By TC North
July 28, 2011
Fear is one of the most powerful human emotions; its grip is strong and pervasive. To maximize your success in business and selling, you must learn to control your fears, or they’ll control you.
There are four kinds of sales in business: products, services, ideas and yourself. In the corporate world, you sell ideas up to your boss, down to your team and across to your peers. If you’re a CEO, you’re the lead on selling your vision and strategies to the whole organization. If you’re an entrepreneur, you’re always selling yourself, along with the products or services you’re selling to your customers.
No matter what your job, you sell. When you gain control of fear of selling, you’ll be more influential, happier and more successful in business and in your personal life (you sell ideas in your personal life all the time).
The fear of selling is a highly multidimensional fear, and it may include any of the following fears: failure, success, rejection, not being liked, self-promotion, being pushy, embarrassment and being judged.
The best way to control fear of selling. Creating a belief about selling that has no fear is the best way to minimize fear. What if you truly believed selling was a great and loving service? The most successful relationship-focused salespeople I’ve worked with do. “Love ’em and serve ’em” is a mantra I like to use to create the right thoughts and feelings for selling. It’s hard for fear to coexist in a mind filled with love and service.
High-performance sales framework. Another way to minimize fear is by using this four-part framework for high-performance selling:
1. Show up. Be completely present with your potential customer. Have a clear focus and a single agenda. Love ’em and serve ’em.
2. Tell the truth. Always. Your reputation is everything. Not only tell the truth with the big things but also tell the truth with the little things!
3. Play to win. Exceed what’s expected of you. Find ways to wow! Be creative in finding ways to win.
4. Don’t be attached to the outcome. This causes fear, anxiety and stress. You don’t control the outcome (someone else buys or doesn’t); you only control the process. When you focus on what you control, it’s easy to stay in the present and relaxed.