The first principle of influence or selling is POSITION. I often summarize the principle of position with two words: "It's Thursday!" What's position..? It's Thursday! If you haven't heard me explain it during training, here's it is.

									Your position in any sale is where it all starts, pluss it's what affects everything else. Think of it as a question to a customer about what he or she thinks of you and your offer. If you skip all the beating around the bush, every customer always has a very clear opinion of both you as a person and your offer, at any given time. You better believe it. You may not get it out of them, but they have one. Their perception of you and your offer, that's your position with them. If you hypnotized them they'd give it to you, loud and clear.

To illustrate. If someone were to ask me what day it is, I'd be able to respond promptly: "It's Thursday". No discussion. End of story. It's finite. Accepted. Taken for granted.

Is it a fact, though? Sure, it's a fact; it's Thursday. A relative fact, maybe..? What?! Well, what if the majority of the world's populace just decided to make it Friday? Hypothetically speaking, it's possible... But highly unlikely, don't you think? That's how position works, how position appears. It easily seems as though nothing can be done about it.

Position is the first principle of sales success. Position is perception of relative facts. "It's Thursday" is a relative fact. OK, it's an extreme example, but it's still relative. The principle of position as perception of relative facts teaches us a load of things. Maybe the first most obvious lesson is this:

(1) Your position will either work for or against you

So many times I do training and dig into specific business cases with sales people. Every time a sales team starts discussing real customer cases there's a number of recognizable characteristics in individuals that come to the surface. They reveal the differences between high and OK performers specifically related to the principle of position:

You can see how one quality leads to the other, as these traits are listed almost in successive order. A second lesson that follows the first is:

(2) Change the position itself or you adapt to it

"It's Thursday" as an example of POSITION also illustrates how positions in fact regularly change, we just need to be there when it happens. Either you change the position itself or you adapt to it. If you were to ask me again tomorrow, I'd say "it's Friday". Of course, you say. Well then, why don't you stay at it until you win that way. Almost always, I repeat, almost always, there are ways to change or improve your position, i.e. the way the customer perceives the facts about you and your offer. Typical positions we can influence are:

• a bad or malfunctioning product
• a poor brand or reputation
• a market in recession or tight budgets
• incompetent management, mine or yours
• a failed relationship with a customer or vendor

These are just examples. Now, today, consider your most important sale, right now. Ask yourself what your position is. If you're not sure you're in a better position than your competition (and competition is not just other companies, but every factor that competes with you getting the contract) then look closely at what can be done. You'll find there's always something.

I'm telling you, you can decide to be a high performer if you're willing to do what it takes to improve your position. You do this by either "working around the fact that it's Thursday or changing the relative fact that it's Thursday". Either way you can win!

Follow Vidar Top at Twitter