Wanting the approval of other people is a natural human condition. We all like emotional strokes and positive affirmations from others. It is only when this want becomes a “need” does it begin to interfere with sales success. If you have a Need For Approval it will affect you by getting in your way at the most inappropriate times. Most often, it will inhibit your ability to ask questions, confront when necessary, close for appointments and sales, recover from rejection and really enjoy selling. Overcome it by changing your mind-set.

Selling is not a place to get your emotional needs met. It is simply an arena in which commerce is conducted. The most successful sales people are those who approach sales from an emotionally detached point of view. They approach selling with the same emotional detachment that a surgeon approaches surgery.

Here is a Six Step process that we teach to help clients overcome the Need For Approval.

1. Identify the self-limiting beliefs that get in the way. Here are some of examples: I can’t confront a prospect, I can’t ask questions that might upset a prospect, There are certain things that you just can’t say to prospects, It’s rude to ask a lot of personal questions, I am uncomfortable asking prospects about their budget.
2. Replace these beliefs with new beliefs like: I am comfortable confronting prospects in a nurturing way, Prospects don’t get upset when I ask good, nurturing questions, I can say anything to a anybody as long as I say it nicely, I love to ask personal questions, I enjoy discussing money with prospects.
3. Rewrite these new beliefs on index cards and carry them with you. At every chance you get during the day pull them out and read them out loud. Do this every morning and just before you go to bed each night.
4. Find a tape recorder and a 60-minute tape. Record these new records in your own voice, over, and over, until you’ve filled both sides of the tape.
5. Begin listening to the tape at least once per day for six weeks. After a few weeks you will begin to notice a difference in your self-talk.
6. Read “Your Erroneous Zones” by Dr. Wayne Dyer and “No Ordinary Moments by Dan Millman.

According to Dave Kurlan, author of Mindless Selling and developer of the Dave Kurlan Sales Profile, there are five major weaknesses that impact success in selling. The most powerful of those is Buy Cycle.

According to Kurlan, “Buy Cycle refers to the process by which salespeople make purchases for themselves. Because salespeople use the same paradigm for buying and selling they will tolerate behavior from their prospects when it is similar and consistent to their own. A buy cycle that fails to align itself with an ideal selling process causes many of the obstacles that salespeople are unable to handle effectively.

For instance a sales person who is a “comparison shopper” when it comes to spending their money will tolerate the same behavior from their prospect because subconsciously it makes sense to do so. Same thing with “I Want To Think It Over”. A non-supportive buy cycle also makes salespeople more vulnerable to stalls, put offs, lies, excuses, sob stories, procrastinators, price shoppers, and researchers.

Salespeople with this weakness agree with the prospect’s reasons for wishing to think things over. Therefore, the prospect’s wish is granted, business is either lost or delayed, and the salesperson wastes a tremendous amount of time performing unnecessary follow-up”.

Despite attempts to tell or train salespeople what they should do in these situations, they continue to say or do things that don’t achieve the desired outcome. Why? Because they cannot escape their own internal programming.

The only solution to this problem is for salespeople to change the way they make purchases. This is not some technique to be learned in any class. This is about personal CHANGE. When salespeople change their buy cycles to support the selling process, the stalls and put-offs that used to derail their process will become momentary delays in a single sales call.

One of the most successful characteristics of high performance individuals is their ability to make decisions. Learn to become a decision maker because “only decision makers can get others to make decisions”. Your role as a sales person is to get the prospect to say either “Yes I do or No I don’t. You can only do this if you BECOME that kind of person yourself.

Need for approval is one of the major weaknesses that a salesperson can have. While it is the second most powerful weakness salespeople can have it is the most difficult one to correct.

What are the consequences of Need For Approval? When the need to be liked is greater than the need to go to the bank sales people won’t ask people to make decisions. Sales people who have this issue will not close effectively. They will find it difficult to ask tough questions because they’re afraid that their prospects may become upset.

They tend to be non-confrontational. They will waste time with prospects that lie rather than ask prospects why they were being misled. They are likely to accept “maybes” instead of “no’s” because to them a “no” means that they didn’t get their prospect’s approval. And they will waste time and have an unnecessarily longer sell cycle!

Salespeople who suffer from need for approval need to be reminded on a daily basis, that it doesn’t matter what prospects think or say about them. What they need to do is to get their prospects to respect them rather than needing their prospects to like them.

While this weakness will affect a salesperson’s ability to close, it’s also is a frequent companion to the prospecting component of selling. A salesperson with this weakness often suffers from call reluctance and fear of rejection. A salesperson with this weakness can become 35% more effective once they have corrected this issue.

Face the facts. You know that most “Think It Overs” are really “nos”. That being the case why not gets the no early instead of late in the process. To do this you must get rid of the “head trash”, that says you’ve got to try to sell everybody. That is not going to happen. You and I both know that.

Let’s look at the problems with “Think It Overs”. It wastes your time. It allows your prospect to steal your valuable information and “shop it around”. It allows the prospect to control the sales process. It results in unrealistic pipeline and forecasting. (how much of your current forecast is bogus?) It gives you a false sense of security and when it becomes apparent that there will not be a deal, it’s devastating emotionally. What’s the answer?

Here are two suggestions.

First make sure your initial agreement covers the fact that at the end of the first meeting that there needs to be mutual agreement between you and the prospect about specifically what happens next, when it is going to happen and what decisions will be made at the next meeting.

Second develop the mindset that your prospect must convince you that there is a reason for your continued involvement in the sales process. In other words, if you’re having any doubts that the two of you should continue the process tell the prospect. Then let him convince you why you should stay involved. The prospect must convince you not vice versa. This takes courage. Unfortunately, most salespeople don’t have it.

“It is not how you feel that determines how you act. It is how you act that determines how you feel.” said William James

“If you want to change your emotional state change your physiology.” says Tony Robbins

Faith and Fear cannot exist in the same mind at the same time. If one has a good plan and executes consistently then they don’t have time to feel miserable.

If you find yourself feeling down then get up and “do something.” It will make you feel better even if you get no results.

However, if you have a good plan and execute consistently then you will get great results. If you will do this then you will be ahead of your competitors when this economy turns around. It WILL turn and those who are faithfully doing the right things now will be the beneficiaries.