Number one professional fear people carry is the fear of failure. To fail, however vague that may be, is what strikes the most fear in the higest number of people in the professional setting.
Behind that fear of failure is the fear of rejection. If they fail, they won’t be accepted, they won’t be liked, they’ll be cast out in the cold…goes the subconscious thread.
Sales addresses failure and rejection head-on, which when met with perseverance, bestows almost a superpower of immunity of these fears to the Funding Pro.
We currently live in a world of negative conditioning. Fear mostly drives the American sales process.
Our society has come to prey on the fear factor. It’s in about 50% of the ads we see: ads about life insurance, disability, stolen credit cards, tires that grip the road in the rain, brakes that avoid hitting children riding bikes, security systems that prevent your home from being robbed, etc.
We are constantly reminded how hostile our environment is, and now with Covid and everything its brought, even more so.
Once society conditions you with fear, its only natural you bring it with you everywhere, including sales.
According the Jeffrey Gitomer there are degrees of failure in sales:
Failure to prepare
Failure to make the contacts
Failure to make a sale
Failure to meet a quota
Failure to stick around
And his top 6 reactions to failure/rejection:
- Curse it.
- Deny it.
- Avoid it.
- Make an excuse about it.
- Blame others.
- Quit.
It’s not what happens to you, it’s what you do with what happens to you.
His mindset shifts to turn around these fears are:
Look at failure as an event, not a person.
Look for the why, and find the solution (if you look at “no” hard enough, it will lead you to yes).
List possible opportunities.
Ask yourself, what have I learned? And try again.
Don’t mope around carrying around perceived failures – go find a successful role model, and study them!
Here are some action steps you can take now to inoculate yourself against fear, failure and rejection:
Create a new environment.
Cultivate new associations/beliefs.
Access new information to uplevel your skills.
Uplevel your mindset – read, listen and watch content that will empower and inspire you.
Failure is relative. It is also far too vague in our minds to be taken seriously most of the time.
Failure in most cases is a real-life outcome not matching up with the expectation you created about how it should be when you took action on it. Simply, real life conditions are not matching up with your expectations. Learn, adjust and try again.
Thomas Edison failed 6,000 times before the light bulb. He figured out 6,000 ways how not to light the bulb, each time revealing just a bit more on how to get his outcome.
Mike Schmidt, third baseman for the Philadelphia Phillies, failed at the plate (at bat) 2 out 3 times for 20 years, and was inducted into the hall of fame as one of the best ball players of all time.
It’s not what happens to you, it’s what you do with what happens to you.
What are you doing with the rejection?
-FundingStrategist
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