Fear – The No. 1 Emotion Stopping Sales Success

Sales managers have a number of roles to fill. One is sales coaching, which is like playing sales doctor, trying to correctly diagnose the root cause of poor sales performance. There are several places to examine during coaching sessions, but one area that is often overlooked is understanding how the emotion of fear affects a salesperson’s actions or inactions.

• Fear of failure inhibits the application of logical sales behaviors that ensure success. He has told his sales team the value of calling the C-suite. However, they may be afraid of summoning big titles, big offices, and big questions.
• Fear of looking stupid. He has taught his team that proven sales tactics work; however, salespeople are afraid of looking stupid because they haven’t mastered the new skills.
• Fear of not having what it takes. The seller called C-Suite and it was a disaster. I tried this before and it didn’t work.

Fear is not a logical emotion and develops from two areas of thought: 1. Perception: making up stories about a sales situation that never happened. But the seller tells himself the story for so long that the fictitious story becomes true. 2. Fear of a past experience. The salesperson rehearses that failed sales call in their head over and over again, which creates resistance to taking action.

Sales managers, it’s time to apply the EQ skill of self-awareness. Recognize when to teach and train consultative selling skills, and when to turn the tide and train salespeople through the emotion of fear.

In many coaching scenarios, it’s time to stop telling salespeople how to sell and address the root cause of poor selling behaviors: fear. Change the questions you ask and you’ll change the answers you hear, helping you and the salesperson work on the right end of the sales challenge.

• What is your biggest concern about calling this level of the organization?
• What is your biggest fear when executing this sales strategy?
• Are your concerns based on perception or past experience?
• What lessons did you learn from the last deal you lost? How will you apply the lessons learned to prepare for success at the next call?
• Are you smarter because of failure? What are you going to change?
• What’s the worst that can happen if you don’t know the answer to a question?

Sales managers are sales doctors. Be good at diagnosing the right end of the problem. Change the questions you ask and work on the right end of the sales performance challenge.