Mindful Sales Performance

Sales and account management are high-performance disciplines that require self-and-situational awareness and advanced interpersonal skills. The world’s most accomplished entrepreneurs and business leaders - including the CEOs at 7 of the 10 most valuable companies in the world - now practice mindfulness meditation. Why? Because it is a powerful force-multiplier for the personal and relationship skills that drive elite performance - and effective sales.

Course Overview

Mindful Sales Performance teaches the mental and emotional skills that top sales and professionals apply to build strong relationships, close more sales, and create delighted, loyal clients.

Mindfulness trains calm awareness, self-confidence, and self-control - and the ability to engage completely with empathy, interest, and rapport. Science has now proven that these important traits are, in fact, trainable skills - and that mindfulness is the neural process that develops and strengthens them.

Each week’s lesson and daily practices work together to strengthen an important sales capability or solve a specific sales challenge.

Course Contents

The Mindful Sales Performance course includes:

• A live 90-minute master class
• Pre-and-post course assessment
• 8 weekly self-study lessons
• 8 weekly progress exams
• 8 week series of daily video practices
• 8 optional coaching sessions
• A comprehensive final exam
• Membership access to IOM research, information, and tools
• Unlimited 24/7 phone, text, chat, and email support

Graduates Earn:

• IOM-MSP Certificate
• IOM-MSP Digital Badge
• Free annual recertification
• SHRM and HRCI recertification credits

Course Outline

Week 1 - Introduction to Mindfulness

Mindfulness is a process of neural training that helps us intentionally change our mindsets and behaviors. This class is a comprehensive introduction to the nature, hands-on practice, outcomes, and application of science-based mindfulness.

You will learn:

• The neuroscience, biology, and psychology of mindfulness, including research outcomes in health and wellbeing, cognitive performance, and emotional intelligence.
• The essential practices of mindfulness: Present Awareness, Breath Control, Breath Meditation, Visualization, and Insight Meditation - and how to apply them to optimize your physical, mental, and emotional states.
• The foundational attitudes of mindfulness: Non-judgment, Patience, Beginner’s Mind, Trust, Non-Striving, Acceptance, and Letting Go - and how to apply them to intentionally solve real problems in the real world.

Week 2 - Stress and Anxiety

Effective sales performance requires high-performing mental and emotional skills - and nothing kills performance like chronic stress. This class explores mindfulness strategies for reducing our negativity, anxiety, and worries - and introduces practices that restore our awareness, energy, and motivation.

You will learn:

• To recognize the onset of negative states and the simplest and most effective ways to intercept and diminish them
• To apply mindfulness to shift perspective and reframe regret and rumination in the past, self-critical and depressive thinking in the present - and worry and catastrophic thinking in the future
• Mindfulness practices to reduce chronic stress and illness, and to increase mental and emotional strength

Week 3 - Focus and Attention Control

Sales and customer service call for laser-sharp focus, yet it's getting harder and harder to simply stay on task. This class explores practices that strengthen the brain networks associated with focus, attention control, and concentration.

You will learn:

• The sources and science of information overload, digital distraction and attention deficit
• How mindfulness can be applied to suppress distraction, and increase focus
• Mindfulness practices that strengthen our abilities to direct and sustain attention

Week 4 - Change and Uncertainty

Our brains are wired to fear change and loathe uncertainty. How can we overcome our own discomfort, while helping our prospects and clients focus, listen and buy? This class explores mindfulness strategies for creating calm and exerting influence amid volatile change and uncertainty.

You will learn:

• How change triggers fear circuits in the brain that can hijack our emotional state - and how to disarm them
• How mindfulness can help us navigate successfully from the known and familiar to an uncertain future state
• Mindfulness practices that help us accept the inevitability of uncertainty, and embrace change with an open and curious mind

Week 5 - Trust and Influence

Effective sales professionals create trust and confidence through observable acts of integrity, fairness, good judgment, and unselfish behaviors - all functions of character and consistency that flow from positive values and beliefs. This class explores practices that strengthen the behavioral traits that encourage trust.

You will learn:

• The fundamentals of self-awareness and authenticity
• How to apply mindfulness to strengthen personal ethics, integrity, and trustworthiness
• Mindfulness practices to develop the traits that inspire trust, confidence, and loyalty

Week 6 - Relationship Management

Science has proven that self-awareness, empathy, and compassion aren't immutable traits - they are trainable skills, that can be intentionally developed through neural exercise. This class examines the visceral power of social and emotional intelligence, and how to strengthen these foundational interpersonal capabilities.

You will learn:

• The framework and competencies that comprise social and emotional intelligence
• How to use mindfulness to strengthen self-and-social-awareness, empathy, and communication
• Mindfulness practices for care, kindness, and compassionate behaviors

Week 7 - Negotiation and Persuasion

Mindfulness enables us to listen deeply and consciously - to pay close attention to aural tone, non-verbal cues, and body language - to connect with our intuition - and to create rapport. This class introduces strategies and practices for strengthening attunement, mirroring, pacing, and other important negotiation and persuasion methods.

You will learn:

• How to connect closely and cooperatively with others
• How to conduct an articulate and productive dialogue
• Mindfulness practices that increase intuition, rapport, and influence with prospects and clients

Week 8 - Mental Toughness, Grit, and Resilience

Sales roles are high-pressure and can be frustrating, discouraging, and exhausting. But mindfulness dampens the negativity that saps our energy, reduces our stress, anxiety, and worry - and gives us the mental strength to cope with difficult situations and bounce back from adversity. This class explores practices that build our emotional stability and resilience.

You will learn:

• The principles of energy management
• How mindfulness connects us to stress and the state of flow
• Mindfulness practices for mental toughness, grit and resilience