3 Keys to Building Confidence for Prospecting
I was a part of a recent discussion with the Women in Sales Club on Clubhouse about prospecting into the C Suite. The conversation eventually turned toward building your confidence as you’re getting ready to do your outreach.
Confidence seems to be the first thing to go in those situations. Maybe it is the implied gravity of the situation. Perhaps it’s just simple stage fright. Regardless, a lot of sellers do not have the proper mindset necessary to make their prospecting efforts successful.
There are certainly some tactics you can use to get yourself ready to go. A lot has been said about taking the superhero pose and what that does to your brain chemistry. You can listen to your favorite song or a playlist designed to increase your swagger. You can do some light exercise while you’re listening to that music and get your blood pumping a little bit.
Tactics will work for some, not so much for others. What I’m going to layout for you here are three truths that you can always rely on for the firm footing you need to take the next step.
Remind yourself of what you know to be true
You’ve done this before. You’ve sold things before. You can do this again. Maybe that’s a little bit oversimplified, but does that matter? Isn’t it really that simple? You signed up for a job in sales, this is what a job field looks like, and you’ve won in the past. Go get it!
Even if this is your very first job in sales, and you’ve never sold anything, remember this: someone believes in you enough to put you in this position. That should be more than enough to go with, but let’s take it even another step further.
Why did you choose to work for this company?
Why do you feel so confident in the solution that you’re selling?
Why do you believe that your future customers will be better off for having purchased from you?
Why do you believe that you are significantly different from your competitors?
Finally, but perhaps most significantly, why do you believe in yourself and your ability to take on any project?
These are questions I ask every one of my new clients when we get started. It is amazing what comes out in the answers, and you might be surprised how raring to go and get started people are when we are done.
Redefine what success looks like
One of the biggest misconceptions out there is that if you can say the right thing to the right person at the right time, they will buy from you. This just isn’t true as often as you’d like it to be. The truth is, that selling is a process, not a one time event, and you have to treat it as such.
So what does success look like for that cold call or email? Do you feel like you need to walk away with a firm next step and an appointment on the schedule in order to feel good about it? If so, then you’re being way too unfair to yourself. I believe that the only field sales call is one where you didn’t learn something. As long as you come away with a small piece of information that will help you on a later sales call, it’s a win.
Play the long game. No step is too small if it’s headed in the right direction. Just keep taking steps. Everyone of those little wins is a step forward, and those steps and add up very quickly. That momentum forward becomes very tough to overcome, and you sell more and more effectively the further it carries you.
Address your dysfunctional relationship with failure
Can we talk about failing? I feel like it gets a bad rap.
From a young age, we are taught that not failing is more important than learning; that’s it’s more important to get an A on the test than it is to really take a lesson away from the material. The two are not the same.
The truth is that you learn a lot more from your failures than you do from your successes. Part of that is because when you start something, success is assumed. Failure tends to surprise you, and the potential of that surprise is often enough to keep you from trying.
The funny thing is, the more I fail, the more I learn. The more I learn, the more I win (you can add that to this list of 35 other inspirational quotes about failure from Hubspot).
When you recognize that your relationship with failure is at worst abusive and at best dysfunctional, an entire world of possibilities opens up in front of you: literally. All of a sudden, you have fewer things standing in the way of you doing great things.
Take each of these concepts and think about them for a little while. They are not guaranteed to give you the confidence you’re looking for, but they make it possible for you to find it for yourself. The confidence you earn as a result will be a lot more sustainable, and more importantly, you’ll know where the well is to go and get more.
Which well do you go to for your confidence?
Jeff Bajorek
Real. Authentic. Experience.
There’s a big difference between knowing how to sell and being able to. Jeff Bajorek spent over a decade in the field as a top performer. He’s been in your shoes. He knows what it will take. He can help you succeed.
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