You can't build anything without a solid foundation. The 'A' is for attitude - the foundation of all successful sales people. Attitude is the "advance man" of our true selves. Its roots are inward, based on past experiences, but its fruit is outward. It is our best friend, or our worst enemy.

It is more honest and more consistent than our words. It is a thing, which draws people to us, or repels us. It is never content until it is expressed. It is the librarian of our past, the speaker of our present, and the prophet of our future. Yet, your attitude is under whose control?

1. Your attitude is 100 per cent under your control! There are a lot of things in life that we have no control over. For example, there is absolutely nothing we could do about how prospects react to us or our products and services. All we could do is control the way we react. Yet, so many sales people let others' reactions determine their outlook for the day. Think about it, are you, as a sales professional, positive, upbeat and driven on a bad day as you would be on a highly successful day?

How do you as a sales professional, react to negativity? Do you as a sales person walk away discouraged and complain about it or do you take control and stay focussed? Success is based on good judgement and good judgement is based on experience and the only way one can gain experience is through failure. Sales professionals, like all other professions, have to fail often to succeed once. This is all about attitude.

How you react, how you think, what you say to yourself or what you believe about yourself is all under your control and comes out in your attitude. You, as a professional sales person, must first realise that your attitude is 100 per cent under your control and learn to reflect, confirm and take hold of your attitude. You must take hold of your attitude towards yourself, overcome fear and be able to deal with sales rejection in order to increase your sales productivity while saving time and money.

2. What is your attitude towards your organisation, its team players and products and services? As a sales professional, do you have an owner's mentality? If so, what would you do differently? Now, why are you not doing it? You have to address these issues and have a strong sales belief before you can move on.

3. What is your attitude towards the market that you represent? Do you have a clear full colour picture of your ideals? Do you know your competition and their strengths and weaknesses? If you don't, is it fair to say that you, as a so called sales professional, don't know what you are doing?

If you don't believe in (1) yourself, (2) the organisation that you represent, its team, products and services and (3) the market that you are selling in, move on and find something you do believe in. How could you convince anyone else to believe in something that you yourself don't believe in? Do you believe that the world revolves around you? If not, answer this question. Who is the most important person in the world?

The Bottom Line! Your beliefs drives your attitude. Attitude is the foundation to sales success. Businesses today cannot succeed without sales. Without sales there are no transactions. Without transactions there is no revenue. Without revenue, there is no business, no jobs, no bottom line. Sales is the bottom line! Sales is all about you and your belief in yourself, your organization, it's products and services and your market.