7 Killer Sales Fears Part 5

Jun 12 2009

Posted by: Cheryl Clausen in sales coaching, tags: fear of selling, sales fears

You open the car door and grab the eats. As you start walking toward the shelter house at the family reunion you notice your family members literally turning away from you as though they’re hoping they can avoid you. Uh oh, a classic example of…

The Fear of Alienating Friends, Family, and Co-workers

If you’ve sold insurance the scenario I just described isn’t just your imagination. It’s your reality. Your sales manager sicked you on your family, friends, and co-workers. Or worse yet, they showed you how to sell insurance by brow beating these people into buying a policy. The result… they are sick and tired of your insurance business and they never want to hear the word insurance again!

Well, if you’ve already burned your bridges there’s no way to hit the undo button and make this all go away. However, if you haven’t made these mistakes yet this fear is completely avoidable.

How to Ask for Help

Your family, friends, and co-workers want to help you. But that doesn’t mean they want to buy your stuff. Help them help you by making sure:

They can tell others what your stuff does
They know who is most likely to buy your stuff
They know where to send a potential buyer to get valuable and helpful information

Reward Their Efforts

Send a handwritten thank you card every time they send someone to get information.

Practice Good Behavior

Once you’ve told your family, friends, and co-workers how they can help you don’t bring it up again. When they bring it up never forget they’re probably only asking to be polite. So keep to the point and move onto another topic the instant their interest wanes. In all likelihood they’ll ask one question. You’ll provide a short answer. And they’re ready to move on.

Be yourself and don’t strain your relationships by allowing your business interests to get in the way.

Benefit to You

If all you ask of your family, friends, and co-workers is they show people most likely to buy your stuff how to get INFORMATION they already want you’ll find:

They are happy to do it because it makes you happy and it makes them look good
They’re more likely to do it again because they get rewarded with a thank you from both parties
If they happen to be a good fit for your stuff they’ll ask you how they could get it too
Because buying was entirely their decision they’ll be your most vocal advocates
They’ll willingly help you make connections and get invitation

What if You’ve Already Burned Your Bridges…

Hey, we are all human. If you never made a mistake you wouldn’t learn very much and you wouldn’t get very far.

Apologize for your over zealous excitement about your business and explain you’ve changed your ways
Let them know how they can help if and when the opportunity comes up
Focus on restoring the relationship

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