Remember when you first started in the motorcycle sales business? You did only what you were taught … and it worked! It was so easy then. But now that you’ve become an expert, it seems so much harder to get the deals that you used to get, doesn’t it? And the customers are so much more difficult now, right? And way back before I was so jaded, it seems like I was making more money, and …

When was this? Back when you first started and you knew that with the training you’d just been through — with this new secret you’d learned — you were gonna change the world? Back when you still believed?

We see this all the time. At the end of every class our trainers try to make it very real to the students. We tell them that for three days, we’ve been in this safe little cocoon of a conference room where we could create and conquer all the giants. Everyone in the room knows this system works because we thought it through. We challenged it. We tried to break it. And because we couldn’t break it, it got into the deepest part of our psyches. We’ve taken complete and total ownership. We believe!

We tell the candidates "if you’re sitting in the class at this point, we need you to know that everything you believe about this system — right now — at this very moment — is true. You believe that it’s the right way to sell. You believe that if your mom wanted a bike, that this is the right way to help her buy one. You have accepted the premise that you can do this and not compromise yourself, your principles or your ethics. Again, everything you believe at this moment about this sales process is absolutely true … and you’re right!"

Then we follow up with the bad news: "The challenge that you’re going to face now is that there are three very subtle and insidious thieves that don’t want you to own this process. They don’t want you to prosper or to spread prosperity. They don’t really want the process either, they just don’t want you to have it. So they’ll do all they can to kill, steal and destroy what you’ve paid three days of your life and two very serious promises to acquire."

Actually these thieves only have one target and one tool. The target, the apple of their eye, something to be consumed instead of used for good as far as they’re concerned, is your newly minted acceptance of the sales process. The thieves only tool is to lie about it. They’ll try to make you believe something untrue about this process that, right now this very moment, you know to be true.

The only way they can take it from you is if you believe the lie. The truth is the truth whether you believe it or not. But a lie must be believed to be of any substance. Got it? Even knowing and accepting the truth, the thieves can still get you.

Here’s how the thieves sneak up on you: The first one comes right after you’ve finished your first customer encounter where you did everything right. You did it all by the book — and the customer still didn’t buy a bike. This thief will immediately jump up on your shoulder and whisper in your ear, "This process doesn’t work." It is at this crucial moment in your life that you need to hang on to the truth.

This process works. Just like you know it does at this moment. Don’t believe the first thief when he shows up or he’ll snatch it right out from under your nose.

The next thief is a bit more subtle but just as evil. He shows up after your first customer encounter, where you did everything wrong — you stumbled and bumbled through all the wrong things from, "Can I help you?" to blowing your "WordTracks" (ask me about those another time, I’m on a roll here), and the customer bought a bike anyway. This second thief will jump up on your shoulder and whisper, "You don’t need all this process stuff! You made the sale without any of it." Remember, he’s lying too. You know you need this process. Don’t believe him or it’ll be gone before you know it.

The third thief is the sneakiest of all. His name is May, June and July — and he steals your process a little at a time. It’s so busy in May, June and July that it’s easy to skip a step here and there. And even though you’re not selling to as high a percentage of people, you’re still selling more bikes but mostly just because it’s so darned busy. If you don’t watch him, he will get you in the middle of the selling season. Recognize him when he shows up in the middle of a customer encounter — you know, when the customer tells you that he already sat on one or wanted to argue about price, and you didn’t get his name until you’d already sat down. This liar told you that skipping a step was okay, and what the heck, you still sold a bike, didn’t you.

The cumulative impact of these three thieves can be exactly why sales don’t seem so easy for you anymore. What happened to the process? More importantly, what happened to your belief in the process. You gotta believe!

Don’t let these bastards steal your sales process. You own it, and I can’t help you protect it anymore. You can do it on your own — I dare you!