How Can A Salesman Develop Confidence In Himself?

Today we’ll talk about how a salesman can develop confidence in himself.

I’m going to share with you why it’s actually a mistake to seek confidence and what you should seek instead. Then I’m going to share the book that helped me make millions of dollars when I was dead broke and didn’t have confidence and finally I’m going to give you a mindset hack that has helped me achieve some things that I never thought would be possible.

Don’t seek confidence?

That probably sounds like blasphemy. Don’t seek confidence….”what?” Here’s the thing. When you seek confidence, you’re seeking it and then if you gain it, you will do something….and that’s the problem.

See, confidence is something that you acquire over time after doing the thing, right? So if you’re thinking “man, if only I had confidence then I would do this.” Well, doing “the thing” would gain you confidence over time. Can you see how that’s a big mistake? You will never have confidence if you’re not doing “the thing.” It’s not confidence you should be seeking, it’s courage.

Courage in the moment.

Courage that says “I’m going to do this thing even though I’m scared, even though I’m not confident.” I can tell you tapping into courage has been some of the most powerful moments of my life. Stepping into courage.

Here is one of those moments that changed my life. I was working for a county government. My boss (favorite boss I ever had) named Maggie asked me to do a presentation in front of our little division. I had worked there for several years. So I ask, “what do you mean?” She goes “well….just come up with a presentation and speak to everybody and give them an overview.” I tell her, “you know I have never done any public speaking or stood up in front of anybody and delivered a presentation.”

I’m scared out of my mind. That was a Monday. I go home….I don’t sleep Monday night. Tuesday I get these books from the library basically publicly speak for idiots and “how to.” I’m trying to read these things and there’s one thing that stood out to me in both of those books (I think I had a third book as well) and it said when you screw up, nobody knows. Ah, thank goodness. Wow, okay…great. I’m gonna hold on to that fact. Even that Wednesday morning, I remember looking at my phone and I’m thinking “oh man…I’m gonna call in..” but I decided to have some courage. I’m thinking “you know what? I’m going to go in and do it.”

I was not confident, let me be very clear. So I go in, I do the presentation and I cling to the idea that no one knows I screwed up. Afterwards my boss pulled me into her office and asked me “Ray, are you on drugs?”

I’m thinking “wow that wasn’t the reaction I was hoping to get.”

I had developed a stutter during my speech, I spilled water on myself and it was a complete nightmare. Those books had lied to me, that thing that I clung to “that no one would know,” everybody knew.

So here I am sitting in the parking lot, I had a green Hyundai Sonata and I had my hands on the wheel I’m thinking “you know, I’m just not going to come back. I’m just going to drive off, I’m going to find another job not coming back because now everyone knows that I’m an idiot.“

Well…..I decided to tap into courage one more time and I drove that Hyundai Sonata to the local college. I walked in and said put me in every class that I have to speak in front of the class. And so they put me in speech, critical thinking and one other class. They even made a comment, “that’s usually the last class people do.”

By doing that, I got over that fear and then because of multiple rounds of courage, I developed confidence. Since then I’ve shared the stage with a lot of amazing individuals. I’ve spoken in front of crowds of up to 27,000 people and now it’s one of my passions. I love doing it, but if I had waited for confidence, none of that would have happened.

You need to seek courage, not confidence.

What is this book that helped me make millions of dollars?

That book is (it’s very specific to help you around sales) “Go for No.” I read this book called “Go for No.” Let’s be honest, sounds like a terrible book….doesn’t it? I want yeses, I don’t want no’s….I got plenty of no’s. Well it’s designed to help you get over your resistance to rejection and your reaction to rejection. I read this book and the concept is “the more people you talk to, you’re gonna get some no’s,” so set a “no” goal…..that’s something you can control. What you can’t control is the “yeses.” You don’t know if you will get a “yes” today. You have no idea. Will I get a no? If I reach out to enough people I will, that I can guarantee.

I read this book and I asked myself the question, “what would make success inevitable?” “What would be a crazy number that if I just did it every day, eventually all these numbers will work out and I’ll make money.” I came up with the number 20.

Every single day before my head hit the pillow to go to sleep I had to have 20 no’s from different people. Sometimes I was following up with people on day 3 or 4 or whatever but I had to receive 20 no’s every day. There were days that I got some “yeses,” there were many days I did not, but what it did was change my reaction to rejection. I was no longer sad and eating ice cream if I got rejected. I’m thinking “cool, that’s another one of my no’s, no big deal.”

Within five months of doing that I was at 10,000 a month in that business.

Within seven months I was at 40,000 a month.

Now the authors (I’m actually good friends with them now) Richard and Andrea loved my story so much that we actually co-authored a book together called “Go for No for Network Marketing.” So if you’re in network marketing, check out that book.

The “go for no” principle is something that you can adopt regardless of your skill set.

Now, people of high skill sometimes will argue against “go for no” and say “no, no, no you need to get better at skills so that you get more yeses.” I would argue that the higher skill you are, your no’s are actually bigger. So, if you’re really skilled and influential and you “go for no’s,” you’re going to reach for the stars, you’re going to reach for people that you don’t think are going to tell you yes. If any of them say yes…that’s going to make a big difference in your business. I would argue no matter what skill level you’re at, “going for no” makes sense.

Before we get to my last point, I would love to hear from you. What’s an area where you tapped into courage even though you were scared out of your mind….but it worked out? I would love to hear your story. Is it that you ask your wife out on that first date when you first met, or is it that you marched up to that table and ask for the sale, is it that you picked up the phone and forgave somebody like what is it? What’s an example in your life where you tapped into courage although you didn’t have the confidence.

What’s the powerful mindset hack?

All right….I want to give you a powerful mindset hack that’s going to help you with making more sales, feeling better about your journey and help you achieve your goals.

One of the greatest trainers of all time around mindset is a man named, Neville Goddard. Neville Goddard was originally from Barbados. He passed away in 1972, but you can still find a lot of his content on YouTube…..his original content from the 50s, 60s, early 70s. He talked about “how” and “what” role your emotions play in creating the world around you. In fact, one of his books is called “Feeling is The Secret.” You could take that as “the emotion is the secret”, right?

As he describes it, “the emotions that you hold are writing the source code to your subconscious to show you more of that emotion.” Stick with me here. When does your subconscious kick in? When you go to sleep. When you go to sleep your subconscious takes over. What do most people consume before they go to sleep?

A lot of people consume the news, right? What does the news know that will get their attention? Fear, death, injustice, negativity……nowadays you don’t hear about Father O’Leary saving the cat out of the tree…..you hear about death, destruction, what’s happening, who’s terrible and who do we hate today.

When you consume that kind of information and then you go to sleep, you’re telling your subconscious “I want more evidence of this, I want to feel this way more and more. If it’s injustice, anger, hatred or it’s you being upset at the world, then your subconscious, the non-judgmental partner says “okay let’s make sure that we roll out the next day’s events and make sure that they get to experience that again. Because (for some reason) that’s what they want.

What do you do with this information? You focus on what you want.

See yourself as a confident salesperson, someone who makes the most money or gets the highest rate or wage or is paid the most and feels the best. Take the time to really see that in your mind and feel the emotion as if you are a powerful salesperson, as if you are someone who just crushes it in the leaderboard or whatever it is in your line of work. When you feel the emotion before you go to bed, it is one of the fastest ways for you to start to see a difference in “what” you notice throughout the day.

Whatever emotion your focus on is being propagated. You’re going to notice more and more of that thing. If you have the emotion of gratitude, of feeling good about your career (your sales career) your position in life, you’re going to start to notice more things that make you feel gratitude. The more that you notice, the easier your emotions are going to be to bring you the things that you actually want in your life.

I want to help you with a free resource. Maybe you’re struggling in sales because you just don’t know who to approach. Maybe you’re looking to find out where to find people to even talk to about your product or service? We have a free audio “29 sources of leads” so you never run out of people to talk to ever again. Here is the link HigdonGroup.com/29sources just click that and you can download the audio. Use it and share it. This will give you 29 different locations where you can find people that might want to buy your product or service.