Sales Philosophy - What You Believe Determines How Well You Sell

I have a simple sales philosophy: provide value first and make a friend at all costs. Now, what's YOURS? Do you believe every word of it? You should, if you want to be a great salesperson.

EVERY salesperson should have a sales philosophy that they firmly believe in.

It represents your values and defines who you are as a company and as a salesperson. It also affects how you approach your customers and how effective you are at making the sale. "I think I already have a sales philosophy..." You may think you have a good sales philosophy, but chances are it needs improvement. Does it accurately represent YOU? Is it as effective as you think it is? In reality, you probably fall into one of these two categories: A. You've been trained to follow some silly, scripted sales process you barely believe in, and may even hate. B. You've been in sales for what you consider to be a long time and have your "own way" of selling.

A: The Scripted Sales Philosophy

This usually happens to the newest of salespeople. They join the team, get a few scripts and are told to "go get 'em!" Let them get their teeth kicked in a few times, they'll learn. Is that really the best way to train someone in sales? Well, there is something to be said for failing your way to success, but you're disheartening and devaluing your recent sales investment-your new hires. There are very few times when a verbatim script will actively engage another human being, whether it's a cold call over the phone or in person. People buy from people, not a phony sales script. When your sales philosophy, or the one you are forced to swallow, doesn't match what you believe deep in your heart, you will NOT be a successful salesperson.

B: The Dated Sales Philosophy

So, you've been in sales for a long time and have grown accustomed to your own way of doing things, but is your method still working? Or has it gathered dust and lost its meaning, edge and effectiveness? Maybe you're stuck in your habits, or perhaps you're anxious about trying something completely new. Whatever your reason for sticking with this method, it's time to realize that this reality won't bring you the sales results that you want. Your numbers could be better if you let go of your excuses and old ways. Start with a new sales philosophy!

How do I develop a sales philosophy?

The key to developing a great sales philosophy depends on you and your individual values. The most important thing about is that you make sure it is completely YOURS. First, however, you must identify your company's unique sales philosophy: what it wants its customers to think about the company, the products and the people. Then you need to consider what YOUR personal sales philosophy is. What YOU want your customers to think about you, the products you have chosen to represent, and the company you have chosen to work for. There will often be some discrepancies between these two philosophies, but learning to work your own personal sales philosophy within your company is the key to success. Using a sales philosophy that is not in line with your own values will only leave you frustrated with lackluster results.

So stop using trained scripts and old habits that no longer represent you and what you have to offer as a salesperson! Identifying your unique sales philosophy and harnessing the power of its authenticity will give you the enthusiasm to achieve the results you desire! Your customers will see your self-confidence and trust coming to you for their needs. If you truly believe in your sales philosophy, your company and your product, they will, too!

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Review of Rawls's "Lectures on the History of Political Philosophy"

Review article by Michael L. Frazer (Harvard):

The Modest Professor: Interpretive Charity and Interpretive Humility in John Rawls’s Lectures on the History of Political Philosophy [pdf]
(Published in "The European Journal of Political Theory" vol. 9. no. 2, 2010).

Excerpt:
"Given the extraordinary level of his philosophical achievements, John Rawls was by all accounts a remarkably modest man. Those who knew him personally recall Rawls’s humil­ity as perhaps his most characteristic trait. [....] Steven B. Smith has even argued that Rawls’s "very modesty and lack of speculative curiosity are what exclude him from the ranks of the great philosophers". [....] This essay will focus, not on the role that Rawls’s modesty played in the presentation of his own ideas, but on the role it plays in his interpretations of the other canonical texts under examination in his Lectures on the History of Political Philosophy. It argues that the personal virtue of humility stands in a complicated relationship with the preeminent hermeneutic virtue of interpretive charity: the principle (which Rawls repeatedly, explicitly endorses throughout his Lectures) that a text must always be read in its intellectually strongest form. Sometimes, interpretive charity is taken to imply that a text ought merely to be read in its most consistent form. Yet while this approach has the benefit of charitably reconstructing a text’s meaning without appeal to any standards outside the work itself, mere consistency is neither necessary nor sufficient for philosophical excellence."

Michael L. Frazer is Assistant Professor at the Department of Government, Harvard University. He is the author of "The Enlightenment of Sympathy: Justice and the Moral Sentiments in the Eighteenth Century and Today" (Oxford University Press, 2010).

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Neues Buch über Richard Rorty

Pragmatismus als Kulturpolitik
Beiträge zum Werk Richard Rortys

Hrsg. von Alexander Gröschner & Mike Sandbothe

(Suhrkamp Verlag, 2011)

252 Seiten



Kurzbeschreibung

Richard Rorty (1931–2007) gehört zu den prägenden Denkern des 20. Jahrhunderts, hat einflußreiche Beiträge zur Auflösung der Grundprobleme der modernen Philosophie geleistet und dem Begriff des Pragmatismus eine kulturpolitische Bedeutung gegeben. Der Band versammelt namhafte Wegbegleiter Rortys sowie international renommierte Philosophen und Kulturwissenschaftler, die Rortys intellektuelle Entwicklung nachzeichnen und zeigen, wie lebensnah Philosophie sein kann, wenn sie sich kulturpolitisch versteht. Dabei geht es auch um aktuelle Themen wie das Verhältnis zur Natur, den respektvollen Umgang mit Kindern und Fragen der Staatsangehörigkeit, der Interkulturalität und der Körperlichkeit. Mit Beiträgen u. a. von Barry Allen, Robert Brandom, Jürgen Habermas, Claus Leggewie, Alasdair MacIntyre, Saskia Sassen und Richard Shusterman.

Inhalt (pdf)

Alexander Gröschner und Mike Sandbothe
Einleitung

I. Rortys Denkweg

Robert Brandom
Ein Gedankenbogen

Jürgen Habermas
»…And to define America, her athletic democracy«.
(in English here).

Alasdair MacIntyre
Richard Rortys Vermächtnis

Richard Bernstein
Richard Rortys tiefer Humanismus

Bjørn Torgrim Ramberg
Um seiner eigenen Generation willen

II. Pragmatismus als Kulturpolitik

Richard Shusterman
Pragmatismus und Kulturpolitik
[in English here]

Barry Allen
Die Kulturpolitik nichtmenschlicher Dinge

Esa Saarinen
Freundlichkeit gegenüber Babys und andere radikale Ideen in Rortys antizynischer Philosophie

Saskia Sassen
Die Transformation der Staatsbürgerschaft und Rortys Konzept eines kosmopolitischen Patriotismus

Claus Leggewie und Dariuš Zifonun
Was heißt Interkulturalität?

Alexander Gröschner ist wissenschaftlicher Assistent an der TUM School of Education der Technischen Universität München.

Mike Sandbothe ist freier Autor und kulturpolitischer Berater in Hamburg.

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New issue of "Public Reason"

A new issue of the online journal "Public Reason" (Vol. 2, No 2) is available. It includes

Modus Vivendi, Consensus, and (Realist) Liberal Legitimacy
Enzo Rossi (University of Wales)

“Scales of Justice” and the Challenges of Global Governmentality
Ina Kerner (Humboldt University of Berlin)

The Basis of Universal Liberal Principles in Nussbaum’s Political Philosophy
Matthias Katzer (University of Siegen)

Dussel’s Critique of Discourse Ethics as Critique of Ideology
Asger Sørensen (University of Aarhus)

Amartya Sen, The Idea of Justice (pdf)
Reviewed by Stefan Bird-Pollan (University of Kentucky)

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Mendieta on Habermas's forthcoming book on religion

In a new essay on Habermas's thoughts on "Rationalization, modernity and secularization", Eduardo Mendieta gives us some information about Habermas's forthcoming book on religion:

"In autumn 2008, Habermas gave a series of lectures at Yale, which were followed the next autumn by another set of lectures, and a seminar at Stony Brook University on "Political Theology". That same autumn a workshop was organized on Habermas's recent work on religion for which he made available several large manuscripts of what appears to be the working draft for a book on religion. The workshop yielded a large manuscript of essays engaging Habermas's comprehensive rethinking of some of his earlier ideas and formulations on religion. One of the centrepieces of this working draft is a critique of modernization theory that links social progress to secularization. Here Habermas aims to show why secularization theory has been mistaken on several accounts and why we must attenuate and revise some of its major claims. At the very least if we are to hold on to the basic claims of modernization theory, we must uncouple them from strong "secularist" assumptions.This critique of modernization theory is matched by a turn towards the latest work on anthropology, ethnography and archeology that is theorizing the relationship between ritual, the emergence of mythological narratives and the evolution of human mind. These is also a long chapter on the Axial Age and the simultaneous emergence of universal, monotheistic religions and world-transcending philosophical perspectives."

Eduardo Mendieta's essay is published in Barbara Fultner (ed): Jürgen Habermas - Key Concepts (Acumen, 2011), pp. 222-238. See my post on the book here.

Eduardo Mendieta is Professor of Philosophy at the State University of New York, Stony Brook. In 2002, he edited Jürgen Habermas's "Religion and Rationality. Essays on Reason, God, and Modernity" (MIT Press & Polity Press, 2002), which includes Mendieta's famous interview with Habermas: "A Conversation About God and the World" from 1999. Later this year a new book on "Habermas and Religion" will come out on Polity Press, edited by Craig Calhoun, Eduardo Mendieta and Jonathan vanAnwerpen.

Also see Mendieta's interview with Jürgen Habermas "A Postsecular World Society?" (2009) [pdf]

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