The book title Selling with Consciousness itself spurs a sense of curiosity as the word consciousness is not often associated with selling. One might think the word, “consciousness” is superfluous. After all, isn’t selling a conscious effort?
This is where Olivia Lee’s book stands out from the many other books written about selling. Olivia Lee is not your normal sales lady thriving on pushing her products in the marketplace, instead she uses the Selling With Consciousness method.
The approach she used in Selling with Consciousness has won her a string of awards both for her company as well as for herself amongst which includes the following.
- Industry Icon Award 2021 by IR Academy Asia Awards
- McMillan Woods Global Awards 2019
- The Star Outstanding Business Award (SOBA) 2019
- ASEAN Outstanding Business Award 2019-RFID Security Excellence Award
- Innovative Excellence Award 2019
- Business Dynamism Award 2017
- Selangor International Business Summit 2017 – Business Excellence and Innovation Award
- The Start Outstanding Business Award(SOBA) 2016
- The Brandlaureate SMEs BestBrands Award – 2016-2017 Signature Award
- SIRM Quality Award 2013
- FMM (Federation Malaysia Manufacturers) Excellence Award 2012 – Manufacturer of the Year
In her book, she explained that her sharing of these numerous awards is not to impress the readers but to impress upon them the effective principles of conscious selling that have enabled her to become a top salesperson in her industry – the casino industry where she sells software and security seals.
She hopes that her sharing of her many years of valuable sales experience can inspire those sales professionals to reach the top in their sales career too. She pointed out that even though the selling field is indeed very challenging, however, there is a better and more effective way to excel.
This is why she wrote this book to share her secrets. In the years of working with all kinds of people from the ground up to the level of founders and top leaders, she had accumulated vast experience and insights regarding the effectiveness of selling in different situations.
She had faced sales rejections and failures. She had come from the depths of despair to achieve top sales in her industry. She explained that she had personally seen salespeople, including professionals who were highly educated and qualified, yet failed to make the grade as top salespeople.
While there are many reasons, here are some of the more poignant ones:
- They are not conscious of their weaknesses or flaws
- They are task-driven instead of customer-oriented
- Their approach is too product-oriented, losing the awareness of the importance of relationship selling
- They are complacent and are not up to date on industry trends and their competitors’ strategies and their strengths
- They are too inward-looking, focusing on internal issues rather than the industry
- They carry too many worries and negativity, thus blocking their effectiveness in selling
Selling with consciousness is the awareness of whatever is happening during the entire selling process from prospecting, researching, preparation, strategizing, presentation, handling objections, closing, and the sales follow-up. The effectiveness of selling comes from moments of total presence, free from the clutter of the mind.
As recommended in her book for sales to be effective, there should be an integration of three critical components that can help achieve a greater sense of selling with consciousness to enable one to be totally present throughout the entire sales process.
The book shares a useful framework for tapping into selling with consciousness as shown below:
Selling With Consciousness Framework
The book highlighted that one’s preoccupation with worries about the present as well as the future can affect one’s effectiveness in sales and hence the outcome. Some examples of distractive thoughts often go like these:
- What if I said the wrong thing and mess up my presentation?
- What if I lose this sale and it would be difficult to get another client with such big potential?
- What if the potential client asked me some critical questions and I could not answer them?
Thus to stay on top of one’s field, what is needed is to disengage our thoughts from the distractions of our current worries or concerns about the past and focus on what is at the present moment.
Of course, there is no substitute for the solid fundamentals of the business or work if one is to do well in one’s field. One would need to acquire whatever knowledge and skills that are needed to excel and succeed. Olivia cited the example of one of her earlier jobs where she started as a remisier she had to familiarize herself with all the rules and regulations on all kinds of securities and learned every nitty-gritty of the trade and be updated on developments in specific companies and industries.
She developed her knowledge and skills as a dealer’s representative to the level where at one point she was buying and selling shares for prominent business clients with a portfolio of over RM100 million.
The final component that helps one to focus on the present is embracing positivity which is defined in the book as the engagement of positive thinking, feeling, and actions aligned to a positive outcome. As shared by Olivia, a sense of confidence, calmness, enthusiasm, energy, and aliveness are critical to ensure the best outcome. Such an atmosphere cannot come from a place of negativity. A salesperson must indeed embrace this positivity if he or she wants to succeed.
In essence through the three components of disengaging from the distraction of thoughts, unleashing knowledge and skills, and embracing positivity, one can become totally present and conscious of the whole selling process. One becomes conscious of customer needs, company products, competitors, the company, suppliers, the industries, and of course oneself.
The book also touches on the techniques of meditation in embracing consciousness to achieve inner peace and calm that enables one to tap into one’s inner source of “knowingness” and excel in whatever one does including sales presentation and closing sales.
It is through this experience of total consciousness; a salesperson becomes very focused and effective and hence successful in selling. Read this book and you too can rise up to achieve top sales in your industry, as you begin to understand the power of selling with consciousness.
Also read: A Book Review: You Too Can Excel
About the Reviewer
Dr Victor SL Tan is the Managing Director of KL Strategic Change Consulting Group and the author of 14 books. His passion is in consulting, training and writing. For more information contact him at 0123903168 or email him at victorsltan@klscc.com
