Many of my coaching clients and students are in the process of learning sales. While some can do sales very naturally, others have a more difficult time. As such, the latter group is always wondering how they can stay motivated when they keep failing to close a deal.
I understand because I’ve been there. I didn’t know anything about sales when I started my business and had to learn as I went along. The good news is if I can overcome that and become really good at sales, you can too. Here are some of ways I stayed motivated as I was learning sales.
Stop taking rejection in sales personally.
The biggest issue I see when people are learning sales is that they take sales personally. They somehow feel personally offended or affected if a sale doesn’t go through. In reality, there really is nothing personal about it. Business is just business.
To give you an idea, even though I am pretty good at sales, I still get rejected. Or, I still have the occasional consult where someone just isn’t a good fit. They don’t happen as often anymore because I’ve learned how to stack the odds in my favor, but they still happen.
The key is to not take these situations so personally. It’s far too often that I see business owners be super hard on themselves as they are learning sales. Relax. It’s not that serious.
Focus on abundance.
There are two ways you can focus on abundance as you are learning sales. The first is to remember that there will be a next time. Unless you completely stop working in your business, there will always be another opportunity.
The second is to realize that when you’re learning sales, it’s really just a numbers game. This is especially true in the beginning as you learn to get better at it. At this point, just take on any call you can even if it’s just for practice.
I once did 60 consults in three weeks and none of them resulted in a sale. Not a single one. It’s okay though because I got a lot of practice and learned from my mistakes. A few years later, many of the clients who rejected me then have come on as paying students.
Celebrate the small wins.
Another way to stay motivated as you are learning sales is to celebrate the small wins. That may mean you celebrate the fact that you made a few dollars when you previously made zero. Or, it may be that a sales call you did this week was better than the one you did last week.
Get curious about human behavior.
This may seem odd, but hear me out. A lot of the time, getting good at sales is just about understanding human behavior. In other words, through the process of learning sales you also start learning how humans tick.
One thing that greatly helped me when I was learning sales was to see it as an experiment in human behavior. I simply became curious as to how people would react if I used a specific technique – like building rapport or handling objections.
In many ways, this took the focus off of myself so I could just observe what was going on. When I saw what worked and what didn’t, I used the information to improve my sales. By keeping all of these tips in mind, you’ll be able to improve your sales as well.
