Welcome back. The summer writing break is officially over and I am back to getting my articles out to all of you. I honestly missed putting my thoughts down and the rest of the aspects of keeping a website going. I am glad to be back and you are getting the post a day early. A Thursday Rally. How awesome.

So, let’s get to it. Today we are going to discuss selling.

The first concept we all must internalize is that we are all selling even if you don’t think so or realize it. Some of us sell products like cars, houses, clothes, shoes, etc… Some of us sell services like accountants, massage therapists, or barbers. Others of us sell our ideas like coaches or writers. And all of us need to sell ourselves from time to time, like when you must put your best foot forward in a job interview.

Lots of people who do not fall into the “sales person” job description could still benefit from improving selling skills. If you are in a sales position, working on your craft is directly related to increasing your income.

There are thousands of books on sales. Sales tactics, sales strategies, sales plans, and on and on… To me, they all say the same thing, and I don’t even know what that thing is. All the messages run together and I can’t tell if one book is any better than any other. However, I do think there is a larger more important concept that will help far more than one specific sales tactic or strategy.

You have to develop the confidence to sell. I don’t care which sales book you pick up to study. I am not even going to make any recommendations for you to look in to. They will all work, or fail to work if you have the confidence to sell, or do not.

“The confidence to sell”, let’s dig a little deeper. Selling a product, service, idea, or anything else is uncomfortable for 99% of us. It is hard to present your pitch and ask the person listening to pay for what you are offering. The things that could go wrong are numerous. They could…

Selling a product, service, idea, or anything else is uncomfortable for 99% of us. It is hard to present your pitch and ask the person listening to pay for what you are offering. The things that could go wrong are numerous. They could…

• Laugh at you.
• Tell you to get out of their office.
• Tell you how bad your product or service is.
• Criticize how you look our sound.
• Be annoyed that you are wasting their time.
• Or, flatly reject you. They say NO.

Now, there could be many more outcomes that makes you feel like crap. And experiencing these things are not fun. Not fun to the point that an anxiety can build up and you start to avoid selling.

But avoidance is not the answer.

You have to remember the “why”. Why are you putting yourself in that position in the first place? To gain employment? To make more money? To be good at your career? Whatever it is you have to keep your eyes on the prize.

So, now you remember why you are selling. What is the solution then to getting out of the anxiety trap?

The answer is action. Action begets everything. You have to take action and get out and sell. You have to practice your pitch and try it out in the real world. You have to work at developing the confidence to sell.

There is a misconception that many people have that makes them fall into a merry go round of “do nothing”. The idea is most people think you have to have the confidence to do something before you go out and do it. This is 100% backward. Doing that thing, whatever it is, precedes the confidence to keep doing it and doing it well. If you hit the road and practice selling you will eventually develop the confidence to do it well.

Action before comfort, action before success, action before confidence, action comes before everything.

Now, the negative aspects of rejection we mentioned above are not irrelevant. They are real consequences that have an effect on how we feel. And those feelings have an effect on our lives. So, we just can’t ignore those feelings. But we can control them and make them less powerful. Repetition is the key, you have to practice. The more you put yourself out there making sales calls and delivering your sales pitch the easier it will become. You just have to do it over and over and over. To stay motivated I use a one-word mantra.

NEXT!

If you get rejected you just say next and move on. There is always another opportunity and if you just think about next one you can shrug off the last rejection and try again. Soon enough you will find that getting a “NO” won’t bother you as much as it once did.

Now lastly, there is one big caveat. You can build your confidence through taking action. You can learn how to sell better through taking action. You can do all of this but you have to apply it consistently over time and throughout your life. This is the hardest part of all. To not give up. To not stop practicing. If you do stop you will begin to lose “it”. You can’t stop.

If you want to dig deeper into the way action builds your confidence you can read The Confidence Gap. It will help you understand at a much deeper level than this short article can explain.

Well, my first article back. I think I am a little rusty but the good news is that I can write another one and get better one article at a time. Next!

 

Chris