It’s interesting, when I googled “sales self belief” some great sounding articles came RIGHT up.
7 Tips for Building Confidence in Sales, by Josh Winters
The secret to unbreakable confidence in sales (and life), written by Steli Efti
Building Sales Confidence is Everything, by Mike Fisher
9 TIPS FOR SALES CONFIDENCE, Tony Robbins
Yet when I tried “sales leadership self belief” it was the equivalent of internet crickets. So I took sales out of it and tried “leadership self belief” and the google algorithm didn’t turn anything up past 2019.
I have to share that I was a bit shocked. My initial intent was to share a list of resources with you – it’s crazy to me that there is nothing recent. PLUS although the articles (Inc, Forbes, and more) talked about the importance of self confidence, there didn’t seem to be many tips on how to cultivate self belief.
So I’m going to come up with my own Sales Leadership 7 Self Belief Tips for you instead:
- define success for yourself: this may sound a bit odd if you’ve not been around UpYourTeleSales philosophy for long. I believe that one stepping stone to self belief is to know what YOU want success to look like. Instead of accepting your organizations definition or societies.. or your peers; create your own success vision (for more check out make sure you define SUCCESS).
- take stock of your accomplishments: if you’re in a sales leadership position right now – you’ve accomplished SOMETHING(s) you can be proud of. Write them down, keep them handy for when doubt creeps in or you’re just having a bad day. I would also suggest a Kudos File where every time someone sends you a complementary note you save it and add it to your accomplishments list.
- ask for feedback: here are the 5 questions I’d suggest you ask everyone on your team – what is the most important thing I do for your success? what would you miss if I stopped doing it? what would you like me to do less of? how else can I help you achieve your goals? what is the best thing about being on the team? NOW for the critical part – read the good things as MORE important than the bad!
- participate in a master mind group of your peers: one of the things I find in sales leadership (perhaps especially inside sales leadership) is that people in leadership roles try to do most everything on their own. Sometimes we need to hear other people’s opinions, ideas, and perspectives to get a handle on our own situations.
- schedule time for yourself: time for yourself to think, ponder, reflect, consider, research, plan. In the go – go – go world of sales it’s easy to run at 1000 miles per hour every day until you collapse. It’s tough to believe in yourself if you don’t take time to breathe and slow down long enough to know what you’re doing – let alone how well.
- make sure it’s not ONLY work: this goes along with scheduling time for yourself BUT is about everything except work. Family, friends, hobbies, sport, etc… make sure you have reasons to believe in yourself in all the other roles you play outside of sales leader. Making sure all the things that are important to you get the attention they deserve.
- look outside your organization: often, perhaps because of “time” sales leaders are focused inside their organizations (other than looking at the competition of course). My last tip is to look for mentors, peers, collaborator who are sales leaders in their own right and build those relationships.
Whew! now when inside sales leaders google for self confidence and self belief tips they’ll find SOMETHING that I hope is both thought provoking and useful.