February is the Month of Romance. Love Yourself?
Valentine’s Day is your annual Hallmark reminder to show love, and the emotion attached to it, to your mate (or if you dont have one, its the reminder that you dont have one).
Its difficult to walk through the mall in February without seeing hearts everywhere. Retailers know how to appeal to your emotion. They know how to get you to think and buy emotionally. By seeing hearts, you think of someone you love your partner, your mom or dad, your child, your friend, your grandma, your grandpa, even yourself. And in many cases, you also think of what you can (have to) buy to show them your love.
You know the rule: The sale is made emotionally, then justified logically. Jeffrey Gitomer
So lets use Valentines Day as a lesson. Whats love and emotion got to do with sales, success, career, and life?
Here are the elements that make love and emotion the fulcrum point of success for 12 months a year, not just one day in February:
1. Love Your Self FIRST.This seems obvious, but many people dont love themselves enough, let alone first. You? Loving yourself means taking care of yourself, recognizing your achievements and believing in yourself. Work out, eat right, invest in yourself, make time for you and your own thoughts. If you take care of yourself first, then you will be better able to help others. (the oxygen mask on the airplane theory take yours FIRST, THEN help others).
Self-love leads to self-confidence, and self-belief. And its contagious. Look in the mirror. Give yourself some love in the morning. Tell yourself youre the greatest and youre gonna have a great day. Imagine how this will affect your attitude if you try it once. Imagine how this will affect you if you do it daily.
In Paris, lovers used to go to Pont des Artes, a famous bridge known for lovers locks (Side note: they had to remove the locks after they weighed down the bridge, but there are other lock bridges if youre in the market). Theyd bring a padlock, attach it to the bridge and throw away the key to symbolize unbreakable love. But heres the question: Whats your unbreakable love for yourself?
And how do you show your self-love? The first thing I do when I close a big sale is I thank my customer. Then I do a little happy dance in the mirror, and I buy myself a present. Something I normally wouldnt go out and buy myself, but something that I can look at, and remember that feeling of achievement. What do you do when you close a big sale? How do you recognize yourself? How do you show yourself love?
I have reminders of my achievements all over and the credit card bills to prove it. Sometimes I buy art thats meaningful, sometimes its something that reminds me of the customer, sometimes its an inspirational book. I create an environment of love love for myself, love for the sale, love for my customers, and love for my business. Thats the emotion of the after-sale.
They sense who you are, way beyond your presentation. Thats the emotional part the unspoken part.
The rest of the list seems obvious but it requires serious self evaluation and reality thinking:
2. Love Your Company. What do you love about it? If you dont love it, why will others? You need to love it deep enough to transfer your love and belief and passion to your prospect.
3. Love Your Product. If you dont love what youre selling, the customer has no chance of loving what youre selling. And as a result, they aint gonna buy it. You need to love your product or service enough that you transfer that love to your prospect.
4. Love Your Job. From the earliest times, people have said this is an imperative. Dont just take my word for itHere are some JOB-LOVE quotes that may inspire you to love yourself more:
Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.
–Confucius
Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do.
–Steve Jobs
You can only become truly accomplished at something you love. Dont make money your goal. Instead pursue the things you love doing and then do them so well that people cant take their eyes off of you.
–Maya Angelou
There comes a time when you ought to start doing what you want. Take a job that you love. You will jump out of bed in the morning. I think you are out of your mind if you keep taking jobs that you dont like because you think it will look good on your resume. Isnt that a little like saving up sex for your old age?
–Warren Buffet
I feel sorry for the person who can’t get genuinely excited about his work. Not only will he never be satisfied, but he will never achieve anything worthwhile.
–Walter Chrysler
The bottom line: LOVE WHAT YOU DO, DO WHAT YOU LOVE.
If you dont love what youre doing, you wont be BEST at it.
If you dont love what you do, the customer will see right through it and wont wanna buy from you.
If you dont love what you do, figure out if there is a way to love it, and if not, find the door.
Do something you are passionate about.
LOVE IDEA: People are Instagramming couple-love pictures. Ever think to Instragram job-love pictures? Or product-love pictures? Or even customer-love pictures? #loveit enough that you wanna post it.
LOVE REALITY: People (you included) buy for emotional reasons. And in order to get them to buy from YOU, you must uncover their emotional reasons for purchase. Their emotional reason behind the sale. Their why.
Flowers die, but people buy.
On Valentine’s Day, people are willing to buy $50 flowers for $150 that will last for less than a week, just to show their mate they love them. Seriously? It doesnt make sense, but it doesnt matter. Buyers justify why they need to purchase the flowers, and millions of dollars get spent on overpriced flowers. When emotion takes over, people do anything/everything to justify their emotional decision.
Smell the roses, even when there arent any. For the love of sales and yourself, plant your own internal rose garden and youll be making more sales, achieving more success, and living a happier life.
