Did you know that most of the salespeople are troubled due to fear of losing the order? This causes loss of confidence and simply because of this they end up further loosing even bigger deals!
Do you also experience this fear? Do you get shivers when you get to know that there is strong competitor in the race of getting that coveted order from your prospect?
If your answer to these questions is “yes” and you are looking to overcome this problem read till the end. I am going to share with you what is the best way for overcoming such fears.
My name is Rakesh Sharma and I empower the business owners and salespeople to grow their business and maximize their profits.
Let’s get going. Friends, Sales is a challenging job and fear of rejection, risk of losing the order, challenges of competition have always been troubling the salespeople. These are the biggest enemy and greatest obstacles on the road to success.
The interesting thing is that this is not the actual fear or obstacle the real cause of this problem is the anticipation and thought, the inner lack of confidence and negativity.
Successful salespeople have developed their own way to mitigate these fears. They understand the psychology of fear very well and never let fear overpower their thoughts.
Glen ford the great actor once said, “If you do not do the things you fear, the fear controls your life”
Great salespeople develop their own ways of interpreting their fears. Does this surprise you? Do successful sales also experience fear? YES! Fear is natural. One overcomes fear with courage.
Do not let fear control you, allow me to help you overcome these thoughts. Follow my seven step process and help yourself channel the energy of this fear into the direction of success rather than failure-
1. Fear is a natural reminder for better preparation: Successful sales people understand that a certain level of fear is important because it acts as a natural reminder that one has to prepare very well for the upcoming meeting with the prospect. They treat fear as an alarm or a reminder without getting lost in the emotions. This alarm/reminder fires them to start preparing for the meeting so that the possible errors could be avoided. They take it as a support mechanism rather than feeling bad about it. They find out what is lacking in their preparation. They go over their entire sales pitch, their presentation and script once again and overcome the identified gaps. They will use this fear to rehearse their presentations and anticipate the potential objections which might arise during the meeting with the prospect. They once again check their sales kit and ensure that everything is in order.
2. “NO” is nothing but the next opportunity: Master salespeople are fully aware that “no” is nothing but an opportunity to move on to the next prospect. They take “NO” as the acronym for Next Opportunity. Therefore, as soon as they hear ‘no’, they prepare to quickly bounce back and start working on their next lead. They are crystal clear about the fact that this ‘no’ is never for them rather it is for the offer which they given to the prospect. They know that not every offer suits every prospect. They take rejections as part of the game. They do not take ‘no’ personally and do not spend time lamenting on the ‘no’. They take every ‘no’ as the learning opportunity and find out what could be done differently to avoid the ‘no’ next time.
3. Every failure has an opportunity associated with it: Great salespeople understand the law of nature that- failure and success are the two different faces of the same coin. The root of success passes through the failures only! All the great people have achieved success because they have seen multiple failures. Without experiencing the failures one cannot find the right path to success. For master sales people- failing to sell to a prospect, losing the order to the competition is a learning opportunity and they analyze the reasons for their failure and then move forward stronger. Failure helps them prepare for the odd circumstances; they learn and never repeat the same mistakes. They do not get emotionally disturbed by experiencing failures.
4. Fear is there to prepare me for worst case scenario: Whenever there is some big business at stake the great salespeople definitely feel fearful but they ask themselves- what is the worst thing possible in the present condition? Should I prepare myself for the worst case and mentally and physically get ready to face that? This though process helps them in handling the situation better. So that despite fear, or even despite nearing a situation of losing an order, they still remain in control and reduce chances of failure/ losing significantly. But, even if they lose after all this they have already prepared mentally to handle the failure and they do not go through the emotional trauma. You should detect a failure as just another learning experience. This helps you to come out as a winner even in the worst circumstances.
5. Face the fear to overcome the fear: Great salespeople know that the best way of overcoming a fear to face it. So, they always welcome their fear and face it head-on. The more you face your fears the more you know about them and the more comfortable you become with them. Finally you learn the ways of overcoming those fears. The great sales people never avoid any fear in any sales situations. Selling is difficult and one can get scared when delivering a sales presentation to a big group, meeting some big prospect, negotiating or defending the price of your product. While a salesperson is going through all these situations he may be worried of listing the order. But these situations are inevitable in selling therefore they resolve to face these challenging situation again and again and eventually become comfortable with all the challenges and fears by facing them multiple times.
6. Create a contingency plan: This helps you understand that the results are not in your control however good work, strong preparation and continuous improvement in your art of selling is. Despite all this, one may still not the get desired result and one might fail. This is where a normal sales person can be differentiated from a Star-salesperson. Under such circumstances as well a star-salesperson does not lose his/her heart because they are always ready with a contingency plan. Only a well-prepared and skilled salesperson who has mastered their emotions over a period of time will be ready with a contingency plan. The contingency plan takes different shapes depending upon the situation. It can be in the form of a lead, an alternate presentation or another round of negotiations. So if a salesperson has created a contingency plan he will immediately implement it and easily change the losing situation to a win-win situation for himself as well as the prospect.
7. Use positive thinking and positive affirmation: The great salespeople understand that they have to become a fearless person and a motivated person to achieve the desired results in their career. Therefore they understand the importance of their internal dialogue. They do not let their internal negative “little voice” take over their thinking. When you get second to the negative internal voice you lose the self-confidence. Having a positive attitude and high level of self-confidence is very important for any sales person. So the Star-salespeople very carefully decide what kind of person they want to become and find ways to control the negative messages which come from their inner little voice. The best way to master the little voice is to use positive affirmations. Therefore, they create positive statements for themselves and read them aloud again and again to create the desired emotional state. They a resolve to be in a state of positive emotions for long durations, they practice it religiously! This helps them to ultimately become a person with a natural positive thought process. They follow the mantra- “Fake it till you make it”. They use all of these seven strategies and create a situation where by they act as if it was impossible to fail.
Friends my mission is to support more than 1 lakh business owners and sales people during next three years by enabling them with quality and affordable business and sales growth tools. You too can become a part of this campaign by sharing this article with the all your business friends.
Finally, I want to leave you with a thought by Emerson- “If you would be a great success, make a habit throughout your life of doing the things you fear.”
Until next time…. Happy Selling!
