How having an Attitude of Gratitude can change your sales team

The stories that touch our hearts are those of individuals or teams who have overcome great adversity. What do those heroic figures all have in common? They are all positive people who believed they could overcome and they all share an attitude of gratitude.

Positive people thrive—even when they don’t.  These folks understand that the only true failure is when one quits or gives up. Donald Trump once said, “Sometimes in losing the battle, you find a new way to win the war.”

As sales and company leaders, it is our job to not only talk the talk, but to walk the walk. Are you exemplifying an attitude of gratitude? Here are some simple ways you can lead by example, and in doing so, change the environment and perhaps even the culture of your sales team.

1. Thank everyone when you see him or her put forth honest efforts into the activities that lead to results. Don’t just wait for the results or you may never have the opportunity. Rewarding right behaviors, even small ones, leads to great results.
2. Start every sales meeting by doing a “round robin” to give team members the opportunity to share successes and focus on what went right this week, rather than what went wrong. “You are what you think,” right? It stands to reason when we focus on the positive, you will start to see a more empowered team. Celebrate them for taking chances and thinking outside the box, and of course, thank them for their participation.
3. When things don’t go according to plan, use that as a teachable moment. Remember to focus on the event or the behavior and not the person. By de-personalizing, you set the stage for growth. We can all learn valuable lessons from a lost sale, an unhappy customer, marketing or outreach programs that didn’t yield the expected results, but we can’t learn from them if we don’t explore them together to figure out what the lesson is and how we benefit going forward.
4. Remember to include other departments within your company, as you are being grateful. Without the support of administration, accounting, purchasing, operations, customer service, and construction building a fantastic product, your sales team would have nothing to sell. Enlist your sales team to figure out new ways to show their appreciation to the hard working folks in each of these departments.
5. Share your Attitude of Gratitude goals with your company leadership. Ask them to participate and to help hold you and your team accountable. Positive accountability is what keeps us on task to ensure success.

By taking these simple steps to highlight and focus on positivity, the company focus then becomes that of “CAN-DO!”  Either those who are only comfortable with negativity will have a change-of-heart, or perhaps they will decide to take their negativity elsewhere. A positive company is a healthy company, where growth, prosperity, and success are celebrated. Let’s make Thanksgiving a way of doing business all year long, despite market conditions, and by doing so, I believe we will thrive.

Kimberly Mackey, REALTOR®, is the founder of New Homes Solutions, Inc., and has been called a rising star in the Homebuilder World for her reputation as someone with real world SOLUTIONS in a competitive and rapidly changing sales environment–SOLUTIONS like “50 Sales per Year before Any Walk-in Traffic”. She is a published author of many Sales and Leadership articles and a keynote speaker with over a decade and a half of experience as an executive in the residential home building and real estate industry.  She has experience working with Builders and Developers of all sizes –from the local/regional companies to the publicly traded nationals.  She also works with Brokers from across the country and is the architect and director of the highly successful Preferred Builder Partnership program with Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Florida Properties Group, where she has increased new home builder sales by over 200%.

For more information, or to book Kimberly for your next event, visit www.NewHomesSolutions.com, or visit Mackey at LinkedIn, www.linkedin.com/in/kimberlymackey; Twitter, www.twitter.com/KimberlyDMackey; and Facebook, www.facebook.com/NewHomesSolutions.