I believe that selling is basically a transfer of confidence and passion.
When you are selling, you are working to give your prospect confidence that you bring a better solution to their situation than does your competition. You are working to give them passion about addressing the situation that your solution is intended to address.
Confidence and passion are just like anything else. You can’t give away what you don’t possess yourself. Confidence and passion may not be tangible in the way that you can hold something in your hand, but make no mistake, people can clearly see whether you have them or not.
The important thing for every one of us to know is what our sources of confidence are and to be honest about where our passion lies. While we may not have control over what creates passion for us, we absolutely control those sources of confidence. Once you’ve identified them, you have to work very purposefully to maintain them at a very high level.
Sadly, some people, when they feel their confidence and passion slipping away don’t choose to address the issue of re-building their confidence or being honest about their passion. Instead they just talk a bigger game, they make claims about their ability and value that just aren’t true any longer. And like the loud-mouthed athlete who is a little past his playing prime, but still claims to be “the greatest”, it is easy to spot the pretenders, and it is usually a sad sight to behold.
My advice is to be honest with yourself about your level of confidence and the source of your passion. If the confidence has slipped, do the hard work to build it back. If your passion has slipped, you need to search to find where it has moved.
Maybe it has just shifted to another role in your company. Maybe selling is no longer your passion, but mentoring other young salespeople gets you all fired up.
Or maybe your confidence and passion have shifted somewhere else entirely, and it’s time to move on.
Content provided by Q4intelligence
Photo by nexusplexus
