Believe to Succeed

You have to be confident in order to succeed in sales. For some sales people, this comes naturally, for the rest us, we need a little help.

Although ‘believe to succeed’ may sound like a cheesy title, the message is clear. You have to believe that you are capable of building relationships with clients, arranging important sales pitch meetings and closing the deal, or it will never happen.

If you look around at the successful sales people in your office, or industry colleagues you feel have professional success, you will see that they are confident in their abilities in the workplace, even if they have simply learnt to be that way.

You too can come across as a sales success, as long as you have faith in your skills and feel like you are entitled to be in your job. That whole ‘It’s just little me from a small town’ mentality might be cute for a while, but it soon wears thin. People around you will tire of having to build your confidence all the time – so you need to learn how to do it yourself.

OK, that’s easier said than done, admittedly, but you will find that the quicker you are able to believe in yourself, the most you will achieve in your sales career.

There are a number of ways to boost your confidence to make sure you are the best you can be – your commercial success will have a direct correlation to how much you believe in yourself, which can in itself give you a huge boost. So until such times as you are making massive commission and everyone is begging to work with you, how do you believe to succeed?

Looking Good

The first way to boost your confidence is to feel good and look good. It may sound shallow, but looking good is a great armour until you truly believe in yourself.

Look at your working wardrobe and see if it is letting your down. Do you have well fitting suits and well heeled shoes? Are your accessories saying something about your personality and are they appropriate to your industry? You don’t need to be a cookie cutter version of everyone else in their suits, but you do need to fit in with the industry you work in.

Check your hair, make up and nails. Are they clean, well cut and not too garish? Or are you hiding your hands in meetings because your nails are all chipped and bitten? This will not work in your favour as you will look childish and nervous. Whether you are male or female, book yourself in for a manicure and you will not want to bite your nails again. Most large department stores have a walk in nail bar nowadays, too.

Training Courses for Keeping the Faith

If you want to boost your confidence by developing your sales skills, there are a number of courses available with the goal of promoting success at work, whether that is to sell, present to clients or manage a team. These courses are not necessarily only for sales people; you will often find a real cross section of people at such occasions, although all with the aim of stepping their professional lives up a gear.

The very nature of these training courses means that they can be a bit over powering, but if you find one that suits you they can be a real turning point. Neuro-linguistic programming is a very popular example of this, with the focus on retraining your mind to new possibilities of personal achievement, rather than restricting yourself.