[E42] Q&A Week: How to gain confidence as a salesperson

In this episode, I go into depth answering one question that I have received a lot over the years:

• What are some good tips to gain your confidence as a salesperson?

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 42 – Transcript

On this episode I’m going to try to tackle some more sales related questions and keep the episode under 10 minutes. Welcome to Episode 42 of The Sales Experience Podcast.

I am so excited for this week for pulling up some questions that I’ve received in the past or seen online and trying to answer them the best I can, in a one way conversation, throwing out information as best as possible.

My goal for these episodes is always to keep them under 10 minutes and to keep them very valuable and useful so that in your daily journey in short bursts, you can get some value and useful information to help with your sales career.

Yesterday, obviously, I went over 10 minutes. Hopefully, it was worth it answered three questions, I had a whole ton that I wanted to go through some to pick up where I left off yesterday. And as always, make sure you subscribe, download these episodes every day.

They’re available Monday through Friday. And if you’re on iTunes, if you could rate it, leave a comment, all of those ratings and comments really helped both for me and feedback to know that people are liking this and the direction’s going is fitting with what you’re looking for.

And then on the flip side, also helping people who are looking for new podcasts to listen to come across the show, want to see some social proof, read some comments, see some ratings, see if it’s going to be valuable for them as they decide whether they want to download episodes or not. So if you could do that, I always appreciate it. But until then, let’s jump into some questions and see how far we can get through today.

The first question that I’ve got, that I want to tackle is, what are some good tips to gain your confidence as a salesperson?

And this one is so important. Whether you’re brand new to sales, you’ve never done sales, you’re thinking about getting into it, and you’re not sure, because you look at experts, you look at professionals, you look at someone who’s operating at a high level that you either bought from and were amazed by, or you see online.

You know, thanks to social media, and YouTube and Google and LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, all those different things, you can come across so many different people, whether they’re experts or not, and you can absorb their content. And sometimes that may make you feel like you’ve got a long way to go and the gap between where you are and where they are is so big, not sure where to start.

And so what are the tips that I give people as far as sales, and how to be confident and gain that confidence as you go?

The number one thing I always tell everyone is to know your strengths. It’s all about self awareness. And I have article on the CutterConsultingGroup.com website if you want to read that. But self awareness is the key so you know what you’re strong at, what are your strengths.

Now, a lot of advice and old school advice is to look at your strengths and your weaknesses. And then work on fixing your weaknesses and turning them into strengths. I think and I believe with those who say the opposite, which is, know what your strengths are, and then go all in on those strengths and just run with that.

Now, you always want to know what your weaknesses are, you always want to know where your blind spots are, and you want to take that into account. You do want to improve things in certain ways. And to make sure it’s not detrimental. You don’t want to have weaknesses that actually get in the way of your progress or success, but you want to focus more on your strengths.

If you’re really good with talking to people, if you’re really good at solving problems, or, you know, doing puzzles and figuring out where the issue might be and how to fix that, that is key, especially in sales. If you’re good at relating to people having conversations, if you’re okay with where conversations may go and that spontaneity of it. Or even if you need it to be planned. And that’s one of your strengths, understand that and who you are and what you like because that will really help when you get into that comparison game which can be detrimental. And you’ve got to be careful about that.

If you know your strengths, like you need a script, you have to have it all planned out, I covered this during the behavior weeks. If you find yourself in the analyst group where you don’t like confrontation too much you like to have it planned, you like to have a strategy in place, you probably are the kind of person and I know that I’m this way at points, where you want to have everything written out, you want to know what you’re doing.

If you’re going to call somebody even if you leave a voicemail, you want to have that planned out and just make sure that it’s done right. Because again, analyst biggest fear is to look wrong, look stupid, look like you make a mistake, have other see that you make a mistake, so you want to plan out.

If you know that and that’s who you are and once you’re in that framework, you’re really strong and effective and you can get lots done and it’s amazing, just roll with that. If that’s what you need to be strong and get into your strengths, then just go with that and set yourself up for success.

And so it’s important to know your strengths if you want to be confident and successful in anything. Obviously, we’re talking about sales, but that’s really anything in life. And also cut yourself some slack. Because depending on where you’re at in your life journey, you may not know what your strengths really are. Or you might not be totally in alignment with them yet.

So. just give yourself time and do a lot of analysis, self awareness and take a look at where you’re really in your zone and what your strengths are, and then go all in on that. Now, that’s step number one for confidence.

Number two advice that I give to people is believe in what you’re selling. So it’s so important that if you want to be confident in sales, you have to be confident in what you’re selling.

Is what you’re selling, actually helping other people either change their life, fix something they’ve got that they’re struggling with, improve their life, costume transformation, big or small or is it helping them get to a goal or buy something they need or want something that’s going to bring them joy or happiness?

If the answer to that is yes, then know that your confidence will build over time when you’re selling something that you know, it’s actually a good thing for other people. If it’s not a good thing, if you’re selling something where deep down inside, you know, it’s not a good thing for people or you having to force it on people that might not be a good fit, or you have to sell it to every single person. Whenever you’re in those situations, that’s tough to have confidence.

You might have fake confidence, you might seem like you have confidence and you’re outwardly doing it, internally, you’re not in alignment and that’s going to come through. Even at a subconscious level, the people you talk to will pick up on the fact that you don’t really believe in what you’re selling. And when you do that, then it’s tough to have confidence because you’re going to hit a lot of walls and a lot of rejection.

And that’s not the way to go. When you have something that you’re selling that you believe in, it’s so much easier to be confident in it. And if somebody says no one rejects you, then it doesn’t matter because it’s not about you, it’s about them because you know you’re doing the right thing.

Third part here for building confidence is fundamentally realize it’s not life or death. Realize that a sales career and what you’re doing, at the end of the day, nobody’s going to die. And so a lot of times people get afraid of saying the wrong thing or doing the wrong thing or losing a sale or upsetting somebody.

You know, if you’re good person and you’re trying to do the right thing, and it doesn’t happen, they don’t buy you don’t get that sale, whatever it is, keep in mind, it’s not life or death. I’ve been in several situations where it has been life or death or there’s been life on the line in past roles I’ve had where that’s actually the case, I’ll tell you, sales is not like that.

Now the thing is, our mind tricks us. It makes us think that everything that could go wrong will go wrong, and that it is life or death or your prospects make you feel like it’s life or death. I remember when I was in the mortgage business, the realtors, the people wanting to buy a house, they all acted like it was life or death if they didn’t buy that house or it didn’t close on time or if it didn’t happen, or they didn’t find the right one, like their whole world was going to collapse.

Just remember, step back a little bit and realize none of it really matters like as far as life or death goes. Keep doing what you’re doing but that’s where you just got to be careful not to take it too personally.

And the fourth tip I have for building confidence is know why you’re in sales, why do you do what you do? I’ve done episode on this before, during the first week of the podcast, I have an article on the website. There’s so many different resources.

But the key is to understand why are you in sales? Why do you get up every day? Why do you want to be successful for your goals for something that you’re trying to achieve for money that you’re earning, and then what that is going for, or how it’s an alignment for who you are and what you want to accomplish, and your service to the world.

Wherever you’re at on all of that spectrum, make sure you understand why you’re doing it because then you’ll have the confidence. If you know I’m doing this because I want to make money, that money is a tool for me to get this or to do that or to build this kind of security, whatever that might be for you, keep digging as deep as possible.

And then once you have that, that will give you the confidence to do what you need to do; to make extra calls, to push for the sale, to ask deeper questions of your prospect, to get past rejections and not worry about it and then just keep going everyday. So, that one’s key.

And then the last one, just take massive action as much as you can. There’s something about doing a lot that will build confidence in you. And I think part of that is is when you sit around, and again, I’m speaking from my own experience as well about myself.

But when you sit around and you spend a lot of time thinking about what you could be doing, should be doing, and then you put some guilt or blame on yourself for what you’re not doing. So, you’re not picking up the phone call, you’re not closing more deals, it’s tough to feel confident when you just go, go, go and give it all you have.

If you’re working, you’re in an office, you’re in a cubicle and you’re on the phone and you’re doing sales, you’re there, let’s say eight hours a day. I see so many reps who out of eight hours, if they actually work two hours, it’s amazing, but they don’t.

There’s a lot of hanging out, checking your phone, playing around talking to people getting coffee, you make a call, nobody answers, then you go to the bathroom, then you come back, you think about another call. And then you’ve got to go talk to somebody else. Whatever it is, all that stuff is distracting.

It’s tough to feel confident about what you’re doing and the success you can create when you’re just procrastinating and delaying and doing everything else other than what you know what you could be doing or should be doing. And so the key is just do massive action. If you’re in that office eight hours a day, you will blow your managers mind, you’ll totally throw them off if you just hustle your face off during those eight hours.

And again, if you’re in telesales, you’re not going to be able to be on the phone eight hours a day, because that will melt your brain. Like literally you can’t keep that pace. But if you can put in a good 4, 5, 6 hours of phone calls, talk time, availability, if you’re working in retail, you’re talking to people all the time. You know those days when you’re on fire, where you’re just in it all the time, non stop, it just doesn’t stop and you’re going like crazy. At the end of the day, you feel so confident you feel so great.

If you’re in a call center environment, just make sure you push yourself to that, just don’t stop. Don’t listen to anyone else around you. Don’t get distracted by other people and just go and do as much as you can.

Leave it all on the field where at the end of the day, you’re just like, boom, that was amazing. Maybe I didn’t close a lot of deals, I did a lot, I feel great, I’m going to come back again and do it tomorrow.

Hopefully that helps answer this one question in one episode. Come back again tomorrow. I’m going to go through more questions here. And if you have any questions specifically, hit me up like I said on the website or on LinkedIn is a great way to go. And always remember that everything in life is sales and people will remember the experience you gave them.