Your ability to sell is critical to the success of your company. Everything depends on your capacity to sell, from your profitability to the success of your marketing. However, just because you're a business owner or a freelancer doesn't mean you have no worries associated with selling. No matter if you are an amateur or pro, everyone has experienced— the fear of rejection in sales.
Undoubtedly, most sales professionals feel scared, afraid, or hesitant to perform anything related to sales, whether it's selling in person, making phone calls, or creating sales copy.
However, to overcome this form of fear of rejection in sales, be explicit about what you're frightened of, then work on one step at a time to solve each difficulty. Use the checklist below to discover your sales roadblocks and what you can do to overcome them
Learn how to overcome your fear of rejection in sales in order to improve your sales skills. In this detailed guide, we will learn 10 crucial lessons that will help us to overcome the fear of rejection in sales. We’ll cover:
- Stop Making Assumptions.
- Visualize the Positive Outcome
- Accomplish Small Wins
- Shift your Focus
- Look for Micro-Commitment
- Practice on Listening than Reacting
- Celebrate Every Refusal
- Murder Boarding Technique
- Focus on how your Product Can Help Customers
- Remind yourself Benefits of Salesperson
Let’s start;
1. Stop Making Assumptions
Sales is the one profession where you have to stop making assumptions to grow substantially. The top salesperson knows how to qualify prospects without having any fear of rejection in sales or creating any negative and overthinking thoughts.
Most of the time we assume the worst scenarios without even taking any action. And, that’s the point where we take the wrong turn. Assumptions are based on past negative experiences that cause fear in our minds. Therefore, instead of focussing on the negative assumptions— choose positive visualizations. This takes us to the next point.
2. Visualize the Positive Outcome
You surely might have heard about Visualization, haven't you? So, the question arises— does it work? Well! There’s absolutely no guarantee for anything in this world. But, visualization does work in our favor and improves the situation that will upturn the circumstances in your favor.
If you will constantly auto-play failing scenarios in your brain, then most likely you have set your ways to fail. On the other hand, when you visualize victory, you're training your subconscious mind on how to act in order to achieve that positive outcome.
Establish goals and the expected outcome for any upcoming sales call (whether in person, on the phone, or online). Take it a step further by mentally walking through the steps necessary to reach your goal. Additionally, you must imagine the situation throughout interactions. Prepare and practice with a variety of responses and follow-up questions. It will assist you in boosting your confidence and increasing your motivation to face any uncertainty.
Pro tip: Request assistance from a colleague or manager in role-playing a real-life situation and practicing key sales calls. You won't be able to foresee every question your prospects will ask with 100 percent accuracy, but your careful consideration of the possibilities will boost your confidence and make you feel more capable.
3. Accomplish Small Wins
When the anxiety overwhelms you with the fear of rejection in sales, and you don't have the energy to execute the aforementioned exercises, make a list of little victories you can achieve more quickly. These small successes don't have to be tied to sales, but they should be related to client acquisition or lead nurturing.
Here are some suggestions:
- Update the material on your company's social media sites. Anything brief will do as long as it fits your brand's voice. This could be a link to a specific product or a link to an article.
- If you haven't already, optimize your social media pages.
- Respond to communications from potential customers who want to learn more about your products or services. There's no need to blatantly sell; just give them the knowledge they require.
- Read and explore books or other materials about entrepreneurship, sales, marketing, or your particular field.
- Look for methods to improve the product pages of one or two of your site's items or services.
Getting these small victories under your belt can boost your confidence, especially if they result in purchases. Then you'll be in a better position to confront your fear of rejection head-on.
4. Shift your Focus
Interacting and Communicating with your colleague’s salespersons would help you to learn in all aspects. When you are anxious, it’s tempting to believe you're the only one who's going through the fear of rejection in sales and failures, which only makes things worse. However, when you interact with your senior salespersons and other executives, you will learn that everyone goes through this.
Also, make sure to know how they deal with failures and fear of rejection in sales. It will offer you a new medium to tackle issues if you face similar situations as them. Interestingly, just shifting your focus to a bigger perspective and communication will lead your way to confidence and success.
5. Look for Micro-Commitment
Achieving what you want takes time. Consider the following scenario: you meet a vice president of a firm you admire at a networking event. Approaching them and asking for a job right immediately is probably not a good idea. Instead, request a lunch meeting since you're interested in knowing more about their professional path. Then, if you're interested in expanding your market expertise, you could ask to sit in on a sales meeting.
Moreover, you can then offer your services as a freelancer for any future assignments they may have. When prospects continually invest time, activity, and emotion in you, you have a significantly better chance of closing the sale.
We've observed and analyzed these strategies for a lot of salesmen, so I'm convinced they'll work for you as well. Keep in mind that rejection is an unavoidable aspect of life. You're coming closer to receiving a yes if you get a lot of no's.
6. Practice on Listening than Reacting
Everyone enjoys speaking and being understood. And, the same scenario goes for prospects. They want salespeople to listen to their issues and want proper resolutions to them. Make sure to sense their tone and frustration with their pain or challenging points. Further, you have to take a step in when they have told you all about their issues and challenges.
Moreover, some salespeople will sometimes ask for what they want and then continue talking. They believe that if they say something, the other side will not reject them. This is a poor strategy and may lose the deal. Therefore, make sure to avoid such situations and prefer listening to your prospects. Silence is more effective than frantic babbling.
Make sure to offer your prospects a chance to speak. No matter how much you blabber, the other party isn't going to change their decision. But they might if you let them say what they're actually thinking and then effectively dismiss their objections. You can save time and move on swiftly if it turns out to be something that is non-negotiable on their end.
7. Celebrate Every Refusal
When you place yourself in situations where you will face the fear of rejection in sales on a regular basis, you are teaching yourself to accept rejection. However, this will make you more terror resistant, as well as teach you how to better control your emotions.
Although, even if this appears to be too daunting, start small. You can take small baby steps and focus on one day at a time. Further, make a commitment to speak up at meetings, phone one potential client per day, or approach higher-ups with new ideas whenever you have the opportunity. Ultimately, with experience, you'll notice that it becomes easier, and you'll be able to put yourself in even more unpleasant situations.
If you are a sales team leader, make sure to encourage your salespeople to be proud of their work and effort. If it takes an average of 100 calls for your salespeople to clinch a sale, a salesperson who confronted her anxieties and made one call has only 99 calls left to make.
This method will motivate you and your team to work with confidence and consistency. Your sales force will overcome the fear of rejection in sales in no time. To lead your team in a better way, you have to stand with them in all aspects
8. Murder Boarding Technique
Putting yourself in your boss's shoes is the best method to prepare for a promotion. What kind of difficult questions do you think they'll ask? When it comes to their aims and priorities, how does your request fit in?
What objections could they raise that could put the deal in jeopardy?
This is referred to as ‘murder boarding’ by salespeople. Negotiation is stressful by nature, but if you anticipate objections and prepare ahead of time, you'll be far better able to keep your emotions in check. You'll be better at pushing for the outcome you want if there are fewer surprises.
Furthermore, prospects are more inclined to dismiss salesmen who are perceived as ‘boring.’ That's because the brain concentrates on disturbances, which means anything new or different, as a survival instinct.
Therefore, if you're courting a new client, do, say, or even wear something out of the ordinary. At the very least, you'll get their attention right away, and you'll be able to negotiate to know you'll have their entire focus.
9. Focus on how your Product Can Help Customers
You'll have to dig deep to figure out how to overcome your fear of rejection in sales or being aggressive. We typically associate sales with being manipulative or sleazy because we believe it stems from a position of deception. While there are clearly dishonest people out to make a fast buck, the fact that this makes you feel horrible indicates that you aren't one of them.
Instead of focusing on the sale, think about what makes you excited about your company. What about the items or services you provide appeals to you the most? The more invested you are in these issues, the better.
Many salespeople can't seem to shake the image of swindling people out of their money just because they work in sales.
Furthermore, prospects love real-life success stories. And, this is the perfect opportunity for you to share client success stories to show how your products benefit actual people and businesses and get them enthused about giving value.
10. Remind yourself Benefits of Salesperson
Salespersons obtain certain interesting perks that are not offered in other work fields. So, whenever you feel demotivated, unworthy, or failure— you need to revisit why you started this sales job in the first place. Here’s a list of benefits that you need to remind yourself of during tough times. Let’s have a look:
- The salesperson can earn a good living
- Possibility of working indoors and remotely
- The salesperson can avoid doing strenuous physical work
- You are not limited to selling a single product and can make as much money as you like
- Can work for a variety of companies with ease
- Salespeople can boost their team's performance
- You are not required to work at night
- You don't generally work many extra hours
- Free Weekends and holidays
- You have the option of benign self-employed
- The Internet makes it simple to sell goods
- You learn how to improve your social skills and persuade others
- Social skill abilities are useful in your personal life
Final Takeaways
We have finally reached the end section of this comprehensive learning guide on how to overcome the fear of rejection in sales. Let’s cover up some important pointers for future reference:
- Sales is the one profession where you have to stop making assumptions to grow substantially
- When you visualize victory, you're training your subconscious mind on how to act in order to achieve that positive outcome
- Request assistance from a colleague or manager in role-playing a real-life situation and practicing key sales calls
- When the anxiety overwhelms you with the fear of rejection in sales, and you don't have the energy to execute the aforementioned exercises, make a list of little victories you can achieve more quickly
- When you interact with your senior salespersons and other executives, you will learn that everyone goes through this
- Make sure to offer your prospects a chance to speak. No matter how much you blabber, the other party isn't going to change their decision
- Make a commitment to speak up at meetings, phone one potential client per day, or approach higher-ups with new ideas whenever you have the opportunity
- Instead of focusing on the sale, think about what makes you excited about your company
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Rhema Hans
Ayushi Somani
Deskera Content Team
Rhema Hans
Deskera Content Team
