[E47] Q&A Week: Biggest mistakes, self-confidence and rejection, not being an expert in your niche

In this episode, I answer:

• What is the biggest mistake a salesperson can make?

• How can you build more self-confidence in handling rejection while working in a sales role?

• I’m not an expert in my niche. How to persuade people to trust me and buy from me?

If you have any sales or mindset related questions, send me a message through the contact page or via LinkedIn.

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Episode 47 – Transcript

On this episode, I answer more questions about sales like what mistakes salespeople make, how to build more self confidence when dealing with rejection, and what to do if you’re not an expert in your niche.

Welcome to Episode 47 of The Sales Experience Podcast. I’m glad you’re here. I’m excited. I’m having a lot of fun going through these questions and answering them the best that I can. Hopefully, you’re getting value from it. Make sure you subscribe and send me your questions.

If you have sales related questions, whether you’re new to sales, you’ve been in sales for a long time, you’re thinking about getting in sales, or maybe you’re a sales manager or sales leader, run a sales organization; send me those questions that you’ve got in your mind that you want to know about either that you’re struggling with, or you’re curious about, send them to me, I’ll answer them.

And if you haven’t checked it out yet, make sure to go to the CutterConsultingGroup.com website. There’s transcripts, all the information about the shows, lots of other articles and links on there, as well as subscribe to the podcast, wherever you download these from; iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, it’s on SoundCloud, as well. You should be able to find them all over the internet.

So, just make sure to go wherever you download podcasts from, you should be able to find it there. If not send me a message. Let me know where else it needs to be at so you can find it easily every single day as I put these out. But for now, let’s jump into some questions and see how this goes today.

Now, the first one, what is the biggest mistake a salesperson can make?

Fundamentally, there’s so many mistakes a salesperson can make, just like anything in life. However, there’s some big ones. And most people would agree that the mistakes that salespeople make, like the biggest fundamental issues fall in the category of manipulation and lying.

Now, why would a salesperson do that? Why would they manipulate somebody? Why would they lie? Why would they not be honest and transparent about what they’re selling? Typically, it’s because they have their own intentions in mind.

They have their own goals, they have their own desire for why they’re selling, what they’re selling, the money they want, or whatever it is that they’re going after. And they want that more than they want the prospect to turn into a client who’s happy with what they’re buying.

They’re thinking short term, they just want to make money and so they’ll do whatever it takes. This is unfortunately, what has given sales, the bad reputation that it has, as a profession as an industry, especially in the minds of prospects and I’ve talked about this many times before.

And so this big mistake and I’ve covered it, but I would just want to answer this question one more time is this mistake is when wraps, manipulate and lie. It’s so important that you avoid that at all costs. Even if that means not getting the deal, not closing the sale; make sure you’re always honest, you’re always transparent, you’re always telling the truth because that’s the only way to get it done if you’re in the business long term.

Now, if you’re short term, you want to sell stuff, make some money and move on, you’re probably not listening to this podcast anyway because you’re not in this to learn and grow and enrich what you’re doing and become a professional.

So, I’m not speaking to that group, I’m speaking to the rest of you that are listening to this, who want to know how to create a better experience for their prospects, turn them into clients. And not just clients who are happy and satisfied because that’s not enough.

You want customers who are raving fans who are willing to send you referrals who are shouting from the top of the mountain, because they’re so excited and they want everyone to know about what you’re offering because they see so much value in it.

Now, will all the people you deal with want to send you referrals? No. And I’ve covered that in the past. But that’s the attitude you want to have and you can’t get there, if you’re not transparent, if you’re not authentic, if you’re not honest about the good and bad of what you’re selling, and you’re solving actual problems for people.

So, make sure that that’s how you always operate. And long term you will win some days, it might not feel like it some days, you may think, “Oh, this isn’t working for me. I’m not closing deals.” but long term. Just keep at it and it will make sense.

All right. Question number two, how can you build more self confidence in handling rejection while working in a sales role?

This and I’ve covered this before, so make sure you listen to the episode about “It’s Not Personal, It’s Business”. And that can take two different approaches. On one side, it’s all personal. It’s all relationships, it’s all conversations.

Whether you’re getting into a deep relationship with all your prospects or it’s a one call close, at some level, it’s one human talking to another in a conversation. It’s relationship selling, it’s solving their problems and helping them move forward. So on that side, it is personal.

On the other side, it’s business. So, remember that if they’re rejecting what you’re selling, most likely, they’re not rejecting you. Now, if you’re rude or you’re mean or too aggressive, then they might be rejecting you. And that’s something to look at.

And somebody, your manager can give you some feedback and tell you maybe it’s you and you’re doing something wrong, that’s pissing people off, basically. But otherwise, if somebody is saying no, they’re not rejecting you as a person. So, you want to be able to separate that.

Now, there may also be techniques and things that you’re doing that is causing the same know like maybe you’re coming across too salesy, and too cheesy or too happy. Because whatever you’re selling, there’s going to be a certain tone that’s effective, that matches your product or your service.

For example, and this is a crazy example, but if you’re in the funeral business, and you’re selling funeral services to somebody to a family, where you know, member of their families just passed away, it’s not about being  excited, not everything is awesome, not everything is great. It’s about you know, being there for them, empathetic, taking care of their needs, and getting to the point and understanding everything that they’re going through.

Now, there’s other times you’re selling vacation, selling timeshare, selling something else that may be exciting, that may be awesome, that may be cool, that may be great, but not everything fits into that category. So, you got to make sure that you’re on so setting up the right framework for the person, because you could be triggering them to reject you, because you’re just not a professional in terms of what it takes for the sale that you’re in.

Otherwise, outside of that keep in mind, they’re going through something. Everybody is going through something in their life. And sometimes for a lot of people, they might be going through something that’s so bad or so terrible in their mind, that it falls in the category of I hope nobody finds out.

Maybe they’re going through a divorce, bankruptcy, financial issues, relationship issues, health issues, you know, it could be anything and everything going on in their life, in their mind. Everything is not perfect, like they try to show on Facebook or social media. That prospect might not be telling you what they have going on in their life, but they’ve got something. Everybody has something.

If you’re listening to this, most likely you have something going on in your life, that’s not pleasant, you’re not happy about, you have to deal with or you should be dealing with or maybe that season just ended. Maybe you just went through a storm, maybe you’re in the middle of a storm, or the storm is just passing by and another one is coming soon; everybody is going through something.

So, try to remember that, they’re not rejecting you. And so you don’t want to put your confidence in the results you get from other people and the response from other people. Just remember, everyone’s going through something. And so put your confidence in you your abilities, what you’re doing. If you know you’re doing the right thing, you’re taking the right steps, you’re building the right habits; that should build your self confidence, less than the feedback you get from other people or needing other people’s approval or buying from you to build your confidence.

All right, third question. I’m not an expert in my niche, how do I persuade people to trust me and buy from me?

So, this happens all the time. You’re brand new and sales, maybe it’s something that’s pretty complicated, and you need to be at an expert, you’re not because you’re brand new. And then you’re talking to prospects who are probably an expert and know your product or service better than you. And you have to then persuade them and talk to them, and they’ve got to trust you. Or maybe they don’t know about your product or service, and they’re not going to want to buy from you if you don’t really know what you’re talking about and you’re not an expert.

I remember when I first started out in the mortgage business, so many times I was concerned and worried like I didn’t know what I was talking about. Luckily, I had a manager who helped a lot stepped in explained a lot of things.

And then I remember having a coworker who was in the same situation brand new, little bit younger. And he was worried that you know, just being new in the business and being young people might not see him as an expert. And so he devoted a lot of time and energy into learning it and being professional and overcoming that by just becoming an expert.

Now until that point, what can you do? Two things. First one, study your face off. Just literally study and learn everything you can about your company’s product or service, the industry, competitors, and not because you’re going to compete against them, but just learn what they’re doing.

See what they’re doing, how they explain it, what their messages like. And put all that in the framework of what your company has given you for the training materials and documents. Just study like crazy, make it your goal, your job to learn as much as possible, be a student. So, that’s on one side.

The other side is just make sure you know enough to help people and ask the right questions. And then make sure people know that you’re new. There’s nothing wrong with being new. Everyone’s been new, and your customers will appreciate it if you tell them that you’re new. You want to help them, you’re still learning, and you have a team of people behind you who can step in if there’s any questions.

So, this is one of those things where you want to make sure you take the approach of, “That’s a great question, I don’t know the answer to that. But let me get my manager and they can answer this because they have all the experience and knowledge.” You want to go that route.

What a lot of people I see do is they get nervous, they get excited. And they think they can just talk their way out of it because maybe that’s how they’ve done it in their life up to that point. And so somebody asked them a question, they don’t totally know the answer and all they do is just start vomiting, all kinds of terrible things that are probably wrong, maybe misleading, not compliant, inaccurate, whatever that is.

And then it just becomes this terrible response instead of just saying, I don’t know, let me find somebody that does. And then when that manager steps in or comes to your meeting, or gets on the phone, listen, take physical notes, take mental notes, absorb as much as you can learn from other people. So, that down the road over time, you don’t need to ask for help because you now have the answers.

 There’s nothing wrong with being new. Everybody’s been new. Every expert, every professional, anyone you see on the surface, it looks like they’re amazing and maybe an overnight success. It took years, took thousands of hours to get to that point. And so just take that pressure off and be willing to ask for help.

That’s where I talked about in the mindset week, being open and willing, you want to be open and willing to the tools that you’re providing your company, feedback, and then being new and trusting the process. So hopefully, that helps and that’s it for another episode of The Sales Experience podcast. And as always remember that everything in life is sales, and people will remember the Experience you gave them.