To Win in Sales, You Must Face Your Fear

You need what you need to win the opportunity with your dream client. You know that to get what you need, you have to ask. You have to act. What prevents you from asking for what you need is fear.

You fear that by acting you will step over some imagined line demarking the boundaries of sales etiquette and that you’re asking for what you need will cost you your opportunity. Provided what you are asking for produces value, the greater risk is in not asking for what you need to win (and what you need to succeed once you win).

You fear that by asking for what you need your request will be rejected and you will have wasted some of the credibility and influence you have worked so hard to gain. The risk to your credibility and your influence comes from not asking for what you know you need to compete professionally.

You fear that in the way you need to compete and win you will make your prospective client uncomfortable and that you will impose upon them. What you should fear is not being confident enough and professional enough to have the uncomfortable conversations where all of the value in sales calls is found. Building and implementing the right solution is going to require asking for a lot more that what you need on the front end of the sale. Succeeding is going to require acting.

You fear that by asking for what you need you will be the only salesperson to have asked and it will be perceived as some shortcoming on your part. You should fear lacking the ability to differentiate yourself and your offering. You should fear missing the chance to distinguish yourself, your ideas, and your solutions.

Your fear can keep you from acting. Fear can cause you to make the wrong choice. Hope is not a strategy and waiting is not a tactic.

To succeed in sales, you have to face your fears. You have to act when taking the action you need to take makes you uncomfortable—especially when it makes you uncomfortable. You have to act even when it may make your dream client uncomfortable.

Winning deals and succeeding after you have won means taking the right actions, even when it isn’t easy to take the right actions. This is the mark of the professional.

Questions

1. 1. What actions do you most need to take to win your dream client but instead avoid? What are you afraid that keeps you from taking that action?

1. 1. How much more likely is that you lose your opportunity with your dream client when you don’t ask fro what you need or you don’t act the way you need to act win? Have you considered what your inaction costs you in your ability and likelihood of winning?

1. 1. Do you believe it is better to lose having done everything in your power to win? Can you live with losing when there is some action you could have take or something you could have asked for that would have improved your chances of winning?

1. 1. How much is failure to act when acting necessary costing you? How much is failing to ask for what you need to win and to succeed costing you? How much is your fear costing you?

1. What fear will you face today?

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