My cold calling book was released almost 10 years ago, yet the lessons around developing a healthy mindset when selling are just as relevant and critical today when it comes to determining how successful a salesperson you can be.

Whether I’m training a group of sales managers or providing individual sales coaching to a frontline rep, I’m repeatedly asked to help people with their inner game of prospecting. Consequently, I want to share with you a one of the most powerful excerpts from my book. On a very basic level, there are five ingredients needed to create a sale:

1. The salesperson.
2. The qualified prospect.
3. A need or want that the prospect has.
4. The product or service.
5. The selling strategy or procedure you follow that guides a prospect to the natural conclusion of the selling process; the sale.

While many salespeople would say the selling process is about the customer, they wind up making it about themselves.

How do I know this? Look at some of the limiting beliefs that contribute to cold calling reluctance that we mentioned earlier.
Think about all the fears or reluctance you may experience when it comes to cold calling or selling.

I don’t want to say the wrong thing.
I don’t want to look bad.
I don’t want to be a nuisance.
I don’t want to impose.
I don’t want to be rejected or hear no.
I don’t want to blow it!

I, I, I, I, I!

Look at the first word that begins each statement above. Making the selling and cold calling process about you is the number one roadblock to successful prospecting and the number one cause of cold calling reluctance.

Instead of making the selling process about you and how much you can gain if you sell, make it about the prospect and how much value you can deliver to them.

If you are experiencing any fear or resistance to selling or prospecting, look at who you’re making the selling process about. Chances are, you’re making it about you!

Once you shift your focus and energy towards making it about the prospect, it will immediately relieve you of the unnecessary pressure to look good and perform.

Shift the Spotlight

You are either making the selling process about you and how much you can gain (money, sales, status, and so on), your fear of rejection, looking bad, or hearing “No,” or you’re making it about the prospect and how much value you can deliver to them. Now, the cold calling process is no longer focused on the salesperson’s negative assumptions or fears but on the prospect and the advantages that your product can provide them.

After all, if you are making the sale about you and are concerned about your performance, then how are you ever going to capture their interest when all of your energy, concentration and attention is being directed on to you rather than focused on the prospect?

Make the selling process about the prospect and the value you can deliver rather than what you can gain if you sell. Once you do so, the sale then becomes the natural byproduct of your selfless efforts and good intentions.

Photo Credit: Anthony Catalano