You don’t have a sales problem. You have an approval problem.
That is the uncomfortable truth behind most stalled sales careers. It is not a script problem. It is not a market problem. It is a need for acceptance, approval, and agreement from people around you, strangers, friends, and family included.
You Cannot Chase Approval and Income at the Same Time
Every meaningful career pivot comes with people who do not agree with it. When Ray Higdon left the corporate world in 2005 to build a business in real estate, no one around him thought it was a good idea. Not one person.
A college professor he respected told him flatly, “You’ll be back.”
Posture Check: The people who doubted you have no idea how much they fueled you. Be grateful for the doubters. There were far fewer rooters than doubters, especially early on.
If you go around seeking acceptance, approval, and agreement before you act, you will still be waiting decades later. The number one mistake aspiring entrepreneurs make is requiring that approval from everyone around them before they will move.
Imposter Syndrome Is Not What You Think It Is
If you are nervous to reach out to strangers, nervous to make videos, nervous to tell your friends and family what you are building, that nervousness is not proof you are unqualified. It is proof you are more worried about how people see you than about the people you could actually help.
Imposter syndrome gets defined the wrong way constantly. People say it means you should not be showing up until you are already crushing it. That is backwards.
Posture Check: Imposter syndrome is saying you want to change the world but you are not willing to get uncomfortable. Courage is doing the video before you have success. Courage is posting the content before you have proof. That is not imposter. That is bravery.
Three Ways This Shows Up in a Sales Conversation
Number one: prospects do not need you to be nice. They need you to be clear, confident, and certain. They need to be led. Niceness without leadership leaves people stuck exactly where you found them.
Number two: backing off the moment you feel resistance is not kindness. It is fear. When a prospect says I don’t have time or it’s too expensive, retreating because you are worried about looking pushy is not protecting them. It is protecting your own comfort at the expense of their outcome. That does not mean applying pressure. It means asking one more question because you care enough to find out what is actually going on.
Number three: prospects do not want a friend in the conversation. They want someone who cares enough to dig into their actual problem.
Posture Check: Nice, in this context, stands for Nothing Inside Me Cares Enough. If you do not care about their problem, or you do not believe in what you are selling, that is the real issue to solve first.
Isolation is not a strength either. Proverbs 18:1 says isolation lacks all wisdom. A lot of people stay lone wolves in their business, convinced they should be able to figure it all out on their own, when what they actually need is help and accountability.
The Bottom Line
Every prospect who told you no did not get helped. You have to look at it that way. Caring about someone’s transformation means caring enough to ask the hard question, not caring enough to protect their comfort and your own at the same time.
If your prospects are still controlling the energy of your conversations, that pattern starts and ends with your posture. Watch the full 90 minute training, Posture, Persuasion, and Closing the Sale, free at higdongroup.com/posture.
