The Power of Confidence
My experience has taught me that people want to buy from sales
people who are confident in their abilities. Taking control of
the circumstances and situations around you will develop your
self-confidence. When you consider the amount of rejection that
many sales people encounter, the fact that many salespeople lack
self-confidence is not surprising. Top performing people in any
industry typically possess a high level of self-confidence. They
may not necessarily possess this confidence all their lives. I
have not always have a lot of self-confidence. Outwardly I was
Mr. Confident while on the inside I seriously doubted my
abilities. I had to wrestle with my own mental baggage for years
before I became internally confident. Learning to deal with this
begins with letting go of your personal baggage. Mental baggage
is a collection of all the situations we have experienced or
encountered during our lifetimes. We carry all this baggage
around in our heads and draw from it when appropriate situations
present themselves. Perhaps you tried to join a school sports
team when you were a child. Your athletic abilities in that
particular sport were average; for that reason you were unable
to make the team. You filed away this experience in your
subconscious until a similar situation to it came along. You
immediately recalled the previous performance and outcome, and
told yourself that you were not capable of successfully meeting
the current challenge. Consequently, you did not make the effort
required to meet it. We all carry around this mental baggage. It
influences us in everything we do, both in our business and
personal lives. How it affects us when we sell is very simple.
Mental baggage may consist of customers who have been rude,
abrupt, or angry toward you. Baggage can include situations from
earlier in our work careers or even from our childhoods. As time
progresses, this mental baggage weighs heavier and heavier. Yet
we continue to drag it around with us into every sales
situation. Over time our attitude turns sour, we become
pessimistic and jaded, and we get frustrated with challenging
customers and prospects. Our productivity drops, our performance
slides, and our job security may even be threatened. We become
increasingly bitter toward our chosen occupation, the customers
we serve, and life in general. Our mental baggage is a weight on
our shoulders. How do we prevent this from happening? First,
carrying around mental baggage is a natural part of being a
human being. It is the way we view and deal with our baggage
that makes the real difference in our lives. If we look at each
experience and consider how we can learn from it, our baggage
will have less hold over us. I recall the first paid keynote
presentation I gave. I was well prepared, but not in the
appropriate manner. The room was an awkward shape and the stage
was positioned quite high, something I had never dealt with
previously. I was uncomfortable during my presentation and I
knew my delivery was affected. Instead of focusing on this after
my session, I chose to concentrate on what I learned from the
experience. When you encounter a sales situation that does not
turn out favorably, rather than focus on the negatives and
beating yourself up over it, ask yourself three questions:
1.What did I do well? 2.What did I miss or forget to do? 3.What
will I do differently if faced with a similar situation in the
future? These three questions will help you learn and grow from
each situation and will help improve your future results. Plus,
by first focusing on the positive aspects of the sales
interaction, you will give yourself a mental boost. You must
also recognize that some of our baggage is outdated. We may be
relying on information that is several years old. This happened
to me at the beginning of my career. When I was twenty-three I
was working for a restaurant chain as an assistant manager. I
was promoted to general manager and lasted less than a year
before I was demoted back to an assistant manager. I had proved
unable to perform to the company's expectations. I ended up
leaving the company shortly afterwards. For five years I
hesitated any time an opportunity for a promotion presented
itself; I had not been sure I could do it. Finally it dawned on
me exactly what I had learned from that experience. I was not
the only person responsible for that particular failure, and my
leadership and managerial skills had developed since then.
Nevertheless, it took me five years to realize it! Let go of
your mental baggage and work on developing your personal
confidence. Pay attention to your successes and use these to
help you improve your results.