Years ago I once read that a sale doesn't happen until there is a transfer of energy from one party to another party. I believe this to be 100 percent true.  Your customer won't buy from you unless they believe they or their company is going to benefit in some way. The prospect of that happening is exciting to them. The enthusiasm you feel about your solution is transferred to your customer and the deal is closed.

Now, this transfer of positive energy is almost never going to happen if you don't believe in what you are selling. You can go present your solution to the customer, talk about how wonderful it is and what value it will bring, but if you don't truly believe what you are saying, your customers will always pick up on that unspoken message. No matter how hard you try, you cannot fake it. It's human nature that our hidden feelings about our ideas on something will ultimately betray our spoken word.

Imagine this scenario. You are in a presentation with a new prospect. This is a huge opportunity for you. You team has spent hours designing the optimal solution for your customer. It's a full room. Your boss is there. The CEO of your customer is there, but you are feeling conflicted. The company you work for has had serious quality issues during the past year and the resolution experience has not been good for customers. You've had multiple complaints and some recent project experiences have gone horribly bad.

As you start the presentation, you feel a slight sweat begin on your brow. Even as you smile and speak about the virtues of the proposed solution, you feel your anxiety levels rise as you imagine the customer support issues you will be forced to face if the deal closes. For the most part, you say and do all the right things during the presentation, but something is off and the room feels it. Follow-up calls with the customer never seem to progress very far, and eventually, you learn that the customer has elected to go with another vendor. Of course of you are disappointed but part of you also feels like the  customer made the right decision.

If the previous paragraph even feels remotely familiar, you are probably in a belief-limiting sales role. Part of the joy in working in sales is the ability to truly make a difference to other people with your proposed service or product. If you don't believe you will make a positive impact, then get out of that role and find something you do believe in. Your ability to close the deal hinges on your positive energy which is reliant your belief system.

Optimal sales roles reside within companies with excellent product quality, outstanding customer support reputations and nimble distribution capabilities. These attributes speak volumes about the integrity of a company and, most likely, about the professionalism of the sale teams representing them.  Sales peoples thrive within these environments as they feel confident they can deliver as promised and truly believe they can make a difference with the solutions they propose. The enthusiasm is contagious.

At Cisco, we understand the importance of maintaining sales confidence. By partnering with us, you can feel confident you are representing best in class products and services with industry leading partner support. With the Partner Plus program, we take that support even further through enhanced virtual engineering support, prioritized leads, enablement and training, robust incentives and partner sales rep rewards. Partners earn more benefits as they grow with Cisco. As they grow with Cisco, so do their skills and confidence levels. This translates into more closed deals and incremental business. We're excited about Partner Plus. Let us share the excitement with you. Learn more about Cisco Partner Plus at www.cisco.com/go/partnerplus. Good selling!