Why is sales so scary?

When I was a young sales person with Xerox, I spent the first 13 weeks of my sales career being absolutely terrified!

Never having been in direct sales before, I found myself with a territory, a humungous target, a company car and no idea what to do!

All that changed when, to my enormous relief, I finally went on a week's training - 'basic selling skills'. That week changed my life. Suddenly I had a process to follow. I knew what I was supposed to be doing and I had a tool kit to help me do it. Even though I was still desperately inexperienced, I knew that, with practice, I could do it.

And sure enough, I spent 7 years at Xerox, where sales was very kind to me.

But I have never forgot how it felt in those first 13 weeks.

So now, one of my absolute joys is teaching new and inexperienced sales people how to sell. With a good basic structure to follow and a toolkit of techniques, actually just about anyone can sell.

But we need to talk about fear.

• Fear of cold calling
• Fear of closing
• Fear of following up
• Fear of negotiating a good deal
• Fear of getting it wrong

Sales is a funny old game - it's the one thing that every business needs to survive, but we don't always support the people who need to be good at it. If fear is eating away at their confidence, they will struggle to perform

Just think about the skills you need to be good at sales:

Proactively contact strangers, find out what they need, match what you offer to what they want, adapt to the limitless types of personalities out there, be great at time management, disciplined, able to pick yourself up and keep going when 100 people have just rejected you, be great at talking, be great at not talking and instead listening, be a mind reader, a body language expert, a presenter, a negotiator, a source of knowledge and still able to do your own admin and achieve specific revenue goals. Oh and do all of this ethically and professionally.

So is it surprising that many members of your team will experience fear?

Hardly!

Sales is about changing the status quo, about making things happen, being proactive and pushing boundaries.

Some people will look at that list and think 'hey - no way is that for me!'

Of course, that's understandable.

However, many people don't have a choice, because sales is part of their role - whether it is because times have changed, their role has changed or perhaps the team has changed. Whatever the reason, I see so many inexperienced but fabulous people learning to fear sales.

It really shouldn't be like that.

Ultimately, it is simple:

1. Give them a structure
2. Give them the tools to do their job
3. Support them

Then watch them develop confidence and skills that will last them a lifetime. It's good for you and it's good for business.

For more information about basic sales training, please get in touch.

I also have a special package for those employing kickstarters at the moment.

Call: 07748 994 334 or pop something in my diary:

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