If you sell, you know there’s always been a barrier.
It sits between where you are and where you know you belong.
Everyone knows it’s there.
But nobody can explain it.
We can.
And there’s only one way to break through it.
But you have to be willing to let go
of everything you thought sales was.
Most people won’t.
That’s why it’s still there.
If you’re staying with us, we have to start at the beginning: where do sales results come from? We believe all results flow from a single source.
It’s called the atmosphere of trust.
And it's the source of all our results.
But what you think is creating it—isn't.
The atmosphere of trust came from the battlefield.
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Sales is old. Our thinking about it is even older.
Most of what still guides sales today is governed by the unexamined dogma we’ve all inherited. “Sales is all about relationships” is a perfect example.
I lead an elite team. But we weren’t exempt.
Which is why, at first, the idea that all results flow from the atmosphere of trust seemed almost too obvious. What could we possibly be missing?
Then we saw it—it had nothing to do with being trustworthy.
From there, everything followed.
We immediately saw how our legacy beliefs and behaviors (Stapleton calls it the Traditional Sales Mindset) had been quietly getting in our way.
We also saw that we had a decision to make: continue the endless journey of becoming a better traditional sales team—or let go of the traditional thinking that was keeping us stuck.
It was an easy call.
Chris Ahearn, CEO
Oakwood Worldwide​