Pitching – I abhor the thought of it. Thinking about getting up in front of people to pitch an idea makes my stomach turn. It’s not that I’m afraid of talking to or in front of people. It’s really that I can’t stand being critiqued. Sure, I’ll dish it out in a nice but honest way, but I’d rather not receive it myself.
Some of this goes back to failure and how I still struggle with it. I don’t want to be rejected.
Another bit of it is other people’s opinions of me. I want people to see me as a success… my definition of success (goes right along with my fear of failure, huh?). But as Oliver Goldsmith (a mid-1700s Irish poet) once said, “Success is getting up once more than falling down.” If I’m honest with myself, I fail all day every day, but God sees me through the eyes of His perfect Son, who took all my failures upon Himself so that I am not marred by them. I am His – that is my identity, not how crummy that pitch went.
It also goes back to trust – not knowing what people really think about my idea, but also fearing that they’ll give me their real opinion … and it’s something I won’t really appreciate. I’m very motivated by what people say to me and I don’t want to be vulnerable enough to allow people to come alongside me and help. Now, if it’s something that I do one-on-one with someone I see as a mentor – someone I trust – and I’m not really putting myself out there, then it’s a little easier for me because I’m not potentially falling on my face in front of a lot of people.
Really, I just need to tap into my “role-self” and begin learning from the “no”-s. Scott Killian of Fanatics and the Killian Foundaiton once told me, “A ‘no’ isn’t a NO – it’s just a ‘not right now.’ Look at the reasons they said ‘no’ and then fix them to turn it into a ‘yes.'” It takes a lot of practice and outside opinions to get an idea off the ground. Don’t be scared like I’ve been to take chances. Put on your “role-self” and make waves. And while you do it, I’ll do it too.
BoweryJE22
Being is sales is being used to rejection. The good news is that when you finally make one good sale, the feeling you get can make up for 10 absolutely awful ones. The key, like you said, is not allowing your personal identity get wrapped up in your sales success.
being able to move on is great, because no matter what, there might always be that next great sale out there for you to get.
I really like what you say about the “Role-Self.” It’s often hard to separate the role-self from our real selves. I struggle with this myself. I definitely struggle with peoples opinions of me and how they will react to what I say or do. I think you’ve given a great perspective on “no’s” because you’re spot-on that a no is really more of a “not right now” than a hard NO. Thanks for some perspective!
I agree with Guentheraf1. However, even having rejection thrown at your “role-self” can be a difficult thing. I think sometimes a company doesn’t give enough support to its sales staff and that leads to a lot of depression for its sales staff because it is easy to feel professionally like a failure.