This week’s question from our portal “Ask Us Anything” comes from Victoria:
My sales conversations used to be weak, but I’ve been showing up on LinkedIn and it’s now generating conversations with top CEOs, including two potential six-figure contracts. My problem is the old mindset stuff is coming back. When someone asks for a proposal, I find myself avoiding it for days, and then I sit and wait for a response, worried they’ll say it’s too much. I’m also afraid they’ll take my ideas and run with them. How do I get from the conversation to the close with the least resistance on my end?
I’m a firm believer in reframing the idea of a sale in your mind first, as something you do for somebody else, not something you need to get. I’m here to help you, not to sell you, not to get something from you. That’s an emotional transformation, and it’s built on cause and effect: if you become the cause of the effect you desire, the effect is certain within the numbers that sales requires. Sales is a numbers game, and it always will be.
What the person is really buying is the value of your product or service, not the product itself. My job is to match those values in the prospect’s mind so they see clearly whether this is something they want or not, because time is the nemesis of every salesperson. If they’re a yes, I want to get there as quickly as I can without rushing. If they’re a no, I want to get there quickly too, so I can move on to the next yes. I will not emotionally attach to needing the sale, even if the truth is I do need it.
Nobody wants to be rejected, but rejection is a perception. I want to leave everyone I talk to better off for having met me. It may be a no today and a yes later. You’re hung up on “what if they say no,” and that fear is a double-binding message: you’re communicating energetically as well as with words, and if you send fear, doubt, or worry, they pick up on it and start thinking along the lines of how they feel.
On protecting your ideas, I’ll never forget sitting with Gary Vee in New York, coming from the same place you are. He told me, “Give them your best first, all the time.” When you give your best, you show them why they want to work with you or why they don’t. Most companies don’t want your idea, they want someone to implement it. It’s a competitive thought, so let it go.
When I changed this for myself, I started asking every day, “Who can I help today?” I burned it into my mind. Sales is something you do for someone, not something you do to them.
