In the
world-championship leagues of competitive sports, no serious top athlete would
even dream of preparing for an important event without the use of specialized
mental training techniques. Peak performers in sports appreciate the
competitive edge they get from putting their mind to work first.
But what top athletes
regard as a key ingredient of successful competition, many business executives
and entrepreneurs seem to view as a taboo topic. It always amazes me to see how
business executives still shy away from the use of mental training techniques even
when faced with complex, intercultural sales negotiations, preferring to
default to their traditional way of doing things instead.
What the most
successful sports stars have learned to appreciate as a key ingredient of their
ability to produce peak performance in the critical moment of truth, many
business professionals still seem to view as a bunch of voodoo.
When I started to
investigate exactly why there was so much resistance against using these
techniques, a common theme started to emerge:
Many of the people I talked
with had actually tried mental strategizing, rehearsal and visualization techniques,
but didn’t get the desired results, so they decided that mental training was
just a waste of time.
When I asked them to
explain to me exactly what visualization techniques they had used, it quickly
became obvious why they had failed to experience the desired results.
They had been applying
what we call flight of fancy visualization
processes, instead of no doubt
strategies.
In order to shift from fanciful visualization towards a state in which
we fully expect to receive the successful results we want to achieve in a sales
or business negotiation, we must first transform the desired outcome into a
simple choice we make with clear, unwavering intention.
There are many things in life that we simply choose, and once we have
made our decision, we know beyond the shadow of a doubt, that the desired result
is on its way to us. It is like turning on your coffee machine in the morning,
filling it up with fresh water and coffee beans, positioning your cup or mug in
the right place, pressing the right button, and hey presto – out comes your
perfect espresso, latte macchiato, cappuccino, or whatever type of coffee you
prefer.
As long as you go through the right steps, in the right sequence, and
make sure that all of the specific requirements are met, you should be pretty sure
to get the desired result. That is what we call a no doubt thought strategy.
But how do I actually
go about developing such a strategy for my upcoming negotiation, you may ask?
In our coaching
practice, we usually guide our clients through the following 5-step process:
1. To start with, we elicit our client’s individual
thought strategy and document it as a script, step-by-step, for situations in
which they engage in an activity with NO doubt in their mind about their
ability to create a totally successful outcome.
2. Then we focus on the upcoming sales meeting or
business negotiation they want to prepare for, using the SCORE timeline method,
and developing a very precise definition of the desired outcome. In doing so we
don’t just create SMART objectives, in addition we make sure that we have
articulated and understood the underlying personal motives, as well as the
business drivers, and their respective hierarchy. And finally we strategize
with our client on ways to create a WOW factor that would take the resulting
outcome to a significantly higher level than any win-win deal they would
normally hope to achieve!
3. We then walk through their typical way of preparing
for such a negotiation and elicit all of the relevant elements of their mental
thought strategy, or their default script for such situations (usually this
includes many flight of fancy elements).
4. The comparison of their thought processes for the upcoming
negotiation with their no doubt
strategies enables us to conduct a quick gap analysis to discern any major
differences and understand better why past attempts at using mental training
failed.
5. And finally we change the thought strategy and script
for the upcoming negotiation, so that it is perfectly in line with the individual client’s no doubt strategy,
including all of the sensory bells, whistles and emotions to render it credible
to his or her subconscious mind. We strongly suggest that the client should go
through the resulting visualization script at least two or three times with us at
the end of the coaching session, followed by repeating the mental training
exercise for 5 – 10 minutes per day for at least 3 – 5 days.
Some success gurus say
that practice makes perfect. However, when it comes to mental training, we have
found that if you don’t practice visualization perfectly, you may end up with very
disappointing results.
Learn more about how
you can use advanced mental training techniques to improve the results of your sales
and business negotiations at