Enthusiasm is Your Key to Success in Sales!

The single-most powerful quality of a master salesman is enthusiasm. Enthusiasm will help deliver to you anything that you want in life. What is the one quality or personality characteristic that offers the most leverage or benefit in any endeavor? Enthusiasm. People often label enthusiasm in negative terms such as artificial, hysteria, or phony. We tend to curb our enthusiasm because it's been programmed out of us to some extent, but we can get it back!

What is enthusiasm?

Enthusiasm is an outward reflection of an inner glow. The word comes from a Greek word enthusiasmos, which means "God within." If we don't have enthusiasm, it's because we've blocked it. Emotion spells out self-confidence in letters 10-feet high.

Enthusiasm is emotion management. In other words, enthusiasm is the ability to control the emotional climate of any situation you're in. This is key in sales, because emotion management is a projection of your personality power.

What do you need to be enthusiastic? To be enthusiastic about something, you have to be interested, knowledgeable, and have belief. It would be hard to be enthusiastic if these three elements did not exist.

Although in the United States we have the greatest school system in the world, it has unfortunately educated out of us some of our natural enthusiasm, emotion, and feelings. Often the more professional, higher educated, and sophisticated you become, the less you feel the right to act out whatever you feel. You become more reserved, and, consequently, less enthusiastic.

What can enthusiasm do for you? Enthusiasm creates confidence. It cries out, "I've got what it takes!" Your sales prospect can see it in your eyes and feel it in your handshake. Enthusiasm is the advance man that paves the way and sets the stage for your ideas. It is the way you squeeze the trigger on other people's emotions.

Let's take a closer look at enthusiasm as it relates to sales. Successful salespeople sell themselves to people. Salespeople are word merchants; they paint pictures with words. The three E's are key: excitement, emotion, and enthusiasm. Being enthusiastic makes your prospective customer want to help you. They become your ambassadors by telling other people how great you are.

Every individual has the capability to become an outstanding salesperson, all you have to do is see yourself as one. You've probably heard the expression, "Seeing is believing." However, I believe the opposite is true. You see when you believe. That's the law of attraction. A positive thought attracts the positive. In turn, enthusiasm attracts enthusiasm.

"I am a human transmitter. I transmit enthusiastic confidence," is an excellent affirmation for a salesperson. What would happen if you transmitted enthusiasm everywhere you went? Enthusiasm gives evidence that you're sure of yourself and what you are doing. It helps the prospect to feel secure.

There is nothing as effective in sales as enthusiasm. The one predominant characteristic of all the successful people I've ever met, seen, or studied - the one common denominator - is enthusiastic confidence. Someone who has enthusiastic confidence has a healthy self-image. It's the person who knows where he stands, knows where he is going, and is motivated by the end result.

In sales, we must first create a state of mind or a customer mood that's favorable to our idea. Remember, customers buy personalities and ideas, not just products. Enthusiasm also has psychological effects on your prospect. It convinces them without explanation that you are happy and prosperous in what you are doing. And, of course, everybody likes to do business with a winner. Your prospect thinks, "I can be happy and prosperous just like this guy. I want what he's selling!" Enthusiastic confidence is powerful and contagious.