Tami Stodghill
Business Owner , Wealthy Way Of Life
Article from The Entrepreneur
Our former professions were within the Desktop Publishing and Graphic Design industries. My husband was the Technical Support Services Manager and I was Press Relations Manager. We had been in this industry for 20+ years and ours were not positions which required "sales" of any kind. In fact, people came to us and would leave having received valuable assistance and information. Certainly not jobs which made us feel as though there was ever a chance of rejection...
However, when we started our home business, we found ourselves in a position where we needed to call our prospects and leads, present our opportunity and then hope they found that "it spoke to them" and what they were looking for. Fear kicked in. And just making those calls seemed like a pressure so great that some days we initially would just put them off. No one likes rejection and since people have a preconceived notion that sales and telemarketing callers were to be avoided, it made it that much more difficult to put ourselves in the right mindset to face those fears.
Then a really good friend of my husband's who is in the industry told him something that completely changed our view. See, what he explained is that we are successful at our home business and it has allowed us to do what we want to do—work from home, have financial freedom and set our own hours. So, in a nutshell, we view it as a valuable opportunity. There are many home based businesses that offer those same benefits. He explained that if we faced every call with the attitude that "we have something of value to offer and either the prospect wanted to take advantage of this opportunity, or someone else would", all of the pressure and fear was abolished. We realized what he said was true. If we believed in our business and put that energy into every call, then we shouldn't fear any kind of response.
There are many reasons why someone may opt not to take advantage of your business opportunity—lack of available funds, fear of failure, fear of quitting their present position and chancing success, past bad experiences in a home business, or just plain indecisiveness. Trust me, we certainly were undecided for over 10 years when we were searching for a business and probably passed up the opportunity to join many different ventures. Would they have been successful for us? Maybe. But we evidently were not at a point that we felt comfortable making that change in our lives. It had nothing to do with the opportunities or the people presenting them at the time. It was just where we were at in our lives.
In closing, if you approach your calls with the mindset that what you have is a viable option for your prospects and that it is their loss when they pass up that chance to join your business, all fear of rejection will leave your mind. And in doing that, you will project a confidence, happiness and stress-free presence when you present your business. It will leave you feeling as though every call has been a worthwhile one and that you needn't fear someone turning down your offer for more details or information. If the prospect is in the right place in their life to make a change and take advantage of the opportunity you offer, then you will have a sale. If they aren't, no amount of dreading or analyzing their responses is going to change that. And it most certainly isn't a reflection of an unworthy business. Provide your information, feel great about the fact that you made that change yourself, and move forward so that you can find others who see your business as you did.
Article from The Entrepreneur
