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The
Power of Confidence
Learn from bad
experiences; don’t carry them around with you.
By Kelley Robertson
My experience
has taught me that people want to buy from salespeople 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 had 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 personal baggage.
ACCUMULATING 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 situation similar 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 our 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.
LEARN AND GROW
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.
THINGS CHANGE
You also must 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 23 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.
Kelley Robertson is president of the Robertson Training Group.
He works with businesses to help them increase sales and motivate
employees. He also is the author of “Stop, Ask & Listen
– Proven Sales Techniques to Turn Browsers Into Buyers.”
Receive a free copy of “100 Ways to Increase Your Sales”
by subscribing to a free sales and motivational newsletter available
at www.kelleyrobertson.com. Contact Robertson at (905) 633-7750
or Kelley@RobertsonTraining Group.com.
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