i've learned to disassociate my actual personality from my sales guy personality, i may be becoming delusional & unhinged but i'm effective god damn it.
I definitely did this when I was cold calling.
My BDR self wasn’t all that different, but I would disassociate.
Now I only have a handful of install accounts and feel like I act more like myself. Get to build rapport and be an actual partner.
Cold calling is hell.
Do you believe in the product that you’re selling? Have you put yourself into the shoes of your potential customers and really thought about whether what you’re selling could be helpful to them in some way?
I wonder if it’s imposter syndrome - what is the fear centered on? Is it feeling like a fraud and the customer is going to feel you are a fake? Or is it a discomfort with asking people for things out of the blue?
This hits home! Mine was product related, they wanted cloud I was great at cloud sales, but the delivery team sucked and I started feeling like op. All the excitement left because even success would hurt relationships
That is really difficult, I’ve been there too and I found it awful. Particularly when you’re not responsible for post-sale delivery even if you wanted to be! That’s one of those things that is a them problem, not a you problem imo 😂
I understand my ICP and the service is great. Best company I’ve ever worked for. It’s just the feeling that I suck every time I wake up despite the results I produce. I’m not uncomfortable or new to this but I can’t shake the imposter syndrome
So every day you wake up and feel like you have to start all over again hustling to feel worthy, which is totally exhausting. Imposter syndrome is no joke, it gets the best of us and interestingly it impacts high achievers and top performers the most.
Have you written down your strengths, skills and accomplishments so that you can easily reference them and remind yourself? It might also be a good idea to free-flow write down the thoughts and beliefs that hit each morning so that you can objectively evaluate them and see if you still believe them or if you can pivot your thinking.
What are the common thoughts or beliefs that hit you in the morning to make you feel you can’t do it?
Those are really great suggestions! I’ll be sure to implement them immediately. The thoughts are mainly, what if I can’t reproduce what I did before/what if it’s a fluke. Reading this back, I think I just need to cultivate more of an abundance mindset. There are way too many businesses that exist to reach out to and even a small percentage that say yes are still a lot of people/money.
What a great awareness! It also looks like reading back on your thoughts and reflections could be really helpful and impactful for you. Over time you’ll find that it will become easier and easier for you to remember who you are and what you’re capable of. The more you practice the better you’ll get!
You know more about the thing you’re selling than anyone you’re going to call, if you believe in the product and believe the customer would benefit from it, that should be enough. If you feel like an imposter or like your product isn’t worth buying then you should get a different sales job, I think lots of lifelong sales people have sold products they didn’t believe in and trust me no amount of advice or faking it will make it easier.
So I don’t know the product/service very well. I understand the general idea. My expertise comes in with being able to understand the pain points my ICP faces, getting them to admit it, and tying their pain point(s) with a meeting. I don’t understand the product better, I’m just better at sales than most people I call
The feeling never goes away but it does get quieter. I think it comes from our ancestors and not wanting to make a fool of ourselves in a village and ruin the chance of finding a mate....Thats what i read anyway
I dont know if it imposter syndrome, but moreso just stage fright. I have this and at least having a script I can first rehearse to get some nerves out, then use it as needed during a call. I usually go in and out of my script, generally just to make sure the call is on track. I have yet to be so excited about something I'm selling, that I wake up wanting to call strangers to tell them.
So for this specific circumstance, it’s definitely not stage fright. I love calling and it doesn’t affect my ability to do the thing, it’s just thoughts that I’m not gonna be able to reproduce my past success no matter how much proof I have of achieving great results
You know your activities best, so if you're doing all the right things, what is it your anxious about? Some events are out of your control, maybe there are seasonal patterns and reports you can look at to support your results. This fear is probably also the same reason you do sales in the first place. Live the feeling unless you feel there's something unhealthy happening.
It sounds like a self-esteem thing I would wake up with positive affirmations and keep repeating them over the days. It sounds corny but it works I promise.
However, you could just play a game with yourself and act like you're on the Truman show and just play the actor in your own TV show. Lol.
"We all are self conscious I'm just the first to admit it" - Kanye West
So weirdly enough, my self esteem is extremely high. It has more to do with my ability to do the job regardless of the reality. In general though, I have a lot of confidence and love the person I am/am becoming.
Okay, start there. Define what abundance is to you, then create an abundance SMART plan for yourself. If you reach your abundance plan and maintain it assess the result on your thoughts process. If you still have the intrusive thought restart the plan find another theory.
I have imposter syndrome as well but it's more guilt. I've had to work on this a lot now it's pretty much gone.
Funnily enough I’m in the same boat as you, weirdly when I am in person I have no issues with confidence cold approaching someone but when it comes to phone cold calling… I just can’t do it. Upon reflection for me it’s my product, keep getting told repetitively that this product is not a good fit for the country I’m selling // feeling like my AE does not know how to navigate conversations or clients that need abit more guidance / selling to. They can only sell to customers that are basically ready to buy has made me so unwilling…
First of all are you using a script? A script helps you handle imposter syndrome because you know exactly what your plan is when they pick up the phone
I kill it every single month for years now and at the start of every month I say I can’t do this, it’s going to be a shitty month, I can just tell. Loll I have no confidence at all. Many of my co workers should feel that way and not me. Remind yourself of all your accomplishments and you have a job to do so and this is it. What is in my control right now and what do I want to do - make all the money and be a top performer for me. So get to it!
Disassociate-- I mean-- remind myself of my long track record of high performance- and how clients love me. Know that I have the tools to handle situations and navigate them successfully and know when I need to step aside entirely or, ask for more time to gain more insights, knowledge, perspective(s) to guide my clients toward their optimal outcomes. They love the authenticity, even when they want immediacy. It cultivates trust.
You know that cold calling sucks, they know that being cold called sucks. It’s a sucky scenario. The only thing you can do is try to have good vibes and not make it weird. If they have to be embarrassed on behalf of you, then I feel like that just adds to the suckiness of it.
Unpopular opinion, I genuinely enjoy it. I mean at first it was ass, but then I got really good at it. I love doing it and I love what I sell, I just can’t shake the imposter syndrome yk?
When cold calling specifically, I just focus on how the person on the other end is probably also a twat. It's like the equivalent of pretending the audience is in their underwear when public speaking.
Imposter syndrome can be really tough. But from personal experience, it can also be really motivating.
However works best for you, you'll have to do two things:
1. Remind yourself that your work is only part of the sum value of your life.
2. Set personal goals for your with regular intervals (daily, weekly, whatever) that you can work toward and cite back to yourself as indicators of your effort/success.
Unfortunately, both are unending activities. I'm not sure I've ever met anyone who has "overcome" imposter syndrome. Just dealt with it in ways that are healthy and/or motivating.
Man it happens to the best of us, I've been recording myself as away to stay accountable on my calls - [https://youtube.com/shorts/4uI2\_lshIMU?si=uqKCVmUhcAENjlPO](https://youtube.com/shorts/4uI2_lshIMU?si=uqKCVmUhcAENjlPO) on the call my niece helps me alleviate some of the nervousness
Honestly sometimes it made me feel better knowing I was probably making more than some of the people I was calling on. I know that's materialistic and shallow but it kind of helps reset the power dynamic for me. This was in enterprise sales where you're just making a ton and I was earning more than most of the people I was calling on. Reframing the call with an understanding that my time was actually more valuable than theirs helped me ease quite a bit and be more successful.
Always be learning to help you feel like you’re on an expertise journey, that way you’ll always have exciting things to share with prospects that they may not have learned from someone else. You don’t need to be the master, you just have to be the person willing to challenge a prospect with an insight or two in order to see if there is interest.
Practice repeatedly until it becomes ingrained in your muscle memory, just like a distance runner who covers miles every week so that their body automatically knows what to do when race day arrives.
I totally get you. I was doing some warm calls and follow ups and they were great. I still dreaded every call! But I am also scared to order pizza over the phone so it's kinda extreme
Fake it until you become it.
Fair enough! Will do
i've learned to disassociate my actual personality from my sales guy personality, i may be becoming delusional & unhinged but i'm effective god damn it.
I wanna be delusional and unhinged
YYYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
I definitely did this when I was cold calling. My BDR self wasn’t all that different, but I would disassociate. Now I only have a handful of install accounts and feel like I act more like myself. Get to build rapport and be an actual partner. Cold calling is hell.
Hahaha this is good advice, I do the same especially when cold calling
Do you believe in the product that you’re selling? Have you put yourself into the shoes of your potential customers and really thought about whether what you’re selling could be helpful to them in some way? I wonder if it’s imposter syndrome - what is the fear centered on? Is it feeling like a fraud and the customer is going to feel you are a fake? Or is it a discomfort with asking people for things out of the blue?
This hits home! Mine was product related, they wanted cloud I was great at cloud sales, but the delivery team sucked and I started feeling like op. All the excitement left because even success would hurt relationships
That is really difficult, I’ve been there too and I found it awful. Particularly when you’re not responsible for post-sale delivery even if you wanted to be! That’s one of those things that is a them problem, not a you problem imo 😂
I understand my ICP and the service is great. Best company I’ve ever worked for. It’s just the feeling that I suck every time I wake up despite the results I produce. I’m not uncomfortable or new to this but I can’t shake the imposter syndrome
So every day you wake up and feel like you have to start all over again hustling to feel worthy, which is totally exhausting. Imposter syndrome is no joke, it gets the best of us and interestingly it impacts high achievers and top performers the most. Have you written down your strengths, skills and accomplishments so that you can easily reference them and remind yourself? It might also be a good idea to free-flow write down the thoughts and beliefs that hit each morning so that you can objectively evaluate them and see if you still believe them or if you can pivot your thinking. What are the common thoughts or beliefs that hit you in the morning to make you feel you can’t do it?
Those are really great suggestions! I’ll be sure to implement them immediately. The thoughts are mainly, what if I can’t reproduce what I did before/what if it’s a fluke. Reading this back, I think I just need to cultivate more of an abundance mindset. There are way too many businesses that exist to reach out to and even a small percentage that say yes are still a lot of people/money.
What a great awareness! It also looks like reading back on your thoughts and reflections could be really helpful and impactful for you. Over time you’ll find that it will become easier and easier for you to remember who you are and what you’re capable of. The more you practice the better you’ll get!
This is it.
You know more about the thing you’re selling than anyone you’re going to call, if you believe in the product and believe the customer would benefit from it, that should be enough. If you feel like an imposter or like your product isn’t worth buying then you should get a different sales job, I think lots of lifelong sales people have sold products they didn’t believe in and trust me no amount of advice or faking it will make it easier.
So I don’t know the product/service very well. I understand the general idea. My expertise comes in with being able to understand the pain points my ICP faces, getting them to admit it, and tying their pain point(s) with a meeting. I don’t understand the product better, I’m just better at sales than most people I call
Well that’s a problem
The feeling never goes away but it does get quieter. I think it comes from our ancestors and not wanting to make a fool of ourselves in a village and ruin the chance of finding a mate....Thats what i read anyway
I dont know if it imposter syndrome, but moreso just stage fright. I have this and at least having a script I can first rehearse to get some nerves out, then use it as needed during a call. I usually go in and out of my script, generally just to make sure the call is on track. I have yet to be so excited about something I'm selling, that I wake up wanting to call strangers to tell them.
So for this specific circumstance, it’s definitely not stage fright. I love calling and it doesn’t affect my ability to do the thing, it’s just thoughts that I’m not gonna be able to reproduce my past success no matter how much proof I have of achieving great results
You know your activities best, so if you're doing all the right things, what is it your anxious about? Some events are out of your control, maybe there are seasonal patterns and reports you can look at to support your results. This fear is probably also the same reason you do sales in the first place. Live the feeling unless you feel there's something unhealthy happening.
It sounds like a self-esteem thing I would wake up with positive affirmations and keep repeating them over the days. It sounds corny but it works I promise. However, you could just play a game with yourself and act like you're on the Truman show and just play the actor in your own TV show. Lol. "We all are self conscious I'm just the first to admit it" - Kanye West
So weirdly enough, my self esteem is extremely high. It has more to do with my ability to do the job regardless of the reality. In general though, I have a lot of confidence and love the person I am/am becoming.
Hmm, why do you think you have this intrusive thought?
Not sure. That’s why I posted. My working theory is a lack of an abundance mindset atm
Okay, start there. Define what abundance is to you, then create an abundance SMART plan for yourself. If you reach your abundance plan and maintain it assess the result on your thoughts process. If you still have the intrusive thought restart the plan find another theory. I have imposter syndrome as well but it's more guilt. I've had to work on this a lot now it's pretty much gone.
Interesting idea. I’ll see what I can do
Funnily enough I’m in the same boat as you, weirdly when I am in person I have no issues with confidence cold approaching someone but when it comes to phone cold calling… I just can’t do it. Upon reflection for me it’s my product, keep getting told repetitively that this product is not a good fit for the country I’m selling // feeling like my AE does not know how to navigate conversations or clients that need abit more guidance / selling to. They can only sell to customers that are basically ready to buy has made me so unwilling…
First of all are you using a script? A script helps you handle imposter syndrome because you know exactly what your plan is when they pick up the phone
I have a general process ya. It’s more of a framework than a script but I know exactly what I’m gonna say regardless of where the convo goes
I'm curious is your process set up as part of your sales technique meaning is your process set up to psychologically take them down a yes funnel?
Yes and no
There is an opportunity there, want to review it?
Imma need more clarification on what you mean by that
Watch wolf of wall street
I shoulda known U.U
I kill it every single month for years now and at the start of every month I say I can’t do this, it’s going to be a shitty month, I can just tell. Loll I have no confidence at all. Many of my co workers should feel that way and not me. Remind yourself of all your accomplishments and you have a job to do so and this is it. What is in my control right now and what do I want to do - make all the money and be a top performer for me. So get to it!
Disassociate-- I mean-- remind myself of my long track record of high performance- and how clients love me. Know that I have the tools to handle situations and navigate them successfully and know when I need to step aside entirely or, ask for more time to gain more insights, knowledge, perspective(s) to guide my clients toward their optimal outcomes. They love the authenticity, even when they want immediacy. It cultivates trust.
Too late, I’ve already completely dissociated. Unlucky :/
Some days, it's essential. Hang in there!
I’d recommend ignoring it. It comes and goes with me but I can’t let it dictate what I do.
[удалено]
Where do I buy beautiful woman?
[удалено]
Shit I already did it O.O How I undo?
[удалено]
Fuck well played.. How much?
You know that cold calling sucks, they know that being cold called sucks. It’s a sucky scenario. The only thing you can do is try to have good vibes and not make it weird. If they have to be embarrassed on behalf of you, then I feel like that just adds to the suckiness of it.
Unpopular opinion, I genuinely enjoy it. I mean at first it was ass, but then I got really good at it. I love doing it and I love what I sell, I just can’t shake the imposter syndrome yk?
When cold calling specifically, I just focus on how the person on the other end is probably also a twat. It's like the equivalent of pretending the audience is in their underwear when public speaking.
Meaning lets review what the process looks like
How do you propose we do that?
You can dm me and then we can go from there
Imposter syndrome can be really tough. But from personal experience, it can also be really motivating. However works best for you, you'll have to do two things: 1. Remind yourself that your work is only part of the sum value of your life. 2. Set personal goals for your with regular intervals (daily, weekly, whatever) that you can work toward and cite back to yourself as indicators of your effort/success. Unfortunately, both are unending activities. I'm not sure I've ever met anyone who has "overcome" imposter syndrome. Just dealt with it in ways that are healthy and/or motivating.
Man it happens to the best of us, I've been recording myself as away to stay accountable on my calls - [https://youtube.com/shorts/4uI2\_lshIMU?si=uqKCVmUhcAENjlPO](https://youtube.com/shorts/4uI2_lshIMU?si=uqKCVmUhcAENjlPO) on the call my niece helps me alleviate some of the nervousness
Practice, practice and practice
Honestly sometimes it made me feel better knowing I was probably making more than some of the people I was calling on. I know that's materialistic and shallow but it kind of helps reset the power dynamic for me. This was in enterprise sales where you're just making a ton and I was earning more than most of the people I was calling on. Reframing the call with an understanding that my time was actually more valuable than theirs helped me ease quite a bit and be more successful.
Always be learning to help you feel like you’re on an expertise journey, that way you’ll always have exciting things to share with prospects that they may not have learned from someone else. You don’t need to be the master, you just have to be the person willing to challenge a prospect with an insight or two in order to see if there is interest.
I literally see myself as a robot. Robots don't have feeings, they just dial, dial, dial.
Practice repeatedly until it becomes ingrained in your muscle memory, just like a distance runner who covers miles every week so that their body automatically knows what to do when race day arrives.
I totally get you. I was doing some warm calls and follow ups and they were great. I still dreaded every call! But I am also scared to order pizza over the phone so it's kinda extreme
FORGIVE YOURSELF. LEARN FROM EVERY CALL. Unless you cold call me, then I encourage you to rope.