You’re not struggling in sales because you lack talent.
You’re struggling because you’re waiting to feel ready before you do the work. And confidence doesn’t come before the reps. It comes because of them.
Confidence Is a Byproduct, Not a Prerequisite
Think about the first time you tried to ride a bike. You weren’t confident. You were terrified.
But you got on anyway. You wobbled. You fell. And then, somewhere in the middle of all that failure, something clicked.
Sales works exactly the same way.
Ray puts it plainly: if you wait to feel confident, you’ll always struggle. Confidence is built by doing the thing over and over, not by thinking about it, studying it, or trying to perfect it in your head before you step into the marketplace.
“You don’t lack talent. You lack repetitions.”
That phrase hits hard because it removes the excuse. Talent isn’t the bottleneck. Volume is.
Too many salespeople spend their time overthinking, procrastinating, and calling it perfectionism. They’re trying to craft the perfect script in their head instead of having the imperfect conversation that would actually move the needle.
The 400 Nos Story
Ray shares a story about a man named June who started out working at a hotel in a rough part of New York.
His first 400 approaches all resulted in a no.
Four hundred. Every single one.
By the time Ray encountered him, June was on stage making well over a million dollars a year, possibly closer to two million.
The question Ray poses is worth sitting with: have you even asked 400 people?
Most haven’t. Most give up after a handful of rejections and conclude they’re not cut out for sales. But the math tells a different story. The early nos aren’t a sign you’re failing. They’re the price of admission to the confidence that comes later.
The reps you avoid today are the confidence you don’t have tomorrow.
If you want to be better at public speaking, give more speeches. If you want to be better at running marathons, run more marathons. If you want to be better at sales conversations, have more sales conversations. There’s no shortcut around volume.
Stop Seeking Confidence, Start Doing the Work
Here’s where most salespeople get it backwards.
They think: I’ll prospect more once I feel more confident.
Ray’s framework flips that completely. You don’t become confident and then do it. You do it, and the doing is what makes you confident.
A coach or mentor can speed up the process. Proven methods and frameworks help you avoid common mistakes. But none of that replaces the actual repetitions. A sharp approach with no action still produces zero results.
The Posture, Persuasion & Closing the Sale training covers the mechanics that make your conversations more effective, but even that only works when you’re actually in conversations.
“Instead of seeking confidence, go do the work. And guess what’ll happen? You’ll have confidence.”
Your commission check doesn’t require you to feel ready. It just requires you to show up.
Posture Check: The Real Confidence Builder
Here’s the honest truth most people don’t want to hear.
Confidence is not a feeling you find. It’s a result you earn.
Every conversation you have, even the awkward ones, even the ones that end in a no, is a repetition. And repetitions compound. The salesperson who has had 500 bad conversations is infinitely more equipped than the one who has had five good ones in their head.
If your pipeline is thin, your confidence will be thin. The solution is not a mindset course or a confidence hack. The solution is more conversations.
Stop waiting to feel ready. Get into the marketplace. Show more people. Reach out to more people. Have more conversations.
The rep who does the work in the dark is the one who shines in the conversation.
Ready to stop running out of people to talk to?
Ray and the Higdon Group put together a resource specifically for the person who is serious about doing the work but needs to know where to find people to talk to. Check out the Unlimited Prospects Bundle at higdongroup.com/unlimited.
If you’re willing to reach out, this gives you the who. The confidence comes from there.
