Category: Sales Coaching

5 Tips To Overcome Your Fear Of Selling

Marketing, Sales Coaching, Sales Management, Sales Training

Sales are scary. That’s a fact that both new and old salespeople alike have to deal with everyday. It’s scary because of the risks we associate with selling and most, if not all, are fear based. Afraid of being rejected personally. Afraid of humiliation. Afraid of making a mistake. Afraid of not making a goal. Afraid of failing. These risks are very real for us everyday and perhaps more intensified then almost any other position in the company. There is a lot riding on us each day and many other people depend on how well we perform. So now you have a lot of pressure pushing on your fears as well. So how can we get past all this to get our job done successfully?

Most salespeople have or will develop some type of coping mechanisms for the risks we face. It’s not that the risks are any less real to us, we just have a different way to process them. But what about all of the other sales people, quite possibly the majority of salespeople, who have not developed these coping skills. Most of us would perform rather well if we get past the fears that hold us back. And you know what I am talking about. The reason why you won’t pick up the phone to call a new customer. The reason why we are afraid that a customer is going to gasp at our price. The reason why we avoid someone who may say, “No thanks. Not interested.” There are some easy tricks to help you develop your own techniques for getting past your fears and these 5 are the ones that will really make a difference.

  1. Laugh before you leap – Take a moment to relieve the stress that you are experiencing and have a good quick laugh. For instance, we all have a little YouTube clip that cracks us up every time we see it. Watch it a couple times before you approach your sales so you can relax both your mind and spirit. Easy and fun.
  2. Roleplay your sale – I don’t mean in your head either. Ask someone to do a run-through with you so you can work the kinks out of your process and be mentally prepared for how a customer may respond. You will go into your meeting much more prepared and relaxed.
  3. Just walk – Allowing your body to release energy helps to clear your mind and focus your thoughts. Just 5 minutes can make a big difference. Got a big round of cold calls to make? Take a brisk walk to energize yourself. Have a big presentation on the calendar today? Walk through the presentation as you walk down the street. You’ll be surprised how much more energized and focused you are.
  4. Position to listen – Adjust your approach in whatever you are doing to be more of an active listener than speaker. Listening is not only easy, but it is highly effective. As long as you know your talking points, chances are you will do very well. This is often easier than trying to remember every angle of your sales pitch and helps you to create a more intimate relationship with your customer.
  5. ‘No’ is okay – You can’t win them all and I’m not asking you to accept failure in advance of trying, but keep in mind that not everyone is going to be a good fit. Don’t lower your expectations, but manage them all the same. Spend more of your time on making the sale the right fit instead of just selling for the sake of selling and watch how much easier and effective your selling process becomes.

5 Reasons Why You Can’t Give Up Today

Marketing, Sales Coaching, Uncategorized

What is the magic number? For the producers of the movie, ‘Dirty Dancing’, the magic number was 42. That hit movie was rejected by 41 different studios until, at the bottom of their list, one of the studios finally said yes. 41 previous studios passed on the box-office hit and, although they must have had their reasons at the time, they are no doubt still kicking themselves today as the movie continues to bring in millions of dollars each year. But the real prize went to the producers who believed in what they were doing and didn’t give up; 42 times to be precise. Sounds like a no-brainer today, but I’m sure there was a moment when they doubted themselves and were ready to give up. Ever have those days in sales? All the time.

The producers in this example had only 1 thing to sell and they only had to sell it 1 time. You, on the other hand, have to keep on selling over and over again. There are days when we are selling (especially in prospecting and cold calling mode) where we think, ‘This is dumb. I can’t take another ‘no’. I’m ready to give up’. The question is, how close are you to your 42? It takes a lot of no’s to get to a yes, but I assure you that the yes is out there waiting for you, and here are 5 reasons why you can’t give up today.

  1. You’ve come too far to quit – Getting to this point in your progress was not easy and you’re being challenged with an obstacle. You have what it takes to work through this, you just have to be willing to push yourself a little farther.
  2. Persistence wins – Everyone wants a quick win without the hard work, but persistence is the critical component in any success story. It may take longer than you want, but if you keep at it, you will find some level of success.
  3. No’s just don’t matter – When you are in sales, every ‘no’ you hear feels like a defeat, but it is not. You are allowing prospects to unqualify themselves. You are letting potential customers free you up for new opportunities. If you spend too much time on the no’s it will take you longer to find your yes.
  4. Your ‘yes’ is out there – And it may take 42 tries to find it, but it is there. What a shame to quit before you reach your goal only to find out you didn’t just try hard enough. What if you just gave up after 41 times, and your big hit was waiting all along at 42. Press on; your success may be just around the corner.
  5. You will succeed and it will be worth it – Be steadfast and resolved and you will be rewarded. Success may not always turn out the way you expect it to, but you will be pleased with what you achieve. Don’t quit. Brush the dust off your shoulders and give it your best. Never fail at something because you didn’t try hard enough because even if you didn’t get the win you wanted, your efforts will lead you to a new win that you needed.

Plant The Seeds Of Doubt And Grow A Sale

Marketing, Sales Coaching, Sales Management, Sales Training

There are all different kinds of tricks and techniques salespeople can use to stack the odds of a sale in their favor. Some different tricks may seem pushy and off-putting

while other techniques may be more subtle without compromising your integrity as a salesperson. Doubt, when used appropriately, is a technique that is often overlooked in the sales universe. But what exactly is doubt and what makes this creeping sensation so disruptive? Doubt is what makes the risk factor the animal that it is. It is a fear-based emotion that reminds us that we are not totally in control and if we are not completely prepared and protected, we are exposed to some probable danger.

On the other hand, doubt keeps us tied to deeply held beliefs that control many of the decisions that we make. So what does this mean in terms of sales? It means that we often question ourselves when we make a purchasing decision. Did I get a fair price? Will I be satisfied with the performance? Am I certain that I like this color? If it breaks, can it be fixed? Is this something that I really need right now? Every purchasing decision has to be put through this process. So, as salespeople, we already believe that we are selling the best option for our customers, but what if they aren’t on the same page as us? Or worse, what do we do if our competitor has them in a tight grip that we struggle to break them from? You plant the seeds of doubt.

This is a disclosure: There are both good and unethical ways to apply the doubt technique. Planting ideas in your customers’ minds that are dishonest, based on conjecture, or are otherwise working against their best interests is not good salesmanship. That said, let’s talk about 5 proper ways to leverage doubt in a tough sale.

  1. Compare price to drive the value – These are the two biggest drivers in a purchasing decision and there is always room for doubt. If your customer is leaning toward your competitor’s option you can ask, “Are you certain you have the great price over the value?” This will be your opportunity to talk through your offer and highlight where the customer is better served.
  2. Examine their decision-making process – Sometimes you have to switch from being a salesperson to a purchasing advisor. It is not only okay, but it is also prudent to ask someone their process for making a purchasing decision. This allows you to discover what is most important to them and if they haven’t been true to their own process (which many of us are not), you can demonstrate how your offer best aligns with their process.
  3. Assess their comfort level – Everyone has doubt, so why not just come right out and ask for it? If they are strongly considering another option, you can ask, “How confident are you that you are making the right decision and why or why not?” This will instantly reveal the opportunity to fill a gap that their competitor did not and win the sale back.
  4. Challenge their assumptions – Everyone knows what they say about assumptions, so why not exploit it? Ask questions such as, “How do you know you are getting the best value? How can you be confident that you will be pleased with the quality? What happens if you find out that you are unhappy with your purchase?” Let them vocalize their response so they can hear their own doubts in their own words. Maybe there is still a chance for you after all.
  5. Give them a Plan B – Salespeople are know for keeping their door open for opportunities, but sometimes we could do a better job of articulating it. Give them a clear path to your doorway and lead them there. Setting this next step is crucial if you don’t get the sale this time, so be clear about your intentions. “I understand that you have chosen our competitor and I respect that. You may find that you are happy with that decision 6 months from now. However, I have found that many customers realize their expectations not being met in that period of time and it can be good for me to follow up to see if the needs have changed. I will reach out to you then and if everything is going great, well, then it will be just nice to talk to you. But, if things aren’t going as expected, perhaps our conversation can be a little more helpful.

5 Tips To Turn Sales Pain Into Progress

Marketing, Sales Coaching, Sales Training, Strategy Planning, Uncategorized

No one likes pain because, well, it’s painful. It’s unavoidable, unpleasant, and unappealing. Most people don’t see the benefit of pain and so they wait it out and suffer through it just to wait and get back to where they were; possibly exposing them to the same risk of pain again. But what if pain, and whatever is causing it, is your opportunity to advance to something new and better? Pain is both your mind and body’s way of telling you something has to change. The same could also be said about the universe. The pain will not go away until you do something different and change whatever caused the pain in the first place. You need to expect a certain amount of pain in order to grow.

The world of sales is full of pain. We get rejected from prospects. We lost a deal we thought for certain was going to close. We are behind in our sales goals. The volume of new sales calls has become painfully small. It all comes with the territory, but if you want to make progress as a salesperson then you have to deal with these pains and turn them into opportunities. Challenge yourself to embrace the things that trouble you and use them to your advantage.

  1. Look for trends – Reflection is the first step in dealing with pain. How did you get here and what does it mean. Most importantly look for the trends and you will likely see yourself as the common denominator. The good news is that once you identify this, usually making a little change can make a big difference in your sales.
  2. Put it into perspective – We spend our entire lives seeking out pleasure while avoiding pain. That’s the name of the game. But pain clouds our perspective. For example, when you have a really bad headache, we forget that the other 95% of our bodies feel just fine because we can only focus on the pain. In sales, don’t get too caught up in the sale that didn’t close. Recall your victories and put your focus and energy into that and you will help your new sales opportunities to self actualize.
  3. Try something new – Most of us approach the same old problem the same way almost every time. We are creatures of habit. We all act like hammers looking for a nail even though there are a lot of screws in the world. It is time to challenge yourself to try something new for whatever is causing your pain. Don’t get caught up in whether or not you made the right decision in what you will do differently because experimentation also leads to growth. Switching things up in sales can lead to some pretty cool discoveries.
  4. Rise above your inner critic – I don’t know why each of us was programmed with a sense of doubt, but we have to deal with it nonetheless. Pain can make you stronger, but it can also make you weaker and most times that choice is yours. Pain can be hurtful, embarrassing, and discouraging, but it doesn’t have to be limiting. You have to remind yourself that when you get knocked down, you have to get up, brush the dirt off, and try again.
  5. Seek a mentor and learn – You’re not in this alone and you are not the first person to deal with this pain. In fact, there are countless others who confronted this pain and defeated it. Don’t keep your issues bottled up. No one expects you to. Instead, find someone to confide in whom you respect that may be able to guide you to a solution based on their example and experience. Every salesperson should have at least one great mentor or coach to help them through the bad times and celebrate the good times.

A Simple Prayer for Salespeople

Marketing, Sales Coaching, Uncategorized

It’s not too often that we get to mix sales with religion but, if we’re being honest, there have been plenty of times that you have had your eyes closed and your fingers crossed as you silently sent your wish list off to the heavens. To be clear, I am not offering the concept of Sales Prayers as an invitation to debate, but rather I am touching on an issue that is important to a lot of salespeople. I understand if prayer isn’t your thing; we can catch up another time on another topic. As for the rest of you, let’s talk about how your faith can be a critical success factor in your sales.

I am not advocating any religion, denomination, practice, or belief structure. If your faith has a basic premise of prayer, then that should be enough. Most of us don’t know how to pray all that well, but we do it just the same. You could even say that bad prayer is better than no prayer at all, but the real issue is that salespeople almost always pray reactively.

  • “Please let my phone ring today”
  • “Please let my presentation go well”
  • “Please don’t let the customer get hung up on price”
  • “Please let me close the deal”
  • “Please help me to reach my sales goal”

We have all muttered these silent prayers at some point. Why? Because we are uncertain at different times and turn to a higher power for comfort. Even if these prayers are selfish, they are still better than offering no prayer at all. But you are reacting to the stress of a moment rather than considering your own purpose.

All salespeople are needed and the same should be said about what they sell. That’s right, someone out there needs you and your job as a salesperson is to find them. When you think about sales this way, your cause should seem nobler because it is just that; a noble cause.

When you are able to engage in sales properly, you make the world a better place. With that in mind, you need to offer a prayer that is proactive and puts you where you need to be. So, here is the simple prayer for a salesperson.

“Lead me to where I am needed”

That’s it. Think about it; how much more effective would you be as a salesperson if you always found yourself in a place where you are needed? So why not ask for it and ask for it often? If you believe in the power of prayer then you know the compounding effect of offering this simple prayer daily. Don’t treat God or your higher power like a magic genie, approach them as a wise guide. You will not be disappointed. Remember, God created salespeople for a reason, and keeping your faith active in your sales is both healthy and can improve your performance.

5 Tips to Becoming a Confident Salesperson

Sales Coaching

There is the 3 ‘C’ holy trinity when describing the traits of a perfect salesperson: Confidence, Charisma, and Charm. These are the first things we look for in a candidate when hiring a salesperson and it can easily outweigh their work experience during the interview. They seem to have their own gravitational force that draws sales right to them and they are the shining stars of their company. Say what you want, but people who are born with the gift of the 3 Cs are given a huge advantage in life and if they become salespeople, they exploit it like crazy. But what about the rest of us? How do we become a confident outgoing salesperson? How can we learn and develop the crucial level of confidence needed to be successful in sales?

Almost all salespeople struggle with self-confidence. Even the superstars have the occasional moments of self-doubt. A career in sales is a career of constantly taking risks which is why learning confidence is so important. Easier said than done, right? There is, however, a simple substitute for Confidence and it is called Faith. These two traits are so similar that many people have a hard time distinguishing the two. And that’s the beautiful part of all of this because faith is much easier to teach than confidence. Faith is a simple matter of making a decision about your beliefs and adhering to that in all that you do. You’ve been doing it your entire life and you will continue this until you die, so why not apply this technique to your sales? Here are 5 tips that use faith as a pathway to confidence.

  1. Faith in your product – If you don’t believe in what you are selling, then neither will your customers. Every salesperson who starts with a new company has to go through the process of mentally selling the company’s products and services to themselves first. If you do not have faith in what you sell, then you are not fit to sell it. What you sell doesn’t have to be perfect, but if you can be honest about all aspects of what you sell and how it ultimately benefits your customer, you are now one step closer to being confident.
  2. Faith in your process – Sales teams are breeding grounds for critics and cynics. It is just easier to take a position on why something won’t work instead of why it will because it involves less risk. You create your own defeat before you even begin. No wonder things aren’t getting better for you. It is time to silence your inner critic and embrace faith in the methods in which you can sell. Pick up the phone, follow your script and try that new sales technique you just learned. Faith is a self-fulfilling prophecy.
  3. Faith in yourself – This is going to be the hardest one for you to learn because you have a lifetime of reinforcing your self-image. Faith in yourself is the little engine that could. It is the daily affirmations that flood your social media. It is silencing the voice that says you don’t deserve good things. You need to make a decision that you both can and will achieve your goals. Create the belief that things are going to be different and do everything you can to reinforce this awakening.
  4. Faith leading to confidence – What is the difference between faith and confidence? Confidence means acting out your self-assurance based on what you believe to be the evidence of success reinforced by what you accept as truth. Faith is forming an understanding of a belief with little to no proof. All faiths are leaps while confidence stands on solid ground. That faith leap is the process of getting over the gap that is keeping you from the confidence you desire. The more you believe something the more it becomes the truth to you and the truth will eventually become the confidence you have been seeking.
  5. Faith is the key to success – Confidence is a skill and faith is a structure. That’s why faith is easier to learn and why it is also a great substitute for confidence. Every person steers their lives around their beliefs. You have no choice but to follow that process, but you do have a choice in what you believe. So why not have faith in your success? Not every successful person has confidence, but no one would be successful if it weren’t for their faith. The key to success is faith in knowing you’re right.

At Scorecard, we create great salespeople. ,,Tools, training, and coaching will enable you to spread your sales wings and fly with confidence. Contact Aaron Jacobs at ,,ajacobs@scorecardsales.com to get started.

5 Easy-To-Use Tips To Control The Sale

Sales Coaching, Sales Management, Sales Training, Strategy Planning

Do you ever get excited going into a sale knowing that you have a plan to close the deal and everything is going to go your way and then Wham! Before you know it, the customer is beating you up on the terms and price and has full control of the sale. You don’t want to lose this sale and you tend to be a people pleaser, so you are willing to concede and do whatever it takes to make the sale. But you have given over full control to the customer as they bark orders at you and tell you how it’s going to be. It’s not much of a sale at this point as your profits are quickly disappearing and you are creating what will probably be a difficult customer to work with. But how can you get control of the sale to get the terms back in your favor and still close the deal?

Don’t be confused; controlling the sale does not mean you go from being passive to aggressive. Controlling the sale is all about learning how to be assertive and persuasive. This may take some practice, but it is not as hard as you think if you can apply these easy to use techniques that level the playing field for you and the customer so you can both achieve a win-win deal.

  1. Listen – Don’t be so quick to speak. When salespeople sense that they are being backed into a corner, they begin to nervous talk and give concessions without even defending what is already a fair deal. Silence can be your friend and it gives you time to think instead of defaulting to discount mode. ,,Read more here: the Power of the Pause.
  2. Ask Questions – Whoever is asking the questions is the one who is controlling the conversation. It is not the one who is doing the most talking. When you feel yourself losing control of the sale because a customer is asking for more than what you offer, ask questions to let them justify their position. Why is that term important to you? Is that the only issue that is important to you? Is this issue a deal-breaker?
  3. Challenge Objections – All sales objections begin as assumptions, and more often than not these assumptions are incorrect. The price is too high. I need it delivered sooner. I need you to customize aspects of your product. Rather than accepting it as truth and agreeing with them, challenge them to defend their position. “I understand your concern, but what is it based on?” ,,Read more about defending your price here.
  4. Compare Options – When customers negotiate, they will make you believe that they have another option that is better than yours to pressure you into concessions. Instead of focusing on just one aspect of the deal, compare each aspect of what you offer to the customer’s alternative to help control their purchasing decision.
  5. Trust The Value – It is okay to be flexible and negotiate terms with your customer so long as you are the one controlling that process. You cannot enter a sales discussion doubting any of the value that you are bringing to the table. This is as true for yourself and what you sell. If you, at any time, demonstrate a lack of confidence in what you are selling and how you are selling it, you create a sense of doubt in your customer and they now feel that they are not getting the best deal. Believe in what you sell and the customers will follow your lead.

Was this blog helpful? Would you like to learn more? Consider ,,Scorecard Sales Training for your team. We create great salespeople through training, technology, and coaching. Contact us at ,,ajacobs@scorecardsales.com to get started.