How to overcome a fear of selling

Fear is one of the most powerful constraints to becoming successful in all manner of industries and roles but particularly sales. The ability to consistently put yourself out there in front of prospective clients is not easy. This is especially true when posed with the need to cold call, dealing with people who are as warm as an English summertime to your sales pitch.

Some of the most common anxieties people face when it comes to selling is a lack of confidence either in themselves or the product or service they are promoting, fear of judgement and fear of failure.

Here are our tips and advice for overcoming the looming fear of selling:

What you are selling is beneficial

The used car salesman approach to selling further acts to create a heightened fear of selling by perpetuating the notion that you are selling people a service or a product that they don’t need. Instead rather than forcing your offering down your listeners throat, ensure that your product or service is helping the potential client overcome a problem or solution.
This way you are delivering a solution that will help your client in their business or day to day lives. This change of mind-set will help you to approach the sale in a less fearful way.

Alter your approach

The idea of forceful or pitch selling where you merely reel of your spiel is another way to achieve a negative reaction from your audience. A better way to approach this is to know your product or service inside out and anticipate the problems that your potential clients might be facing. This will help you on 2 fronts:
Confidence – By knowing your product/service inside out and knowing the exact ways that your product can solve a customers’ problem will reduce your fear of approaching the sale.
More likely to close the deal– Alter your approach so that you are actively listening to the issues faced by your prospective customer. This means you not only make that person more susceptible to you by taking a softer approach and it means you can offer a creative, tailored solution to their need making you more likely to close the deal

Embrace the rejection

Every sales person in the world will face rejection, unfortunately as much as we would like a 100% conversion rate, you will hear the dreaded ‘no’ on a frequent basis.
My suggestion is to embrace it, a rejection is the best way to learn. The more rejection you face the more comfortable you will be with facing it. This will allow you to develop a style that means you begin to hear those ‘no’s’ less and less.

Remember, being successful isn’t an overnight fix it is something that must be honed and nurtured.