By Ahmed al-Akber/Manama
The next time you are going to face a challenge in your marketing, try visualisation as a part of your preparation. This is particularly effective in implementing a tough new marketing activity, such as speaking in front of a crowd of people, or in a sales situation when closing a deal with a prospect.
Golfer Jack Nicklaus never hit a shot, even during practice, without visualising it first. Professional athletes have used visualisation to see their victories in their minds before they happen, preparing them, telling them what they want their bodies to achieve.
Repeated experiments have shown that visualisation physically changes the way your brain is wired, leading you to be better prepared for the event you are visualising.
When marketing and selling in business, visualisation helps you foresee obstacles, builds confidence, and reminds you of the outcome you wish to have. You will better anticipate objections in sales meetings and foresee issues with business strategies you are working on implementing.
In her book, The Charisma Myth, author Olivia Fox Cabane outlines a great way to visualise an event:
1) Close your eyes and relax.
2) Remember a past experience when you felt absolutely triumphant – for example, the day you won a contest or an award.
3) Hear the sounds in the room: the murmurs of approval, the swell of applause.
4) See people’s smiles and expressions of warmth and admiration.
5) Feel your feet on the ground and the congratulatory handshakes.
6) Above all, experience your feelings, the warm glow of confidence rising within you.
Most people feel more confident after their first visualisation, others not so much. But keeping in practice with this exercise will over time help you develop this into a powerful skill.
A client of mine didn’t believe in marketing his business at first, but agreed to work with me as everything else he tried didn’t work. Before any of the activities were carried out, I asked him to visualise what achieving those marketing results would mean to his business. His eyes closed, he spoke of being able to talk to more prospects, having pride in owning a business that others recognised, and higher revenue.
This simple two-minute exercise got him thinking about success! Afterwards he was energised and ready to get going to build his business.
- Ahmed al-Akber is the managing director of ACK Solutions, a firm that helps companies to improve their marketing and sales results by offering more effective ways attracting customers and significantly better products and services. Ahmed has worked internationally in marketing, sales, and strategic planning at companies such as the Coca-Cola Company, Philip Morris International and Dell. Questions or comments can be sent to Ahmed on [email protected]
