One Simple Rule that Will Help You Overcome the Stress of Fear in Sales

One Simple Rule that Will Help You Overcome the Stress of Fear in Sales

What keeps you up late at night? Is it the gut wrenching fear of losing your job because you are not hitting your revenue targets? In order to stay employed, you must overcome fear of all sorts, including: fear of rejection, fear of success, fear of failure, fear of losing a sale, fear of asking for the close, and fear of prospecting, on a daily basis. You may be able to find an easy solution by remembering one simple rule and that is the "Rule of 2".

Especially in this economy, now more than ever, there is lots of pressure on the sales professional to close sales. Granted the pressure to hit numbers is always there, and yet to add fuel to the fire, companies are containing costs, making it difficult to move the sale forward to a close. How do you cope with the pressure and insure that you are performing the best in your sales job and not only growing your business, but also growing your sales career? Your sales job relies on your ability to motivate and produce results no matter the type of pressure you are under.

The best sales professionals are paid influencers who uncover customer pain and resolves problems. Sales professionals are the athletes of the corporate world scoring points to win games through influencing others and closing sales. The business athlete needs to insure his influence skills are at his very best if he is to win the game. Being behind puts the pressure on and with pressure there is a high the chance for "choking"! Insure your sales skills and your influence ability is at your athletic best regardless of the pressure you are under.

There are two main pressures that affect excellent sales performance, the pressure to hit revenue goals (or profitable revenue goals) and the need to be appreciated by others. It is the pressure that leads to fear in sales. In order to perform at high levels and deliver consistently high levels of revenue for the company, the professional sales consultant must manage and overcome the pressure that leads to fear on a daily basis.

Let us imagine that you have a service to offer and the client you are working with in your target organization is focused not on value but on cutting costs. Your client recognizes that cutting costs is a short term solution to a fundamental organizational problem but his mandates from the higher ups are to solve the problem through cost cutting measures. You need to get to a higher level person in your clients organization in order to find a person that can appreciate the long term benefits your product can bring to any company. You have asked your contact person if you could meet with his boss however, your contact person has refused your request 3 times. You can go around your contact person, but you risk losing the relationship and your current business. If you do not get to a higher level, you will lose the opportunity for more business. Either way, you are boxed in! What should you do when fear boxes you in?

Not overcoming fear leads to several pitfalls for those in the best sales jobs!

Force the closure of the sale too early which may lead to losing the sale or losing the relationship

Giving up too much on price and leaving money on the table

Over-react or become overly anxious when encountering an objection

Not see yourself as good enough to get to the key decision makers

Lose that quiet confidence when it comes to asking for the sale

Undervalue yourself as a professional sales person letting customers use you

Some people overcome fear by simply "gutting through the fear" and going into overdrive. Use of the overdrive approach means that you need to employ anxious energy to insure you are "perfect" or "appearing perfect" in front of both your internal and external clients. However, becoming fearless requires a different type of effort.It requires dedication to being honest, courageous, and introspective. It requires the engendering of a quiet confidence zone, regardless of the external pressures at hand. Obtaining the quiet confidence is not easy. Quiet confidence is obtained by identifying thoughts that cause fear, questioning the thoughts that cause fear, and becoming your own best coach.

Honestly review thoughts and beliefs to insure that you stay in "the zone". Being a sales representative is stressful; self awareness helps you to become attentive to tendencies of acting in fear that blocks your success. The end goal is to develop a foundation for which you can prospect with confidence, close sales faster, and exhibit confidence in front of higher level decision makers without the use of "gutting it through" anxious energy.

Overcome your fear by keeping a notebook or journal. Remember:

"A man is literally what he thinks." - James Allen

When you sense that you are fearful describe the event that is causing anxiety. Capture the event and the beliefs you have about the event. Ask yourself what are the positive thoughts you can capture about the event? Then ask yourself, what can you do to generate a positive outcome for you and your client? The last step is to think about the objections that are stopping you from closing the business. Who is raising objections to success, is it you or is the customer? If you are the person raising the concerns, then your fear could be holding you back. With the questions answered, you can now employ the rule of 2 to reach your success.

You have taken the time to be introspective and now you can use the simple "Rule of 2".The best sales professionals break through the "brick wall" of objections on a daily basis. There are many ways to get through a brick wall and on the other side. Similarly, if a person wants to "get to" the number 2 by adding two numbers together, he could add 1+1. If asked to add two other numbers, he could say 4 + -2. If asked for another combination, he could say 6 + -4. The combinations are endless. Like the getting to the number 2 there are a large number of ways to get to the solution you are looking for. In the example above, there are a large number of ways of getting to the higher ups in the organization while also maintaining the relationship with the primary contact at the client site. Using the rule of 2, think of ten to twenty ways to overcome the objection and fear!

The next time you are faced with a no win situation, a fearful situation, or a sales problem that does not seem to have any solution, generate ten to twenty ways to overcome the obstacle. Do not evaluate the solutions you come up with as you come up with ways to overcome the obstacles. Instead of evaluating the solutions, let the ideas flow uninhibited onto the paper. In fact, you may even want to write down the most unrealistic options as a way of opening your creative mind to realistic strategies and tactics. The point is, only after you have generated your list should you evaluate your ideas. What will likely happen is that out of your twenty solutions, you will generate a workable and smart action plan that will produce results. You will be amazed with the number of solutions you can develop as a result of the exercise. You will have high energy and your fear will vanish.

Happy hunting!

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