I find that when people get more practice in sales, their confidence increases. Its a little like a ‘chicken and egg’ situation. Increased activity will give you more practice and improve confidence. As you become more confident you will increase activity.
Confidence will not come from just reading or listening about it but by doing it and reviewing the activity. Sales training that focuses on role play is very effective in boosting confidence. Self coaching can be effective too.
Ask yourself these questions after doing the activity:
- What did I do well?
- What else did I do well?
- What would I do different
Five areas of education vital to sales
- People skills
- Questioning and Listening skills
- Self motivation
- Communication skills
- Time management and prioritising
Managing emotions
Many people do not realise that we can directly affect our emotional state. Many do this without realising by using stimulants like coffee and cigarettes but we can quickly change our state of mind just by changing our posture, breathing, and our thoughts.
Remember a time when you felt really confident. What was your body posture like? What position was your head in? Was your back straight or slouched? How were you breathing? Were you still or moving? In what part of the body were you breathing? What were you thinking? All these things will have a big impact on you feel. If you are cold calling you should get your state right for each call rather than just at the beginning of the session so that no matter what happened on the previous call you are fresh and ready to go! If you have a bad call, just stand up, move around , change your posture and change your breathing.
Business owners that feel dread or fear aspects of selling are likely to have some kind of emotional baggage. Its like trying to run a marathon with a heavy sack of rocks on ones back. Removing the sack of rocks results in a massive boost in activity as everything seems so much lighter.
For example, if you believe something like ‘All sales people are dishonest’ and honesty is important to you then this may cause you to resist sales activity in some way. Many people that start lifestyle businesses like coaching seem to have issues with money that cause them to undercharge or feel uncomfortable talking about money. In sales that is definitely a drawback!
Beliefs can be either empowering or limiting. The trick is to replace limiting beliefs with more empowering beliefs. If you are someone who likes to be liked and yet believes ‘People do not like sales people, would you be motivated to sell?
