Overcome these common sales hang-ups.

The Worry: ‘They’re going to say no.”

How to Handle It: Rejection is part of sales. How you perceive and react to it, however, makes the difference. First, recognize that you’re going to win some and you’re going to lose some; accepting the reality that your close rate won’t be 100% can be liberating. Furthermore, consider that rejection often isn’t personal.

Most importantly, view rejection as a potential learning experience. Analyze the situation with a mind to determining what you could have done better – steps you could have taken that would have made the buyer receptive. When you take this approach and view rejection as an opportunity to improve, you remove the experience from a negative, emotional space and put it in an analytical, forward-looking zone. That makes receiving a ‘no” just part of your success process, not a dreaded black hole from which you fear you’ll never emerge.

The Worry: ‘I won’t make my numbers.”

How to Handle It: Often, anxiety is tied to lack of preparation. If you don’t have a definite plan for how you’ll achieve your revenue goals, you’re a lot more likely to be worried about failure – and more likely to fail.

So, take the energy you’re wasting on anxiety and channel it into getting strategic. Develop a detailed plan with practical actions for achieving your targets. Have an annual goal? Break down your plan by quarter. Include an outline of actions you must take on a weekly basis to reach the quarterly levels you desire. Focus daily on doing the small steps necessary to maximize the success potential of each week. Such committed activity accumulates, snowballs over time into large-goal achievement.

In developing this plan, it’s useful to know what your close ratio is – the number of deals you close compared to the number of prospects you contact. This will help you plan prospecting activity. With a thorough plan in place, you can focus on executing the process, instead of fretting.

The Worry: ‘They’ll think I’m a pushy jerk.”

How to Handle It: This concern tends to rise among individuals starting out in the sales profession, though is not limited to newbies. It’s as if you worry prospects or clients will view you as the overly aggressive used car salesmen stereotype. This can result in awkwardness in your manner that conveys a lack of confidence, as well as a reluctance to ask for the sale, which sabotages your efforts.

To derail this train of negative thinking, overhaul your mindset. Start by putting the client first – not the sale. Determine to be a value-adder – a consultant who understands their clients’ brands, needs and goals so they can offer insightful solutions that lead to successful promotional initiatives that benefit buyers.

 When interacting with clients and prospects, ask open-ended questions. This allows you to dig to the roots of what they’re about and what they need. Relatedly, always be learning, educating yourself about branding, trends and great products. Such knowledge is essential to making the best possible product and imprinting suggestions when the time comes. Once you have made suggestions, ask clients for feedback. Ask them if there are other questions they have, other options they’d like to consider, if they’re uncomfortable with anything or need more information. Provide whatever they ask for (within reason). If they request nothing more, then you have reached a point in which you can ask for the sale.

By taking this approach, you become a partner, a member of the team, allaying any worry that you will alienate people with perceived pushiness.

Action Items

• Try the “10 Times Bolder” approach suggested in the video.
• Identify an ideal prospect and develop a bold plan for turning them into a client.

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