Breaking Mental Barriers to Boost Sales

Struggling with the fear of making cold calls or hesitant to ask for referrals? This episode promises to transform your sales approach by uncovering the psychological barriers holding you back. We'll dig into how past experiences and deep-seated beliefs can create mental roadblocks, making it tough to initiate contact with potential clients. Learn why our brains cling to these limiting beliefs and how you can break free to unlock new professional growth. With actionable strategies to boost your confidence in prospecting, you'll discover how to turn your fears into opportunities for success.

Imagine reframing every rejection as a step closer to helping someone. By shifting your mindset from fearing rejection to focusing on the genuine value your product or service brings, you can revolutionize your sales technique. We highlight the importance of maintaining a helpful attitude even in the face of “no,” and how this can foster trust and keep doors open for future opportunities. Explore how the emotional impact of belonging influences client referrals and sales success. Make your sales journey about improving lives and see how many people you can help, rather than personal setbacks.

Chapters

• 0:13 Overcoming Limiting Beliefs in Sales
• 11:51 Focus on Helping, Not Rejection

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:13

Hello again. How do you feel when you start thinking about prospecting? Now, if you work for somebody else, then this might be something that your sales manager asks you to do, or your boss, whoever that might be. Or if you work for yourself, you're not getting enough leads, you're not making enough contacts, you don't have enough opportunities in your opportunity funnel. So you start looking at alternatives, and one of those alternatives is to start cold calling or to ask for referrals, or to basically put yourself out there, to basically put yourself out there, and this can even extend or what I'm going to talk about in terms of the feeling side. It can also extend to asking for the deal as well.

Speaker 1: 1:06

So I know many salespeople, many people who are selling whether you think of yourself as a salesperson or not, yourself as a salesperson or not are very reluctant to ask for the order. They are very reluctant to go prospecting, to go and by that I mean go and contact in person whether it's face to face or on the phone people that they don't know to try and create new business. So you found a company that's in the same kind of business as the people that you ideally want to work with, but there's a reluctance to contact those people and do it cold, hence cold calling. And there's also a reluctance when you have a client who's happy to actually ask for a referral, and we're very good at coming up with reasons why we shouldn't do it. But I'm going to talk a little bit about what's going on there, because part of it may well be lack of technique. Generally, it will be lack of confidence as well. So it might be you're new to sales or you've had bad experiences doing that in the past. So whatever it is that's holding you back, I'm going to suggest that you just step back from what all of that is, because this is your beliefs. So we're getting into a little bit of psychology here and what we do here and what we do, the way we operate is, once we have a set of beliefs, we tend to operate to both reinforce those beliefs and to try and keep us safe. So now just to explain what I'm talking about.

Speaker 1: 2:53

If you've had a bad experience of cold calling, obviously when we have a bad experience we try not to replicate it. We would much sooner have a go at repeating experiences that were very enjoyable. So when it comes to things where we've had a bad experience. That's one area where we're likely to hold back from doing it again. So let's say you've tried cold calling. You tried a few places, you got rejected. Maybe someone was quite rude to you. It was quite, quite an unpleasant experience and you walked away from it feeling pretty down and, um, you know, definitely need a break. Um, you know, go for a walk, do something else, listen to some music, but just to separate from those really uncomfortable feelings. And this is often where this reluctance to engage in these kind of activities comes from.

Speaker 1: 3:52

Now, it can also be parts of your belief systems, which you get when you are growing up. So all of us, as we're growing up, we're exposed to people's views about how the world works and what we do. Partly when we're very young, we'll agree with our parents or whoever is responsible for us when we're growing up, because by agreeing with them we fit in and we survive. So we're programmed to survive in many ways and in that process we take on board a lot of beliefs, and you may well have had the experience of growing up with a set of beliefs and once you get a bit older, you begin to mature, you begin to question them and it may be that you're some distance down the track and when you look back you wonder why you even believed certain things, and the reason is likely to be the environment that you grew up in.

Speaker 1: 4:53

So not just immediate family or the people you're immediately with, but also social pressure, social norms these days it could be social media, advertising, all these kinds of things. They all influence us and what they do. They create a picture of the world, or we construct a picture of what the world is like, how it works, and, because of the way our brains work, once we've made a decision about something, we'll tend to not want to go there again, because it takes quite a lot of energy, and this is one of the reasons why you see people who have the craziest beliefs, but when you try and challenge them and show them facts and give them all sorts of evidence that what they believe is actually incorrect, they will still hold on to that belief and they will even go so far as to challenge what you're presenting as facts or just completely ignore them and change tack altogether. So I'm sure we've all experienced that or certainly seen it, and there's quite a lot of it about these days, unfortunately, and where that comes from a part of where it comes from is simply the way our brains work. So once we've made a decision, we'll tend to stick with it, and this is why there are sales techniques where you get your clients saying yes on small things and then it's a lot easier to close them on the bigger things. This is just the way our brains work.

Speaker 1: 6:24

So what we do over time is we construct a series of beliefs about the world, and some of these hold us back. So, in coaching terms, we would call those limiting beliefs, because what they do? They hold us back from trying things that would allow us to expand and grow. And the reason those beliefs are so strong and they hold us back so much is it comes back to self-preservation. So, having subconsciously made a decision about how the world works in certain ways and it could be a kind of global belief, like all men are or women are, whatever it might be that if you find yourself thinking those ways, that's a simple belief that you've picked up from somewhere, because what you believe mostly is lies, and I was watching somebody the other day and they pointed out that the word lie is in the middle of the word belief. So essentially, these are lies that we have taken on board about the world, about society, whatever it is, and that's not to put anybody down, but the fact that once you realize they're a lie, it means you can tell yourself a different lie, but it can be one that works for you.

Speaker 1: 7:42

So the reason often that we hold back from doing things like cold calling and the things that make us uncomfortable is simply that we've learned, we've constructed a view of the world that will support a fundamental strategy to keep us safe, and that might be about self-worth. Why would anybody want to listen to me? People are too busy all this kind of thing. So, when it comes to getting on with things like cold calling which is, believe it or not, what I'm talking about here and other things like asking for referrals, this kind of thing, that is generally what's going to hold us back. And if you were to write down, if you were to come up with five reasons why you don't want a cold call, they're likely to be because you fear rejection call. They're likely to be because you fear rejection. You are afraid of being told no, you don't want to bother people, you don't want to be a nuisance. They're really busy people.

Speaker 1: 8:50

It might be that you don't want to make a mistake, you don't want to say the wrong thing, you don't want to get off on the wrong foot, you don't want to potentially blow whatever deal there might be with that particular personal company. So there's that fear of getting it wrong and then blowing the whole deal. It may not feel professional, you might feel it's unprofessional to bother somebody and again, beware of that word, bothering people but it might feel unprofessional to you. So the bottom line and the common factor in all of those things is that it's about you. You are worried about rejection, you don't want to be told no, you don't want to bother these people, you don't want to make a mistake, you don't feel professional. Is this kind of pattern starting to make sense? And you may have come up with some let's call them objections that you have yourself, and the chances are that they are all about you. And this is absolutely fundamental.

Speaker 1: 9:53

And in my experience, the people who are most successful in sales have made one fundamental shift, and that's what I'm going to invite you to do now with this, and it's not to make it about you. The thing to do with sales is to make it about your client. So, stepping back from that for a moment. Obviously I will come back to this but most salespeople, when they're looking at what they're doing this week or looking at their sales planning, a lot of it comes down to okay, what's my target for the month, how far am I this month? How many sales do I need to get this week? How many calls do I need to make? All that kind of thing? Now, that's all fine, because this is also knowing your numbers, knowing your conversion rates, all of these things. This is all part of the process of sales as a business and these are absolutely legitimate business practices. You need to know your numbers and you need to stay on track with your numbers.

Speaker 1: 10:59

But the mistake a lot of salespeople make is that's as far as they go. So they're not looking at their clients as people who have a problem that you can solve, and that is the fundamental change they look at their customers how much can I get out of this person? And that makes it all about them. How much can I make from this sale? How much can I make from this client? So what I'm going to invite you to do is to just change the way you think about what you're doing and how you phrase things. So the first change is to look at your client and look at your potential clients and ask yourself how many people can I help today?

Speaker 1: 11:51

Because if you believe that whatever you're selling, whether it's a product or a service, if you believe that has genuine value, it genuinely delivers some benefit to the people who buy it, and, frankly, if you can't answer yes to that, you shouldn't be selling certainly that thing. But if you're selling something that has value, if you're selling something that makes somebody's life easier, maybe saves them money or makes them money, but it does something beneficial to them, then what you are offering your potential clients is a way to make their life better, their life better. So, rather than thinking about these fears that you have about yourself so this fear of being rejected or being told no, I don't want to bother people which is all about self-worth, all this kind of thing just begin to rephrase and an exercise might be just to write down how your initial reactions if you think about going and doing some cold calling or asking for referrals, that kind of thing, just as you think of that, just actually feel it, feel the reaction and then put that into words and it's likely to be the kind of phrasing I've been talking about, and then what I suggest you do is rework that phrase, but start with the words I can help them too. So get focused on how you're helping somebody. So, when you go to call on that person helping somebody, so when you go to call on that person, rather than being afraid of rejection, getting knocked back from that meeting, which is about you just approach them and here you are, you're giving them an opportunity to get help with whatever it is you do.

Speaker 1: 13:53

Now, having said all of that, making that shift so that it's about your client, not you. It doesn't mean necessarily and probably, in fact, it doesn't mean that you're, you're everyone's going to say, yep, come and have a chat to me. You're still going to get knockbacks. There are still going to be be people who, for whatever reason, don't want to talk to you. But the important shift about all of that is that it's not about you. You haven't been rejected. You have something that you know has real value, you know has real benefit, but for whatever is going on with them at that moment, it's probably not the right time.

Speaker 1: 14:33

And if you approach it that way, you're approach it in a way where you can keep the door open and you can always say look, obviously, from what you're saying, this isn't the right time. Perhaps I can come back to you in a few weeks, a few months. With your permission, I would like to add you to our mailing list anyway, because we also put out it's not just sales material, we also put out things which are designed to help you. Anyway, I'm kind of making that up. But if you have that kind of thing whether it's podcasts or blogs or anything like that a lot of companies do that now. So there may well be material in that that this potential client finds helpful and then down the track, if they've been listening, if you've got a free giveaway, something like that that is of benefit to people.

Speaker 1: 15:27

What you start to do with that, it's building up trust, it's building up reputation between you and that person that you do know what you're doing. Your company is there to genuinely help them and they are much more likely to come back to you. So, even if initially you don't get the response you would ideally get or would hope to get, what you have begun to do is to just open the door in a way that you can come back to later on and hopefully get some business from. But the key thing is not to take it personally. And again, with referrals, honestly, if you have a client and they're happy and there are certain times to ask for referrals and one of them is when they've just placed an order so at that point they're emotionally on a high because they have just committed to you.

Speaker 1: 16:24

And one of the things we like to do as as people, is we like to feel that we're aligned with the group, whoever that group is, but certainly our peers, people in the same business, people we know, friends, whatever. So if I I'm going to take the example of buying a car, if I buy a car that maybe is slightly unusual and then I tell my friends all about it and they go off and buy the same thing, that makes me feel not only better in as much as I've been able to help them, but it but I feel I get a much stronger feeling of belonging and I don't know if you kind of imagine yourself in that situation. There's a possibility that you'll get that same feeling too, that if you can imagine yourself buying something that's a little different, that nobody else has, but then you introduce other people to it and they buy the same thing. You start to feel more a sense of belonging to that group, and that also is very important to us as people. So when we get rejected, often one of the things that gets triggered in us is not belonging, it's not being part of the group. We've just been pushed out of that potential group for whatever reason.

Speaker 1: 17:39

So the absolutely key thing here is to make it about your client. And in making it about your client, it's about how can you help them? How many people can I help today? That is the kind of phrasing to use If you make it about you. If I do this, I'm going to get rejected, or cold calling is difficult, or asking for referrals, I might get knocked back, I might blow future business, all of that kind of.

Speaker 1: 18:09

You know, we create all sorts of really interesting reasons why we shouldn't do things, and I think the first step in that is first of all just to acknowledge that's what's going on. We're actually our subconscious trying to protect ourselves. Don't put yourself down if that is what is happening. It's just part of being a human being. That's what we do. Acknowledge it for what it is and then put it to one side and think about reframing what you're doing so that it becomes about the client. It's not about you, it's about how can you help these other people, and you know that not everyone wants to be helped when you're there to help them. This is just again about timing. But it is not about you. It's about what's going on for that person. We don't necessarily know what's going on there, but if we give them the opportunity, if they say no, then let's create a way of just keeping the door open in a very low key way, and that can be building up that sense of trust, that sense of professionalism with that potential client over a period and then just go back and visit them again client over a period and then just go back and visit them again.

Speaker 1: 19:28

Okay, so I hope that's been useful. I hope I didn't get too far into the psychology of it. Sometimes it can get a bit confusing or maybe it's worth listening to this two or three times and hopefully that will. You know, a penny will drop, but that is probably one of the most valuable pieces of information I can give you, one of the most valuable suggestions I can make to you about how you approach sales, how you approach your clients, and that also is likely to go a long way towards just opening the door, allowing you to take that risk, to just start experimenting. Yeah, having some techniques absolutely, and this is something I teach in my sales training. I'll give you techniques for doing things like this and they can be a help because it's a way, it's one step.

Speaker 1: 20:25

It knocks down one of those objections, one of those things that stops you from giving it a go, and that is having some sort of benchmark or guidelines to just get you started. And once you do, it's like doing most things. You know a lot of things we try out. There's some resistance and reluctance to doing them. We're afraid of failing, we're afraid of messing up, we're afraid of looking stupid, whatever it might be. But once we've taken a risk, once we've given it a go and, yeah, we might get one or two knockbacks, but we'll get some successes as well, and that will help to build our confidence.

Speaker 1: 21:03

And one of the key things, one of the most important things you can do in life anyway, is to learn from things that don't go well. Don't make it all about you and beat yourself up and yada, yada, all that kind of stuff. Look at it as a lesson. You've just learned one way of not doing something, and there is that quote attributed to Edison, anyway, about. You know he had found however many, 900 different ways of making a light bulb that didn't work before he found the one that did work. Well, hopefully you won't need that number, but just try and approach it that way. Don't make it personal. It's not failure, it's just learning, and we all find our way. We all find techniques to work for us, and in doing that we build our own confidence. It means we are starting to get access to potential business that other people won't, other salespeople won't, because they're not taking that step through their fear.

Speaker 1: 22:05

Okay, I'm going to stop talking. I hope you found that useful and I will speak to you again in the next podcast. Yep, please support podcast. Please take a look at the sales training, and it's there. It's there for me to teach you everything I've learned in many years of doing sales, and if I'd known these things when I started, life would certainly have been a lot easier. Okay, have a great day, a great week, and I'll speak to you soon. Bye for now.