Mindfulness is defined as being present and purposeful – within and without.
And while you’ve probably heard it can do wonders for your mental health, you may not know that mindfulness is also a powerful sales tool.
If you’re looking for ways to improve the mental health of your employees and increase sales, you’ve come to the right place.
Here, we’ll take a look at how incorporating mindfulness in the workplace can enhance your business.
Remember that relationships are key
While it can be easy to get wrapped up in the sell, sell, sell mentality, it’s important to keep in mind that, in reality, selling is a journey – not just a single transaction. If your focus is solely on sealing a deal, you may wind up alienating your customers.
Practicing mindfulness in the workplace in the area of relationships allows you to focus on how to best serve your customers, meaning you’ll:
- Understand your customers’ needs
- Be able to resolve their problems; and
- Connect with them on a much more personal level
All while building trust and creating a positive customer experience.
Positive mindset
A salesperson has the power to ignite or extinguish sales. And a huge part of that can be attributed to mindset.
Successful sellers operate from a mindset that:
- Understands why consumers need their product
- Sees themselves as ‘helpers’, rather than salespeople
- Doesn’t fear failure or rejection
- Views customers in a positive light
- Has the customer’s best interest at heart; and
- Understands the need to listen more than they talk
Active listening
Be a good listener. It makes the person who’s speaking to you feel loved, cared for, and worthy of being heard.
Never underestimate the importance of cultivating the skill of being a great listener.
Whether it’s taking the time to hear a coworker’s concerns or the wants and needs of a customer, listening well gives your listener confidence in your ability to meet their needs.
Plus, listening, with the purpose of trying to fully understand what is being said, can save everyone the headache of unnecessary misunderstandings down the road.
The practice of active listening can be as simple as:
- Putting your phone away during meetings
- Maintaining eye contact throughout the conversation
- Keeping a positive facial expression; and
- Adopting an active listening posture, by keeping your arms and legs uncrossed and leaning forward in your chair
Mirroring
Mirroring can be a powerful way to build mindfulness in the workplace – and a powerful sales tool that builds trust between you and your client.
Mirroring is when one person imitates the:
- Gestures
- Speech patterns
- Physical movements
- Energy level: or
- Attitude
… of another.
In sales, mirroring is used to make a quick connection and build trust with a potential customer. And it’s the perfect companion for active listening, as it helps to set your focus on the customer’s needs.
Empathise
Engaging in mindfulness in the workplace enables us to feel empathy for others.
Empathy gives you a deeper insight into your client’s problem and how to solve it, and may arguably top the list when it comes to critical selling skills.
What does the ability to empathise have to do with sales?
We’ve all dealt with the salesperson who thinks they know what’s best for us and dives headlong into their pitch without so much as taking a breath to find out what we actually want. Inevitably we leave the interaction feeling unseen, unheard, and doubtful of our ability to trust.
The best way to show empathy in the workplace is by seeing your customer as a human, not just a potential sale.
Practice active listening and pause before you respond, making sure you are reading the customer’s emotions and needs correctly. Ask questions. You may even want to summarize what they said, repeating it back to ensure understanding.
Then put yourself in their shoes, navigating the sale from your customer-focused perspective.
Meditation
There’s no way around it.
We live in a world of distractions – and it takes its toll on our personal lives and our business and relationships.
That’s why implementing meditation as part of your practice of mindfulness in the workplace can be so beneficial.
Meditation can help to:
- Enhance sales conversations by improving listening skills
- Boost self-control
- Reduce stress by decreasing the amount of cortisol our bodies produce
- Improve mental resilience; and
- Increase emotional reaction times by improving critical thinking
Practising mindfulness in the workplace: a win-win for employees, customers, and sales
Let’s face it.
The workplace can be a place of long days filled with plenty of pressure and deadlines.
Taking the time to focus on mindfulness in the workplace can improve the mental health of employees and create better employee-employee relationships – all while simultaneously enhancing customer experience and sales.
Adam Mulligan did his degree in psychology at the University of Hertfordshire. He is interested in mental health, wellness, and lifestyle.
