A new year calls for new salespeople.
These fledglings come from many backgrounds; college graduates, career changers, stay-at-home parents, and so forth.
Many people that get in sales don’t consider it as their first choice in profession. However, experiences that consider degrees with low employment, increasing financial needs, or even human fulfillment can make anybody get into sales.
These different backgrounds can bring on various behaviors, which call for a variety of training needs. From a managerial perspective, you can help your team grow with leadership that can train and recognize various growth obstacles.
Regardless of these differences, people want to be good at what it takes to make money. However, anxiety can be a considerable obstacle when it comes to sales success.
But what is anxiety?
When it comes to the overall view of anxiety, many consider it to be fear.
Be that as it may, fear and anxiety are much more complicated.
People express anxiety in many ways and can make people reconsider their sales ability. Furthermore, leadership teams that fail to consider differences in behavior and mannerisms can also hinder the training process.
What are the ways people express anxiety, and why do they express it that way?
You can visually see anxiety with restless legs, fidgeting hands, and other forms of physical behaviors. These physical behaviors are a form of control.
Moments of stress make time go by slow and make you feel like you are not in control. Shaking and fidgeting can help you focus your thoughts on bodily movement versus the anxieties taking place, making your mind seem like it’s speeding-up time.
Unless you have special powers, you cannot speed up time. However, restless behaviors take away from focusing on the sale.
Bodily responses can also take form in regards to a lack of physical control. Do you notice yourself taking shallow breaths when you’re nervous? Shallow breathing can be fear that imitates the response of prey hiding from a predator. Shallow breathing also creates a lack of oxygen to the brain creating issues in cognitive ability.
Looking at anxieties at this level considers why these habits occur and finding constructive coping mechanisms to replace those habits.
Are their anxieties stemming from fear of failure and don’t have the confidence to pitch? Fear of failure leads to rushing to get the pitch over for the sake of not being uncomfortable. Gaining the ability to sell takes practice and repetition. A variety of thoughts and emotions can take place within the first 30 seconds.
Thoughts of “they don’t want what I’m selling” or “they don’t like me.” can occur. Training your mind or your representatives to replace these thoughts with “I will get them to want what I’m selling” or “I am a likable person” can transform self-skepticism into confidence.
Are they shaking their legs because they are tired and trying to stay awake, in fear of falling asleep? Why are they tired?
Ensuring that your representatives are getting enough rest will increase those individuals’ energy and create an environment full of life.
“Google’s culture is flexible (employees are encouraged to work when they like and how they like), fun (offices have nap pods, video games and ping pong) and founded on trust. Collaboration is key – so much so that employees are encouraged to coach each other in the ‘Googler to Googler’ programme.” states ,,Ross Brooks of Peakon.
Many companies do not have the luxuries that Google has. However, many modern and progressive professional teams have a form of ‘active rest’ that has the agenda of producing company morale and energy within spent representatives.
At Paramount, we get together weekly to praise each other and eat as a team.
Anxiety and fear are human; creating an environment where those feelings are transparent can unlock the ability for better communication, improving a team’s ability to overcome those fears and anxieties together. These sessions also help determine motivations that can drive levels of effort.
How is your team providing mentorship and training outside of your regular work duties?
As we can see, sales anxiety is intricate. We haven’t even scratched the surface level when it comes to acknowledging those complexities. Sure, you can recruit those that don’t necessarily need this extra consideration, but that’s not always the case.
Michael Jordan brings us the quote, “A champion is made not born.”
Change is easier said than done; training innovation takes work. Does your team have the ability to make champions?
At Paramount Advertising and Lead Solutions, our representatives train with the focus of building confidence and enjoying the sales process. We understand the mentality it takes to master persuasion and its approach to creating that cognitive behavior.
Click ,,HERE to learn more about our training programs!
