Confront the "F" Word in Sales

People don’t like failure because FAILURE doesn’t look good on resumes, financial sheets, and scoreboards.

However, the F-word (failure) seems to be a prerequisite to sales success. There are few success stories that don’t include a chapter or two in which failure seemed imminent, with the desire to throw in the towel in plain view.

Top achievers are not discouraged by initial failure. Look at Thomas Edison. When he sought to invent the lightbulb, it purportedly took him 1,000 tries before he developed a successful prototype. When asked, “How did it feel to fail 1,000 times?” Edison responded, “I didn’t fail 1,000 times. The lightbulb was an invention with 1,000 steps.

Dr. Wayne Dyer, a famous motivator, teacher, and author, had a saying about fear of failure: “You cannot fail, you can only produce results.”

In sales, learning to fail and learning from failure are key ingredients to success.

Even top performing sales professionals, with long track records of success are punctuated by slips, slides, and falls. Top performing sellers face the same challenges as mediocre sellers, but they respond differently to failure. Top performers encounter failure and channel it into something positive. They remain calm, learn, adapt, and preserve when dealing with failure.

Author Roger Von Oech said this about failure: “Remember the two benefits of failure. One, if you do fail, you learn what doesn’t work. Two. Failure gives you the opportunity to try a new approach and succeed.”

If you want to succeed in sales, you must learn how to fail successfully.

That sounds counter-intuitive right! But it is one of the most important success principles in sales. If you’re not willing to fail and learn, you are not stretching out of your comfort zone. You are not taking risks. You are not growing and learning. 

A client of mine recently said this about failure. “Rationally, I know that failure is nothing to be ashamed of. It’s an inevitable part of being in sales and a necessary step toward success. Irrationally, I still fear failure. And I know I’m not alone.”

As long as there is business to be conducted, there will be fears to overcome.

Here are four steps to help you overcome the fear of failure in sales:

1.      Take action. Bold, decisive action! Do something that scares you, such as making a prospecting call to the president of a large company or presenting to your colleagues at a company meeting. It’s important to overcome inertia by doing something bold and getting comfortable with being uncomfortable. Ask yourself: “What can I gain, what do I want to learn, and what opportunities will be lost if I prevent myself from taking new actions? If you let go of the fear of failure and take bold action, what wonderful things will show up in your life?

2.     Failure is a matter of interpretation. Failure is not a fact, it is simply a matter of your perspective and how you choose to interpret situations and events in your life. A failure to one person might simply be a great learning experience for someone else. The wonderful thing about failure is that it’s entirely up to you to decide how to interpret it. We can choose to look at failure as “the end of the world,” or as proof of just how inadequate we are. Or, we can look at failure as the incredible learning experience that it often is.

3.     Set small goals. These should be goals that are slightly, but not overwhelmingly, challenging. Think of these goals as “early wins” that are designed to help boost your confidence. Make your small goals incremental steps on route to much bigger and rewarding goals. Taking one small step at a time will help build your confidence, keep you moving forward, and prevent you from getting overwhelmed with thoughts of reaching your ultimate goal.

4.     Distinguish between real and imagined fear. Fear of failure by definition involves imagined threats. And while the fear is real, the threat of fear usually is not. The threat of fear is a prediction, a product of your imagination, a scenario you manufacture in your mind. This doesn’t make your fears feel any less threating. But it makes them premature and most likely unnecessary painful. Instead of letting the fear of failure stop you, study it and plan how to avoid the consequences you’re scared of.

Life is to be enjoyed in whatever way you choose to do, so let go of the fear of failure and enjoy a life full of new experiences and opportunity. 

FREE CONSULTATION

To learn how Charlie Anderson’s SHIFT THINKING SALES COACHING can help you overcome the fear of failure and become a more confident and successful sales professional, click on this link: https://charlie-anderson-l6p4.squarespace.com/coaching    

If you’re looking for a competitive edge, one that empowers your sales team to out-think, out-compete, out-perform, and out-sell the competition, you should contact Charlie Anderson to explore how SHIFT Thinking sales training and Human Dynamic Selling can transform your team into ultra-high performers that consistently exceed their revenue goals.

Telephone: 339-927-2746   Email: [email protected]

Charlie Anderson is President of Selling Skills Institute, a bestselling author, and the creator of Shift THINKING - a “breakthrough” sales training methodology that unlocks human potential. He recently created Human Dynamic Selling, a proprietary, high-trust, high-value, and high-caring sales model that enables sellers to humanize the buying and selling experience, differentiate themselves, and increase their chances of being the preferred seller in today’s digital age.