Gain Confidence in Sales a.k.a. if They Pay You, They Trust You
My first post must be a motivational one. A friend of mine is a fantastic designer. One of the best I know. When I first saw her work, I was absolutely stunned. Especially since she never talked about her business with me unless I asked. Having seen what she created made me want to work with her immediately.
The troubling part is that she never really promoted her work. I see a lot of entrepreneur friends make a similar mistake.
If you are a freelancer, small business owner or a CEO, you must sell and there is no way around it.
When people think about sales, they often think about pushing other people into something they don’t want. Forget that altogether. If that is what you think, you need to redefine your idea of selling.
At a conference I attended recently, the CEO of a local taxi app startup talked about how they optimize their business. Quite a good talk. The end buried his whole performance, however.
The moderator came out with a bunch of promo codes for the audience to try out the CEO’s app. More than 70% of the audience confirmed to be taxi users, so one would think it a good move to pitch to them. The execution was what killed it. The CEO seemed really embarrassed and both he the moderator went out of their way to ensure the audience that this had not been prepared in advance. The face of the CEO screamed “please don’t do this, don’t sell to them, this is so embarrassing”. Ultimately, it was.
If you’re a CEO (and you are even if you are just one person) and you don’t trust your product enough to be able to showcase it to a qualified audience, you’re with the wrong company or in the wrong job.
How are prospects supposed to trust your product if you don’t trust it enough to present it to them? If you don’t have the self-confidence, think about the confidence of others in you.
But there is good news. Nobody is born with natural confidence. Real confidence is built over time. Confidence comes from success.
Successful have been training their whole life and have results to prove their success. The sportspeople, the artists, the businessmen. They are confident, because they have previous successes. They remember them and they know what they can do. Whether it is measured times, a dedicated following or number of projects sold. Previous success is your confidence builder and qualification criteria at the same time.
If you are trying to build you confidence and cannot trust yourself, trust other people. Next time you struggle, think about people that already trusted you with their work. If you’ve ever done anything for anyone for money, it means people value what you do. Isn’t that great? Have faith in the judgement of the people that paid you. They are the ultimate litmus test. That is what matters in business. Not your perfectionist personality, but the reality of received accounts.
If nothing else, trust in your cash flow statement when you’re making a sale. As you go forward, you will get more and more confident.
