Anxious, Stressed or Depressed When Selling?

When people participate in our sales training courses we first ask them a series of questions to find out “where they are coming from.”

We asked over 1,000 salespeople, “How do you feel when you are prospecting?”

Over 96 percent agreed that they were felt anxious, stressed, under pressure, depressed and rejected. At the end of a prospecting session, they felt exhausted and “like a failure.”

We also asked them, “How do you feel when you meet with a prospect or customer when you are selling?”

Over 92 percent said that they felt anxious, rushed, under pressure and “like a phony.” Over 90 percent said they also felt inferior or subordinate to the prospect. Eighty 83 percent added that they felt “a degree of desperation” to close the sale. Over 97 percent said that they have slanted, exaggerated and/or lied, often by omission, in order to make a sale.

Hardly any of the Top 1 percent of salespeople that we studied experience any of those feelings. It’s not because they are too hard-hearted, too experienced or too enthusiastic to let anything bother them. On the contrary, they tend to be sensitive, responsive and humanistic. So what is their secret?

It’s not a secret. It is just very difficult for most salespeople to accept that the way they have learned to sell is the cause of their own negative feelings. However, the way they sell is not they way the Top 1 percent of salespeople actually sell.

The vast majority of salespeople believe that selling equals persuasion. Thus, almost all sales books and sales training are based on manipulative persuasion tactics. Persuasive manipulation is almost always met with resistance and resentment. The more subtle the manipulation, the stronger the resistance. Then, that resistance has to be overcome with more manipulative techniques.

The Top 1 percent of salespeople have learned to sell without persuasion or manipulation. They sell on the basis of Mutual Trust and Respect. They are totally straight with their prospects and customers. And, they require their prospects and customers to be totally straight with them. They also refuse to spend their time and effort on low probability prospects.

Not coincidentally, 84 percent of all prospects want to buy from someone whom they trust and respect. Therefore, the Top 1 percent of salespeople actually finds it much easier to do business than the other 99 percent.

The Top 1 percent of salespeople have intuitively developed sales behaviors that are entirely compatible with the way most prospects and customers want to buy. The way they sell is radically different from the sales practices of most of the other 99 percent.

Most of that 99 percent cannot or will not make the necessary changes. However, the world opens up for those who are brave enough and honest enough to make the transition. For them, it can be a total life changing experience; not just an improvement in their incomes and job satisfaction.