Mindfulness for Sales?

I have this on and off relationship with Meditation, NLP and Yoga through the years. An extension of this is the practice of visualization. Many of us will consider this for sports and have at one time practiced the technique of visualizing our next golf shot from behind the ball. Of course, we can argue the success of this technique for ourselves, but most professionals do practice the technique.

If it works for sports, why would it not work for sales? Would it be a crazy practice to sit in the car and just visualize the outcome of the sales call? Would it help rehearsing the problems that may be encountered or the people you might see during the call? There is an easier and more beneficial practice that could occur. It is the act of mindfulness or unloading. If we just take a break to rid ourselves of everything going on around us and participate in the presence – would that make us more effective?

When is the last time you did absolutely nothing for 10 whole minutes? Not texting, talking or even thinking? Mindfulness expert Andy Puddicombe describes the transformative power of doing just that: Refreshing your mind for 10 minutes a day, simply by being mindful and experiencing the present moment. (No need for incense or sitting in strange positions.)

Jose Silva is the person that may be best known for bringing meditation to the western culture or at least North America. He also is one of the few that has taken this type of material and applied to the sales arena. His book, Sales Power the Silva Mind Method for Sales Professionals, provides an outline for the process. It is somewhat dated material but I do enjoy the Silva Intuition System. This program has been updated by his daughter Laura Silva and provides an excellent introduction to meditation. If you try it, let me know your results.