What Are You Willing To Change by S. Anthony Iannario

The full title for this post is 'What Are You Willing to Change to be the Best Version of Yourself?' I read it on S. Anthony Iannario's The Sales Blog. If you would like to read the original blog post, click here. While this post is geared towards the skill of selling, the info can be applied to life in general. What changes are we making as we continue on our journey of change?

What Are You Willing to Change to be the Best Version of Yourself?

June 8, 2012 By S. Anthony Iannarino

What are you willing to change in order to achieve the results that you want? What would make you the very best version of yourself?

The results that you are producing right now, whether you are happy with them or not, are being produced by the actions that you are taking (or not taking). Those results are also the result of your beliefs. It isn’t enough to want different results or better results. To produce different and better results you have to make changes.

Are You Willing to Change What You Are Doing?

Certain actions lead to certain outcomes. If you want different outcomes, you have to take different actions.

If your pipeline of opportunities isn’t what you want it to be, then you have to change your prospecting. If your deals always end in you being challenged to justify your price then you need to change something about how you sell. You have to make changes.

As you’ve undoubtedly guessed, this isn’t only about sales. This is about making your life rock. If you unhappy with the level of energy you have at work, you have to make the changes to your lifestyle that will allow you to generate more energy.

What result are you getting now that isn’t what you want it to be? What do you need to change in order to get the outcome that you really want?

Are You Willing to Change What You Believe?

The actions you take are the result of your beliefs.

If you believe cold calling makes you to “salesy” or something less than consultative, then you will act in accordance with those beliefs. If you believe that your dream clients will only buy price, you will act in accordance with that belief, and you will work to sell price.

You get to choose what you believe. You can think about what you think about. Rationalizing poor results and justifying them with a poor belief system doesn’t produce better results. Rationalization is resistance to change, and resistance to change kills the possibility of better results.

You could believe that prospecting (in all its many forms) is one of your primary task in sales. That belief would support a different set of actions than some other beliefs. You could believe that your dream clients are willing to pay more where more value is created. That belief would support a very different set of actions than the belief that price is the only thing your dream clients value.

Your beliefs support your actions. They underlie the actions. To believe something and not act in accordance with that belief is the same as not believing it.

Are You Willing to Change Who You Are?

What you believe and the actions you take make you who you are. The actions you need to take to improve your results might not be inspiring. Most of the time it means hard work, dedication, and doing the quiet work that you alone can do. It’s the disciplined actions of making the calls, reading the books, hitting the gym.

What should inspire you is the question: “Who do you have to be to produce a better result?” Would the best version of yourself take the actions that you are taking now? Or would they take a very different set of actions to get the outcomes they need?

Would the best version of you rationalize their present results? Or would they own the responsibility for better results? What would the best version of you believe? How would the best version of you act in accord with those beliefs?