Improving Your Self-Esteem

Many of my clients are currently studying material from one of Brian Tracy's books, Advanced Selling Strategies. Each chapter covers in great detail various characteristics of successful sales people. A common theme throughout the book is the importance of high self-esteem. He suggests salespeople with low self-esteem experience poor sales performance while salespeople with high self-esteem achieve great sales results.

The sales profession is very challenging and requires great performance in many different skill areas. An effective salesperson must simultaneously handle various situations and people comfortably. Salespeople often have a high comfort level in one area of sales and discomfort in others. According to Tracy, "The most rapid and positive changes in your personality and your sales results come about when you change your thinking about yourself and your possibilities. When you reprogram your subconscious mind so you feel a sense of personal power and control, every part of your life begins improving immediately." How do you discover which beliefs about yourself and your possibilities are weak? If you could identify behaviors or values that are unhelpful and implement specific actions to overcome those weaknesses, your sales results would improve immediately.

Here is a four step process to improve sales results:

List the values and behaviors that describe the kind of salesperson you would most like to be. (Examples: Organized, leader, focused, excellent at prospecting and cold calling).
List the values and behaviors that describe the way you see yourself as a salesperson in the present. (Examples: Enthusiastic, good group presentation skills, poorly organized, afraid to prospect and make cold calls).
List the discrepancies between your answers in number one and your answers in number two. (Examples: I need to get organized, have a system for prospecting and to learn to courageously make cold calls).
List the action steps you are willing to take to remove those discrepancies. (Examples: I will adopt an organized system of selling and develop a coaching relationship with someone who will help me hold myself accountable for following it. I will join a networking group and find prospects through group members).

Each salesperson has specific skill areas that need improvement. They attempt to eliminate weaknesses by reluctantly and ineffectively trying to do the very action that is naturally difficult for them. A much more profitable approach is to overcome a weakness by identifying and leveraging a strength that enables us to triumph over the area where we are weak.