Being Assertive

 Assertiveness is the ability to express your emotions and needs honestly to someone and also maintain the relationship you share.

     Being assertive is a positive behavioral style that is learned and acquired by a person through conscious, deliberate efforts. This contrasts with the natural human trait of being either passive or being overly aggressive. In these natural behavioral patterns, the actions are triggered by the unnatural, induced negative emotion of fear, anger, and guilt.

      Hence, the passive or aggressive type of behavior is used by people in order to avoid the anticipated pain or loss. Aggressive behavior is due to a sense of insecurity and more often a deliberate projection of strength.

      An aggressive person is motivated by the experiences they had in their formative years where people who had the upper hand exhibited aggressive behavior. It is a form of coordination of a self-programming response pattern where it is his belief that attack is the best form of defense. A disposition of hostility helps in getting things our way. It is an animalistic behavior of a pattern of self-preservation. While indulging in such behavior, the practitioner loses all sense of self-control and transgresses the boundary of decorum, decency, and appropriateness. The aggressive behavior damages interpersonal relationships as the words spoken and actions taken while in an aggressive state of mind cross all limits, causing irreversible damages a lot of times.

     A person with an aggressive temperament emanates from lower levels of knowledge and skills and indicates a lower level of emotional intelligence. In today’s world, emotional intelligence is more important than intellectual intelligence.

    The passive temperament person is also an insecure person who denies their feelings. The emotion that drives such a person is, again, fear, anger, and guilt. He has an inferiority complex and considers himself not good enough and thinks that nobody loves him.

    His inferiority complex ensures that he is ill-treated, undermined, and taken for granted. This feeling of inadequacy stems from his experiences during his formative years. He is cynical, resigned, and devoid of new inspiring possibilities in life. His life exemplifies mediocrity and is driven only by a survivor’s mentality. He harbors feelings of victimhood and is filled with self-doubt and self-pity.

      On the other hand, assertive behavior and temperament arise out of a sense of self-assuredness. It comes from a high level of self-acceptance and self-worth. The communication of an assertive person is open and honest and he respects his boundaries as well as the boundaries of others. He neither transgresses others’ space of decency and privacy nor allows others to invade his own space of self-respect and self-esteem. Assertive behavior is a learned behavior coming from high levels of knowledge and skill. He has studied the human relations principles. He is driven by the emotions of respect and optimism and has a high zest for life.

      For a salesperson, learning, acquiring, and practicing assertive behavior is very crucial. Most salespeople get into a very passive disposition in front of customers. The thinking that all prospective customers are kings and always right is ignorance of the sales process. Selling is a process of identifying and uncovering a need of a prospect and then satisfying the need with your products and services for a mutual benefit. Every salesperson should remember that every customer is a professional friend. It is always in a win-win proposition. Every salesperson is in the business of building relationships based on trust, mutual respect, and mutual benefits.

      The moment a person becomes passive in his disposition, it would lead to a lose-win equation going in favor of the customer.

       Every salesperson should acquire and practice assertive behavior of mutual respect and open and honest interaction. The person who is a symbol of assertiveness is my very close friend who is a very successful entrepreneur, Mr. Mohan Venkatesh Iawyer.

 Mohan was born into a lower middle-class family of five. He started working while studying by teaching school children to contribute to the family income. The entrepreneurial streak continued with Mohan starting a printing business while in college. Initially he used to get printing orders and get it done from the most economical printing source. From the profits made, Mohan went on to buy his own printing machines and opened a modest business. After graduating, Mohan got an opportunity to go to Muscat to work with Apollo marketing Konica products, which was great exposure for a budding mind.

 He decided to return to India after a couple of years as his father was unwell, and he desired to be with him. On his return, he decided to start a business from scratch. With minimal funding, slowly but steadily, Shrutika Marketing became a one-stop shop for importers of Indian products worldwide to get a great collection of sarees, blouses, jewelry products, purses, footwear, and gift products.

 I have seen Mohan’s growth as a businessman and watched him shoulder the responsibility as vice president of Indian Imitation Manufacturing Association. Mohan never loses his cool and is assertive and not aggressive in his interactions. He has helped me get some long outstanding payments from uncooperative clients. He sticks to his correct point of view and position without losing his focus and cool. He puts forth his viewpoint with clarity and orderliness. Mohan does not get intimidated by the emotional responses of uncooperative and unscrupulous clients, and many a times this calm, composed, assertive composure wins the deal and helps him achieve his intended objective and outcome.

 In selling, every master salesperson has this quality, which is what makes him successful.

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This article comes from one of the topics from Dr. Arunaagiri's best-selling book 'The Sales Master' in which he states the 21 key elements to win the game of life & selling.

The book is available on Amazon here: https://www.amazon.in/dp/1772046906/

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Dr. Arunaagiri Mudaaliar is a best-selling author having authored several self-help books like 'Unleash your Potential', 'Being Customer Centric', 'Jogging for Life Success', 'Pathway to Sales Mastery', etc...

He is aslo a passionate global trainer, an international sportsman and a sucessful industrialist.

Know more about him here: www.arunagiri.co.in

Follow him on Facebook here: facebook.com/authorarunagiri

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