A question bout self confidence.

LegacyUser · 20-02-2004 11:42am #1

Hi All,

A question bout self confidence.
I work in sales, as you can imagine its largley a confidence job. If you dont have self confidence, the people your trying to sell a half million quid worth of stuff to will know it, and they wont buy from you...which further reduces the confidence.

I have had bad patches but I always had my confidence...always belived I would get the next sale.
Its never been a problem for me, until now. I find a lot of doubt creeping into my mind..especially just as Im walking into a meeting. Its quite un-nerving.

I have tried giving my self a good talking to... you know trying to get my head straight but it doesnt seem to work so well. Does anyone have any tips for rebuilding a bit of confidence ...espically relating to meetings. And I dont mean projecting fake confidence.. I really want to get back to my former self.

JohnnyBravo · 20-02-2004 2:11pm

get a supermodel girlfriend

Beruthiel · 20-02-2004 2:18pm

jb
try to make helpful comments please
B

I really want to get back to my former self.

try to remind yourself that you are no different from anyone else in the room and that perhaps they are just as nervous
also
do you like your job? if you don't, that's doesn't tend to help

confident · 20-02-2004 2:29pm

I do like my job.. what i mean to say is I like the company, I like the people and I like the products..the problem is I dont really have faith in the management

that shouldnt stop me selling well.. should it ?

I have trived motavating my self... and it helps me work harder..but not more confident

JohnnyBravo >> my personal life is pretty good so no need for the supermodel

Beruthiel · 20-02-2004 2:37pm

Originally posted by confident
that shouldnt stop me selling well.. should it ?

I don’t know what it is that you’re selling, but realistically, how many people are you going to sell half a million squids of stuff to anyway? Unless it’s property you’re selling
Perhaps the market is in a lull? I think it pressure you’re under and the fact you’re not doing good sales wise, tends to knock your self confidence, not sure you can do anything about that without changing jobs or making a big sale soon...
sorry
I'm not very helpful, am I? :rolleyes:

confident · 20-02-2004 2:42pm

im selling high end IT stuff... you want some ?

and if i make one sale every 3mths im going well...problem is its been about 9mths now.
the industury is ment to be picking up so I cant blame that. I have tried makeing a few smaller sales to get me into the swing of things again anf thats not going too well...which makes things worse.

its a tough problem.

Beruthiel · 20-02-2004 2:49pm

Originally posted by confident
im selling high end IT stuff... you want some ?

lol
eh, no thanks
at least you haven't lost your sense of humour anyway

its a tough problem

yup
and I'm not sure there's anyone here who can help you in any positive way,
perhaps I should move this over to the work forum? you might get some suggestions there, what do you think?

KlodaX · 20-02-2004 3:01pm

I think you gotto set smaller goals for yourself ... when you accomplish the task ... you become more confident ... gradually your confidance builds ...
you may not be able to get the confidance in selling stuff as dramatically as you like ... but I think if you build confidance in other areas you will find it rubbing off in your selling abilities ...
maybe find a hobby or something you thought would be interesting but would never try and go to classes maybe once a week ... might give you self confidance as opposed to selling confidance .... which will also help.

In my general observations of people ... there are a few ways to get confidance.

1. Your parents give it to you. Sometimes too much so ... giving you those obnoxious 'know it all' kids ... gettin a lil too much praise

2. School teachers ... they have the power to build or knock you ...

3. Your peers, they may see something in you that you didn't notice and give you recognition for it.

4. Yourself .... you get knocked so many times you become in denile of everyone elses bad opinions of you and confidance becomes the inverse.

... I'm not sure if this helps at all .... but I think that maybe doing little things, or selling little things that no body else can might help.

For sales I'd strongly recommend you try joing a drama group.

confident · 20-02-2004 3:07pm

thanks for the help guys.. if you think moving this to the work forum will help that i would say do it.

any ideas I get are appriciated. cause I really wanna get back on track.

Beruthiel · 20-02-2004 3:15pm

ok
I will move it to the work forum
if it doesn't help, you can always set up another thread here
a

WhiteWashMan · 20-02-2004 3:29pm

Originally posted by confident
im selling high end IT stuff... you want some ?

and if i make one sale every 3mths im going well...problem is its been about 9mths now.
the industury is ment to be picking up so I cant blame that. I have tried makeing a few smaller sales to get me into the swing of things again anf thats not going too well...which makes things worse.

its a tough problem.

ok, so youre in the same business as me.

im not too sure what exactly your problem is to be honest. is it the lack of sales or the lack of self confidence?
or is it a lack of self confidence steming from a lack of sales?

are you in relationship sales, or is just tendering, or cold calling?
are you on top of your technology?
have your clients changed?
think about some of the situations you have been in and what has changed, either inthem, or in you?

im interested to learn more about what you do and whats happening. if you want you can PM me, as i know that some of the stuff sounds silly sometimes

confident · 20-02-2004 3:52pm

HI

I think the problem is with both.
This is a fairly small company, we sell high end stuff
for the first year I got by making small sized sales
10-20 K approx (getting ok margin too , and I did alright. But Management asked me to go for big ticket items but I ended up getting bullied out of a lot of accounts by the big boys.. IBM direct, HP global services, EDS and even Dell !

so I havent been making the big sales recently and I guess that effected my confidence somewhat.

So Im trying to re focus on the lower end again. maybe in the 20-50K range of sales... but the confidence seems to have gone. I cant figure it.

I know my products and my competition, technically ..im fairly good.

Its all pretty much cold calling..or warm calling if you will.

I am trying to hit different industuries now im
looking at manufacturing, Prepress, webbased and service center type clients.
( had been in the govenrnment, pharma and finanical sectors before now)

I dont know... maybe its a year being bashed up in High end sales.. maybe I didnt win the high end stuff cause I wasnt good and confident enough ..but I need to get back into the swing of things.

I find my self not wanting to make sales calls now.

I dunno.

Sposs · 20-02-2004 4:11pm

Maybe your products aren't competetively priced?

Can your company compete for the big sales with the like's of IBM , DEll etc

In terms of speed of delivery , support?

If not maybe that's why your not making the sales anymore and it has nothing to do with your own confidence.

WhiteWashMan · 20-02-2004 4:41pm

Originally posted by confident
HI

I think the problem is with both.
This is a fairly small company, we sell high end stuff
for the first year I got by making small sized sales
10-20 K approx (getting ok margin too , and I did alright. But Management asked me to go for big ticket items but I ended up getting bullied out of a lot of accounts by the big boys.. IBM direct, HP global services, EDS and even Dell !

so I havent been making the big sales recently and I guess that effected my confidence somewhat.

So Im trying to re focus on the lower end again. maybe in the 20-50K range of sales... but the confidence seems to have gone. I cant figure it.

I know my products and my competition, technically ..im fairly good.

Its all pretty much cold calling..or warm calling if you will.

I am trying to hit different industuries now im
looking at manufacturing, Prepress, webbased and service center type clients.
( had been in the govenrnment, pharma and finanical sectors before now)

I dont know... maybe its a year being bashed up in High end sales.. maybe I didnt win the high end stuff cause I wasnt good and confident enough ..but I need to get back into the swing of things.

I find my self not wanting to make sales calls now.

I dunno.

ok, i get a better understanding now.

i understand your sales, i do a lot of those sales as well. bread and butter sales to be honest. we all want bigger ones. im not too sure what the problem is if youare making your margins and your targets. my problem is i make the targets, but the margins are harder.

you dont appear to have much focus on you market. i may be completely wrong here, but attacking different markets just because youa re not successful wont work. you have to understand why you are in a market, and what the driving factors are. you als have to understand what your clients driving factors are for buying. im not going to tell you how to suck eggs about sales, and markets, and im not exactly mr experienced in sales either, but i think if you have a proper business plan (and not a 2 page makey uppy one) then you should understand what youa re doing wand where its going wrong with you.

it simply sounds to me as if you are lacking confidence because you are unsure or uncertain where you stand in your market. and im only going on how i percieve your posts with respect to myself, so i could be completely wrong!:)

most importantly, i dont see how you can make any big sales without having a relationship with a client. cold, and even warm selling does not begin to cover it, and you have to be very lucky and very hard nosed to make large sales to cold clients.

Blitzkrieger · 20-02-2004 5:47pm

Originally posted by confident
the problem is I dont really have faith in the management

Join the club. I work for a company that makes high end IT stuff and you should see the muppets running the show. It's not so much incompetence as a complete lack of interest.

Sales is always hard and confidence is a bit of a chicken and egg thing. If you're successfull confidence is never a problem, but it often takes success to be confident. There's all sorts of ways of increasing confidence. You could try taking a course in new sales techniques (if there is such a thing), reading books on sales, reading self improvement books (works for some) like Neuro Linguistic Programming. The short answer is there's no short-cuts. You'll have to work had to get the sales back.

Maybe part of the problem is boredom. Have you been working as hard or as enthusiastically (whatever that means) as you were when you first started. Do you feel you could do with a change? Maybe there's some external factors too. Part of the problem could be the downturn in the IT sector. When the market fell, sales of high end IT stuff fell dramatically. Now the market is recovering, sales are going up too.

Maybe the company who's stuff you're trying to sell has lost the plot?

Maybe WWMs advice would be a lot more relevant cos he's closer to the industry.

A question bout self confidence.

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