What's The Best Way to Overcome Fear of Selling

Kevin,

The first time I tried to sell something, an entire industry flew at my head like a bunch of wild, half-starved biddies. Scared the bejesus out of me -- so bad I pulled my product offline.

Wasn't until later I discovered their upset was a sure-fire sign I had a "winner".

So, the best way to overcome the fear of selling? Sell something. Really sell it. If it's worth selling, it's worth you giving all you've got to making your offer, right?

Tina

Honestly it's programmed into us that Salesman
are slimy and marketers are Scamming Maggots.

Little do most people know if it wasn't for
salesman and marketers our entire economy
would crumble and they wouldn't even know
about many of the things they enjoy in life.

The way I got over it was sell Vacuum cleaners
door to door.

Brian Tracy says everybody should take a job
selling things door to door.

That is the hardest way to sell and it gets you
to overcome alot of those fears.

Daniel

I think the fear of selling lies in the fact that you want to perfect your product.

The problem with that approach is that nothing in life is perfect.

You won't ever be able to please 100% of the population so the best thing you can do is offer support, stick to your guarantees and just release a good ass product to the best of your ability.

Everything else will fall into place afer that.

I sucked at my first offline sales job, and was on track to suck even worse at my second, but then I realized something: I chose to take this job. Like it or not, I was now a professional salesperson, and needed to start taking it seriously enough to become an expert in my field (at the time I was selling furniture).

I read a great book called Selling Retail by John F. Lawhon, and in it he wrote

"A salesperson's job is to give the customer the information they need to make the best decision for them."

After that it was easy. I didn't have to compromise my integrity, and I went from being one more bad month away from losing my job to being the top salesperson in the store, a position I held for the remainder of my employment.

This is a long way of saying: Sell what you believe in. Find a product you're excited about, learn everything you can about that product, and your fear of selling will go away forever.

Hope this helps.

Will

Actually didnt have any fear selling products first time around...just believed what i am doing is gonna help me...dats it

Hi Kevin,

If you believe in the quality of your product then there is no reason for you not to put it in front of your visitor. They are interested in your market otherwise they wouldn't be there.

How hard you can push really depends on the market and how conditioned it is. Have a look at other successful established people in your market how do they ask for the sale.

Pete

Have some faith in the good in others.

Most people are not looking for a reason to criticize you. Most are actually on your side and want to see you succeed.

The majority of your prospects will overlook minor errors and imperfections.

Like Craig above said, if you have a support system in place to deal with major issues then that too is acceptable to most people.

Whatever you do in life there will always be a small percentage of people that complain about everything and are looking for an excuse to do so.

So you have to decide if you are going to let that small minority steal your potential happiness when you know that so many more are on your side and want you to do well.

Matt

read tom hopkins
the art of selling

I'd like to offer a bit of a selling philosophy that I've discovered. I say discovered because I don't recall seeing it anywhere else, but it seems so simple that it must have always been around.

Selling boils down to this:

What you sell must help people in some way.

IF you don't at least give them the best chance to buy it, then you are actually doing them harm.

Therefore, it becomes your DUTY to sell, in order to help people.

When I discovered this it was a real paradigm shift.

All the best,
Michael

Like Nike Said..."Just Do It"

In sales you need to get some book education, but then you just have to get out there and and start shaking some hands and kissing some babies.

I've always been afraid of selling, but I think I'm about to use another asset of my personality to conquer it..

I'm simply a mischievous little chit that likes to see what makes people tick...seriously. Not in a harmful way, but I love doing things that make people's jaws drop and gasp in disbelief that I said or did something. I loved DJ'ing, mainly because I always knew when I was onto something that was going to make the club get out of control..and I naturally would start planning on how to make it explode. Security would routinely come over and tell ME to knock it off. I loved getting clubs into a groove, wind them up, and then toss a bottle of gasoline in the fire. I eventually quit because either the alcohol or some girls boyfriend was gonna take me out if I didn't.

At any rate, I think I can focus on this part of my personality and utilize it to sell. Just trying to work out the particulars & see how it works at the moment...

I guess I said all that just to say this: You don't always need a drill to create holes in a hunk of wood. If you swing hard enough, a hammer will do it much quicker, give you a bigger hole & shoot splinters everywhere. The same thing with needing the "selling personality" to sell...there may be another trait of your personality you can leverage to get it done...and it may be explosive.

Todd

Just like anything in life, the more you do it, the easier it gets. When I started in sales back in 2002, that phone receiver weighed 1,000 pounds, but it got much easier to pick up as I made more calls.

Additionally, only offer/sell products or services that are truly helpful. If you feel good about the product or service, it makes it that much easier to be enthusiastic when speaking to a prospect. If you sincerely have a desire to help someone, they will see that come through in your sales presentation.

I've always told sales people that have worked for me to put the prospect first and sell what will meet their needs... the commission will take care of itself, and in the long-run, you'll get more referrals and repeat business.

Look at it another way, instead of you having a fear of selling, back step it, and pick a high quality product that sells itself.

in 99% of cases i never sell the product anyway, and i will talk about anything else other than the product thats being sold, this approach lets you relax and chat with you client in more like a good friend over and above the big salesmans hat that is scaring some people.

Learn to put the bait out and when you get a nibble, slowly start to reel it in, and many many people over sell as they fail to see a buy signal, keep selling and oversell, as soon as you have that buy, be quiet and get the paperwork done before talking again.

Others touched upon this, although I'm going to describe this from the specific way that made a difference to me.

Back in the mid 1990s when I started selling online, I was afraid of failing, which is really to say fear of being rejected.

(That was a self-confidence issue more than anything, and the best resource that comes to mind that helped with that was one or more tape sets by Jack Canfield.)

What helped me get over my fears was doing a reframe.

What I learned from Jay Abraham was two things:

1. The idea of consultative selling: I am the trusted advisor of the people I have made the commitment to serve, and my only job is to listen and learn what the best solutions I'm able to offer to their problems. (That may involve recommending products by someone else, because my role is first and foremost to be of service and help them, whether I get paid as a result, or not.)

2. Knowing what I know about what their needs are, and how I'm able to be of service to them, I have a moral and ethical obligation to let them know about all the ways their lives would be better by purchasing my trainings, courses, products or memberships.

I would, in fact, be doing them a disservice if I held something that could cause a life-changing breakthrough for them, and I did not let them know about it.

People know I'm being genuine with them and that I sincerely care. About twice I promoted an affiliate product I had not seen or reviewed, and my subscribers let me know they bought it because they trust me, although it turned out the thing I recommended did not deliver, and I ended up disappointing people.

Like I said, that happened just twice. And since then, I have had to know personally the value of the things before I'm willing to endorse them.

Hope that gives you a sense of what I mean by not thinking of yourself as doing any selling, you're the trusted mentor, advisor or even friend of the people who look to you for guidance and direction.

And in that role, you have a duty to advise them of how to solve their biggest problems, to the best extent you can!

Warmly,
Dan

Hi Kevin,

It has been my experience that the need for strong closes goes way down with the proper approach in prospecting. Frankly, I never was very good at closing sales, but I didn't have to be. My prospects were interested in what I had before I got there.

I could go into a long, drawn out explanation of this, but Frank J. Rumbauskus' book Never Cold Call Again!goes into detail about it. You can get it for a song at Amazon.com. (I don't make any money with this.)

Just briefly, the point is that the more interested the prospect is before you enter his/her office/home, the more likely they are to buy, and the less aggressive you have to be in closing.

The book is a terrific investment. I really recommend it.

-----

Kevin,

Everyone dreads and fears rejection. To the layman the world of selling is chock full of rejection when in reality, what the layperson perceives as rejection is really refusal. Unless you are rude, ill mannered and overbearing your prospect isn't "rejecting" you personally, they are "refusing" your product. Everyone in the selling game needs to get their head wrapped around the difference between "rejection" and "refusal". In time, as you hone your presentation you can engineer around a large portion of the "refusal" factor.

You need to be sold on your product! As Zig Ziglar says, "Selling is nothing more than transference of feeling. If you feel the way about my product that I feel about my product, you are going to buy my product."

If you are sold "REALLY SOLD" on the benefits of owning your product your mission as a salesperson takes on a noble motive, a motive that no one should feel sheepish about. Like Elrod Blues said in the movie The Blues Brothers, "we're on a mission from God."

Sales people that attempt to sell products that they do not believe in and therefore are not convinced that they will benefit their customers are nothing more than common prostitutes. If you're in this situation find another product to sell.

When you make a sales call you're purpose is of a commercial or "selling" nature. If you've properly sold your prospect on the reason for your visit your prospect is going to expect for you to spread your wampum (spread your wares) and eventually ask for an order. You aren't there as a professional visitor --- you came to ask for and procure an order. Just remember, a sale is made on every sales call. You either sell your prospect on purchasing your product or your prospect sells you on you keeping your product.

One VERY important thing for newbies to grasp, whether you're selling one-on-one in Des Moines or from a podium to 3,500 people in London is that your presentation isn't going to be perfect. Think through and practice your presentation but when the time comes to get in front of your prospects don't allow your intellect to critique everything that comes out of your mouth as you are saying it. This kind of ultra conscious intellectual shredding of your message is counter productive to the flow of your presentation and will only serve to trip you up.

Be at your best but don't attempt to be something that you aren't by using elevated or platform English. Doing so sounds unnatural and phony --- just as phony as someone who cultivates a southern, eastern or any sort of an accent. There is nothing wrong with having a regional accent but cultivating one is a different story. Just be yourself and realize you are going to occasionally screw up. BUT, with each failure you will hone your skills and get better at your profession. Relax; if you screw up, as you will, you can fix it with the next presentation to the next prospect --- or a future second presentation to the same prospect. Have fun and repeat after me --- Every Day In Every Way I'm Getting Better And Beter

Now Go Out And Sell Something :-)

Kevin,

Think about it this way.

People don't like to be sold to. But they like to buy.

Help them make the buying decision.

One good way - ask them for a dollar in return of $100
in value you will return to them.

See selling as a way of returning value. Give. And you will get.

Sales is not as terrifying as it sounds. Really.
Once you get grateful customers, that's when the real kick comes in.

Cheers,
Jag