FEAR! The unpleasant emotion.

There are different acronyms that break down F.E.A.R, yet I believe the best one that describes what salespeople experience is, False Expectations Appearing Real. I learned this while getting sober 11 years ago, it was one of the coping strategies learned to help navigate stressful situations, it worked!

So how does F.E.A.R effect salespeople? Let's answer that with a few questions and you decide:

• Do you hesitate on prospecting, because you think about the rejection or sounding stupid to some hotshot executive?
• Do you resist following up with a customer you've been working with because you don't want to annoy them?
• Have you skipped a step in your sales process i.e. asking about budget or presenting the proposal, because it feels uncomfortable?

If you answered no to all of those great! I am sure you are reaping the rewards from your hard work. But, if you said yes to at least one, then you are a victim of False Expectations Appearing Real. This is your psyches way of protecting you from a pain or a threat. It is basic fight or flight, we make up some excuse to justify the F.E.A.R, but this only harms ourselves.

So what can we do about this? You should T.E.L.L:

1) Talk with someone (manager, peer, mentor) about what your challenge is, i.e. "I'm having trouble with my prospecting, I can't get motivated."

2) Explain how you are feeling about this, actually describe the F.E.A.R. "I get nervous when prospecting, because I feel I might annoy people."

3) List out what could happen if the F.E.A.R gets real. "The person I am calling can hang up on me, tell me to F-OFF, or be rude" etc.

4) Level with yourself. Is there a high probability of your F.E.A.R actually becoming real? If so, will it be the end of the world? Will you live to make another call? Logic will likely dictate that it likely won't happen and that you will survive if it does.

It is common for people to plan for the worst case scenario, the problem is sometimes those plans are based on emotions and not logic. Once we get vulnerable and share with someone that does not have the same F.E.A.R, we can unpack it for what it is a False Expectation Appearing Real. So, next time you have a F.E.A.R with anything, your ass better T.E.L.L somebody!