Until you overcome this fear as Zig Ziglar would put it, you’re nothing more than a professional visitor.  For some entrepreneurs, business owners, and sales professionals this fear is a painful costly fear.  It causes a great deal of stress and duress.  This fear is…

The Fear of Closing

You do a great deal of work to get to this point and then you throw it all away because, in the end, you can’t ask for the business.  Or at least that’s what others would have you believe.

This is a combination of a fear of rejection and a fear of being wrong.  You don’t want to ask for the business and get a “no” aka rejection.  Plus you don’t want to anticipate a “yes” based on your conversation only to discover you were wrong about what the other person was thinking and their buyer readiness.

Setting Yourself Up for “No”

In spite of what you’ve been told you can’t close a potential buyer who isn’t ready to buy.  And when you try to force a potential buyer who isn’t ready to buy to a close it gets real ugly.  Unfortunately, you do things that set yourself up for a “no”.  Things like…

• You try to sell someone who never even agreed to a sales conversation with you.
• You fail to make a good connection with the other person so you’re constantly battling resistance.
• You bore the other person by talking about things they don’t care about.
• You confuse the potential buyer with too many choices and options.
• You offer the wrong solution because you didn’t understand what the potential buyer wants.
• You fail to help the potential buyer discover what they need to know to make a buying decision.
• You don’t help the potential buyer identify a reason to buy now.

Plus sometimes you lack confidence in your stuff.  You aren’t sure your stuff can make good on the promises you make.  Sometimes you even lack confidence in your own ability to do what you say you’ll do.

What You Must do to Get “Yes”

When you fail to close the people who really need your stuff you’re cheating yourself out of income and, more importantly, you’re cheating those people out of getting what they want.  Closing shouldn’t be a shift in gears.  Closing should be a natural conclusion to the sales conversation.  Here’s how you make that happen:

• Only hold sales conversations with people who have expressed a need for what your stuff can do for them.
• Help the prospect tell you what the best solution for them would be like.
• Help the prospect tell you the real value of that solution for them.
• Help the prospect uncover their motivating reason for buying now.
• Find out if they were to make a decision about something like this who else, if anyone, they would want to confer with.

When you make a good connection with a potential buyer and you’re having a good conversation there’s one more thing you can do to make closing a natural event.  That one thing is to actively engage the other person.  You engage buyers when you invite them to:

• write things down
• prioritize concerns
• make small choices

photo credit: fauxto_digit

When you do all these things there’s no guessing.  You know when the other person is ready to buy.  Your new buyer only needs to decide when they want to start and how they want to pay.

Can I Play Too?

When you were a kid remember a time when you saw another group of kids playing.  It looked like they were having fun.  You wanted to have fun too.  So after watching from a far for a while you gathered the courage to approach one of the kids who seemed to have some influence with the group and you asked, “Can I play too?”

photo credit: lownote

This was pretty scary.  You’ve been one of the kids in the group playing when another kid asked to play and they got shot down.  Even if you have never directly experienced this kind of rejection, watching the impact left a powerful fear of rejection in you.

The Fear of Rejection

Yet again the lessons learned in childhood impact us even today.  Anyone engaged in selling must understand rejection and use rejection to their advantage.  We perceive rejection as:

• a negative response
• a refusal
• dismissal
• elimination

Perception v. Reality

However, perception is not reality.  In reality rejection is neither nothing more nor nothing less than a filtration process.  Yes, a filtration process.  Rejection means one of two things:

1. I have NO interest in the offer
2. I have SOME interest in the offer and I have some concerns

Be certain to notice something important here.  Rejection has nothing to do with YOU and everything to do with the offer.  The only person putting you in the rejection picture is YOU because you’re so hung up on yourself you think it has to be about YOU.

It Ain’t About YOU

So let’s look at what rejection really is so you can understand how to use it to your advantage.  Sometimes a potential buyer even tells you, “I have no interest in… (your offer).”  If they aren’t a good fit for your offer then you should be glad.  You really don’t need to waste valuable resources chasing after someone who will never buy your stuff.

When you get told, “I’m not interested” and you get upset realize you’re upset for one of two reasons.  Either you’re just selfish and your only concern is the missed sale, or you’re upset because you know your stuff would really benefit the other person.

I Don’t Believe Your Selfish

So that means you’re upset because your offer got rejected when it’s the right thing for the person rejecting it.  When that’s the case you have every right to be very upset with yourself.  You just cheated that person.  They rejected your offer because:

• You didn’t focus on what they want
• You didn’t effectively tell them what your stuff does
• You set the wrong goal for the encounter

When you miss the mark on any of the above you can anticipate a lot of rejection.  These 3 simple things keep the majority of entrepreneurs, business owners, and sales professionals from the sales success they deserve.  It’s an unfortunate reality.

Reason #2

So what about the second reason you get rejected?  You’ll hear things like:

• I tried that before
• That would never work for someone like me
• That’s out of my league

When you hear things like that you should do a dance for joy.  That’s not a rejection of your offer.  Those are objections.  Objections indicate buyer interest not rejection.

What They’re Really Saying

They aren’t saying, “I tried something like this before and it didn’t work so I’ll never buy anything like that again.”

They are really saying, “That sounds interesting.  I tried something like you’re describing in the past and was disappointed.  How do I know your offer won’t disappoint me too?”

They aren’t rejecting you.  They aren’t rejecting your offer.  They’re telling you that if it weren’t for… whatever they indicated… they would be interested in hearing more about your offer.

Missed Opportunities

This is where almost all sales people BLOW IT.  Most sales people try to eliminate or remove the rejection through rebuttal.  You engage in a verbal battle where you try to tell the other person they’re wrong and give them the reasons why they’re wrong.  You can’t win that conversation.  It’s like the “No I’m not” “Yes you are” arguments you had when you were a kid.  It didn’t work then and it doesn’t work now.

This is where the Top Sales Producers shine.  Rather than picking a fight they’re going to lose the Top Sales Producers would respond something like this… “I can certainly appreciate how maddening it is when something doesn’t do what it’s supposed to do.  Can you tell me a little about what didn’t work?”

Opening Doors

As the other person shares their experience you just opened the door to removing the rejection.  All you have to do is:

• ask questions
• listen
• discover what they’re really looking for

Do you have a story about how you removed a rejection and later gained a client?  Feel free to share it with us.

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

Previously we talked about…

The Fear of Disapproval

The Fear of Not Knowing Enough

The Fear of Failure

Fears prevent action and action is the key to your sales success so identifying and removing fears is serious business.  In this post it’s time to talk about…

The Fear of Losing Money

photo credit: s.thornton

Recently a friend shared a story.  There was a lady who entered the furniture store where she works who was literally agonizing over the purchase of a $30 clearance lamp.  After a couple hours of checking back with her my friend says, “Please don’t take this the wrong way but it’s only a lamp… it’s not like your risking a kidney or anything.  If you like the lamp and you can afford it perhaps you should just get it.  However, if $30 would really impact you perhaps buying the lamp just isn’t a good idea.”

The lady bursts out in laughter saying, “You’re right honey.  I’m making way too much of this.  Let’s go to the checkout.”

What are you really afraid of?

In most cases you aren’t risking everything on a purchase.  In most cases you’re trying to decide on an investment that will:

• make you money
• make you more likeable
• be fun
• improve your health
• give you more control
• increase your self-esteem
• increase your happiness

Or an investment that will:

• save you money
• keep you from failing
• prevent rejection

All very important things we all want.  You desire those things and in all likelihood you could purchase the thing you want.  When I say could purchase I mean you either have the money or could get the money to complete the purchase.

Of course, you don’t want to trade your good money unless the value you’ll get from the purchase is greater than the money you’re giving to get it.  So you’re weighing the decision.  When the scale tips in favor for purchase you act like the lady with the lamp.  You really want to buy BUT you can’t seem to make a “yes” decision.  Just like the people you’re trying to sell your stuff to.

Why are you stuck?

The reason you’re laboring over your decision is because:

• You’re afraid of getting screwed
• You’re afraid of looking like a fool
• You don’t know how you’ll explain your decision to your spouse, in-laws, or neighbors

So now what?

Okay, you understand why you really fear losing money.  So now what do you do?  How about putting things in perspective like our friend the lamp lady?

• If you invested in college for yourself or your child because you thought it was an investment in their future then why is it a risk to make an investment in yours?
• If you were wrong and you made a poor investment how would that impact you in the grand scope of life?
• What if you got even one really good thing from your investment, could that one really good thing be worth your entire investment?

What successful people do…

There are a couple commonalities among all successful people:

• They are never afraid to take calculated risks
• They make decisions quickly and change their minds slowly
• They take action with fierce determination

What’s keeping you from action?

Is there an investment you want to make yet haven’t because of fear?  Using what we’ve talked about so far I want you to make a “yes” or “no” decision right now and I want you to stick with your decision.  If you decide “yes” then lay out how you’ll explain your decision to others.  Or, perhaps you decide you have every right to invest in yourself no explanations required.  If there is one thing you can say about money it’s that money comes and goes.  It’s a replenish-able resource.  You can’t say the same thing when it comes to experiences.  Sometimes the experience alone is worth the entire investment…

Do you remember a time in school when the teacher asked a question, you either knew the answer or you were pretty sure you knew the answer, yet you didn’t raise your hand?  Why didn’t you raise your hand?  Were you afraid of being wrong?  Were you afraid of looking like a failure?

Funny how those lessons we learn so early in life stick with us.  Those early life experiences condition our behaviors even today… even when they don’t make sense for our current reality.

Today we’re going to talk about…

The Fear of Failure

By definition failure is a lack of success, falling short, a breakdown, inadequate growth, or bankruptcy.  Wow, that sounds really bad doesn’t it?  Who wouldn’t want to avoid failure?

Yet, it’s almost impossible to find success without experiencing at least some failure.  Because it’s through our failures that we discover how to succeed.

photo credit: jemartin03

Abraham Lincoln lost the election for the U.S. Senate twice before becoming our 16th President.  Like countless others from all walks of life he did not allow a fear of failure to keep him from taking action.

Fear of failure really boils down to risk.  When you avoid taking action because you fear failure what is the risk:

• Do you risk physical harm?
• Is there a chance for a negative consequence?
• Could you suffer a fatal financial blow?

Rarely do you run the risk of physical harm when you take the actions you need to take to increase sales.

There is almost always a potential for a negative consequence so let’s do this.

• List every potential negative consequence you can think of
• List every potential positive consequence you can think of
• Decide if the risk of reward is greater than the risk for consequence

In most cases you aren’t risking your life savings on one action, yet you are risking a potential financial loss.

2 Questions 1 Consideration

So that really brings us to 2 questions and 1 consideration.  The 2 questions:

1. How much greater is the potential gain than the potential consequence?
2. Are you willing to trade the risk for potential financial loss for the reward for potential gain?

If you answer “yes” to the second question then you have one consideration:

• How do I maximize my potential for gain and minimize my financial risk?

Typically maximization will come from leveraging your actions.  For example, when you go from connecting with prospects one at a time to connecting with many prospects at one time that’s leveraging your actions.

Your willingness to get the help you need to effectively take the action minimizes your financial risk because you spend less time making trial and error mistakes and more time selling.

Ask These Questions

• What is your fear of failure?
• What are your risks?
• Would you rather fail because you never tried or would you rather succeed even if you have to experience a few failures along the way?
• What will you maximize?
• How will you minimize your financial risk?

As you answer these questions you’re figuring out your own road map for success.

Have you overcome a fear of failure?  Tell us how you did it.

In the last post I went into detail about the Fear of Disapproval…  7 Killer Sales Fears Part I

Success demands action yet fears keep you from taking action… SO dealing with fears is important business.  In this post we are going to talk about…

The Fear of Not Knowing Enough

This is a biggie that effects everyone selling something new or starting a new business.  You feel like you have to know everything about whatever it is you sell before you can go out and sell it.

Reality check…

No matter what you’re selling no matter how much you study it’ll take you 2-3 years before you “know enough” and that’s only if you get your behind out there and SELL SOMETHING.

All that time you spend “boning up” on your product or service, all the time you spend preparing to sell, is costing you money…  because you aren’t out there doing the one thing you must do… SELL.

The reason this fear is holding you back and keeping you from selling is YOU think selling is telling.  You think you have to do most of the talking.  You think you have to have all the answers.  That’s completely backward thinking.

The 3 Things You Must Know

There are 3 things and only 3 things you must know before you can sell your stuff.  When you know these 3 things you’re ready to get out and start selling.

1. Who is most likely to buy your stuff?
2. What are they already looking for?
3. How does your stuff help them get that?

Here’s why this is all you need to know to get out there and sell.  The first thing you have to do is get yourself in front of the people most likely to buy your stuff.  I call these the right people.  You can’t do that if you don’t know who these people are.  Plus you can’t find the right people when you think everyone wants your stuff.

When you know who is most likely to buy your stuff it’s a whole lot easier to find those people and get yourself in front of them.

Just think about it.  What happens when someone approaches you and starts talking about something that doesn’t interest you?  You tune them out, right?  When you know what the people most likely to buy your stuff are looking for… and you talk about that… is it any surprise they want to talk to you?  You won’t have to beg them to talk to you they’ll want to talk to you.

Once you have the attention of the right people and they’re ready to talk to you what do you think you need to do?  Talk, right?

WRONG! 

Shut up and listen.  Ask questions for understanding and clarification.  Find out the 3 most important things or concerns they have about what they’re looking for.

Your job is to LISTEN & QUESTION not talk

Then you simply say something like… “If there were a way to get (the 3 things they just told you) is that something you’d be interested in hearing more about?”

Then…  “I’m not sure; however, I think I may have something that can help you with that.  Would it make sense to get together so you could see if it’s right for you?”

Now go back to your office, appointment in hand, and do your homework to come up with the 1-3 options that fit their needs.  That’s right learn what you need to know as you need to know it.

photo credit: GlennB

You can’t swallow a whole watermelon and you can’t learn everything you need to know before you need to know it.

Hold your appointment.  If they ask a question you can’t answer simply respond… “That’s a great question, before I answer I want to check a few things to make certain I don’t miss anything.”

Benefit to YOU

There are huge benefits for you when you remove this fear.  When you overcome this fear you will:

• Get more appointments
• Hold more appointments
• Close more appointments

Unfortunately; many entrepreneurs, business owners, and sales professionals waste years and potential income focusing on knowing about their products or services.  Wasted resources because all you really need to know is: who will buy your stuff, what they’re looking for, and how your stuff benefits them.

When you can tell people what your stuff does for them in a powerful way this fear is instantly removed.  You don’t have to struggle trying to figure out how to attract prospects.

photo credit: dno1967

The clock is ticking.  Each day your fear of not knowing is keeping you from action and costing you money.  Each day you can’t answer the 3 most important questions in selling is costing you money.  How ready are you to start making money?

Are you dealing with this fear now?

Have you overcome this fear?

How much is this fear costing your or how much did this fear cost you in lost income?

There’s something about sales that scares you.  No matter how big and brave you are in other aspects of your life deep down inside where no one else can see you’ve got a place that’s very scary.  For some reason this scary place only surfaces when you think about specific aspects of sales.

photo credit: Pink Sherbet Photography

What is fear anyway?

Fear represents an unwillingness or inability to take action.  Fear:

• immobilizes you
• keeps you trapped in the unpleasant now
• reflects perceived emotional harm not real physical harm when it comes to sales

Those ugly little fears create a brick wall that blocks you from sales success.

Success Demands Action

The only way to get the sales success you deserve is to take action.  Because fear prevents action fear must be overcome.

Paul Petrowski recently listed 7 common fears related to making money online.  As I read his list I immediately realized those 7 common fears were also 7 sales killing fears that must be eradicated like weeds from you lawn before they choke off all potential for sales success.

Ask any sales manager or business owner with a sales force and they’ll tell you the sales people who don’t succeed are the ones who don’t take action.  They don’t take action because every failure they have increases their fear of action.  Eventually they busy themselves doing everything but selling.

The Cure

The only way to overcome fear is to:

• identify it
• understand it
• develop an action plan to remove it

That’s exactly what we’re going to do here.  We’re going to take on each of these 7 killer sales fears starting with…

The FEAR of Disapproval

Disapproval represents an unfavorable opinion or dissatisfaction.  All humans have a natural desire to be liked and loved.  If others do not approve of our actions or are dissatisfied with our actions we feel that means they don’t like US.  When in reality it’s the action or inaction that isn’t liked.

Most of us have been conditioned to disapprove of sales people.  When we think of sales we immediately think of that obnoxious manipulative car salesman even though you’ve had countless experiences where you thoroughly enjoyed and respected the sales person.  Because you enjoyed and respected those sales people mentally you didn’t put them in the sales person category.  You put those people in the expert, adviser, or knowledgeable helper category.

Think about Your Actions

List the actions you have any concern about taking now.  Yeah, grab a good old pencil and paper right now and list at least the 3 most important actions required to succeed that you feel uncomfortable doing… so you’re avoiding doing them now.

Ask These Questions

Now after each action on your list ask yourself these questions:

• Is this action legal, moral, and ethical?
• How would I feel if the headline in my local newspaper read “(Your Name) does (this action)”?
• How does this action help the people you can help?

Evaluate Your Answers

Obviously, you must answer “yes” to question #1.  If you can answer “yes” to the first question then the most important question is the last question.  List every way the action helps the people you can help.

Whatever you’re selling that product or service does something highly beneficial for the people who buy it.  When you don’t take action to help people get that benefit you’re actually harming them.  You’re like a greedy King with a splendid feast laid out on the banquet table who won’t allow the starving people in his kingdom to eat.

Action Plan

When it comes to people most likely to buy your stuff there are people who are a solid match for what you have (your A’s and B’s), and people who may or may not be a good match (your C’s and D’s).  Until you feel confident taking action it doesn’t make a lot of sense to go after your A’s and B’s.  You risk blowing it with them and keeping them from getting what they deserve.  Instead make a list of 10 C’s and D’s.

Next identify the first action you need to take to help those people get this benefit.  How will you…

• make them aware you can help them get the benefit they want?
• open a connection with them?
• help them identify themselves as potential buyers?

What is it about that action that’s uncomfortable?  There are 3 logical reasons for your discomfort:

• The action disrespects the prospect or you
• You don’t know how to take the action
• The action produces poor results

If the action disrespects the prospect what will you or how can you modify the action so both you and the prospect are respected?

If you know what to do but not how to do it then how will you learn?

• What books will you read?
• What workshop or seminar will you attend?
• Who will coach or mentor you to sales success?

If the action produces poor results perhaps you’re taking the wrong action.  How will you discover the right action?  How will you discover what isn’t working and why?

Finally, select the day and time you will start taking that action with the 10 people you listed and make an appointment with yourself to do it now.

Have you ever had a fear of disapproval?  Please use the comment area to tell us about it and what you did to overcome it.