing so, the seller puts more stress on their existing potential sales. Any loss of a prospective sale is used to justify the scarcity mentality. The cycle perpetuates itself until the seller sees fruition of the original perspective, that there are no opportunities.

In reality, the scarcity mentality is simply a perception. The lack of perceived opportunities was do to the lack of activity. Once the seller stopped seeking and approaching the opportunities, the existing pipeline ‘had to’ close.

If the pipelined prospects did not close, it lended to the scarcity mentality. Where as the reality is that not all deals will close. Pipelines need to be fed often to produce regularly.

Neglecting the prospecting and neglecting the pipeline created the problem. At no point is it a lack of opportunity. The seller was simply not giving themselves a chance to be successful. The seller simply relied on too few prospects.

This is the typical cycle of a scarcity mentality. The seller takes a hit or looses a sale. Negativity creeps in. The well is poisoned. The seller sees fewer opportunities so they pursue fewer prospects. Fewer prospects equals less sales.

Breaking the Cycle

The first step is to understand that there are an abundance of opportunities in almost any market. If it feels like the opportunities are drying up, look back at previously won opportunities and start building lists of similar customers. The best place to start is with most recent wins.

Sellers need to be accountable to themselves and to their activity. Most scarcity mentalities are are caused by low activity. Sellers convince themselves they are doing enough when they are doing very little.

Prospecting or new business development needs to be hard calendared. RevOps (revenue generating activity) should always be a seller’s top priority and the primary focus of an organization. It’s about P&L. If there is no profit, there will only be loss.

A very simple way to fix a scarcity mentality is to just start moving. Go visit clients. Pick up the phone and call prospects. Just do the activities.

Activity creates movement. Movement changes perspectives. Perspectives change perception. Perceptions change minds.

If you stay in the same spot you see the same thing. Move.

Finally, collaborate with others. Bring them into your journey. Look for opportunities together. Opportunities are everywhere just waiting to be seen and captured.

Take Aways

Scarcity mentalities are a seller’s worst enemy. Never let them win. Take meetings. Create movement. Talk to peers. It is never what it seems. It is only how we choose to see it.

Never let your pipeline go dry and you will always know abundance.