One of the most common things I am asked to do by my clients is increase the confidence of a sales team or salesperson.
My clients will say something like,
“This rep has great potential, if she could just work on her confidence” or “As a team, we lack confidence, and until that changes, we won’t increase our sales”.
It is true that confidence can overcome almost any deficiency or weakness. Give me a choice between hiring a confident person or a skilled one, and I will always choose confidence. Skills can be taught. Confidence is hard to create. Unless you know the recipe. Confidence isn’t a hard skill, but there is a way to enhance it.
It starts by acknowledging that lack of confidence is NOT the problem. Lack of the correct beliefs is the problem. Show me a salesperson who lacks confidence and I will show you a salesperson who has embraced a set of beliefs incompatible with sales success.
An account executive who lacks confidence in making cold calls is one who BELIEVES that calling on someone unannounced is intrusive, rude, and provides no value to the person being called on. An account executive who has confidence in making cold calls is one who BELIEVES that the subject matter of his cold call is of crucial importance to the prospect.
An account executive who lacks confidence calling on C-Level prospects is one who BELIEVES that those execs all judge someone by their title and not by the relevance of their offering.
An account executive who has the confidence to walk away from a deal is one who BELIEVES that opportunity is abundant, and that the next client is just around the corner.
If you want to tackle the confidence issue (your own or someone else’s), start by identifying what beliefs reduce that confidence and what new beliefs would empower it if they were adopted.
Go find a customer who needs what you sell. Believe that they are out there.