“Courage is being scared to death but saddling up anyway.”

 John Wayne

This past year, I came to the realization, that if I wanted my speaking/training/consulting business to really do well, I would have to “Cowboy Up”, and start marketing (and yes, “selling” – YIKES!!), myself. My self-talk was always, “I’m not good at selling”, and “I’m not a sales guy, I’m more operations”, and on and on.  I finally had to sit down and honestly assess why I was shying away from “selling” and “sales”.  It boiled down to this, I didn’t want people to think “badly” of me.  I was afraid of what people would think of me, afraid of the “NO”.

Then I began to think about being “afraid”.  Afraid of what?  Most of my adult life has been spent making my living slinging a gun and getting shot at.  If I wasn’t afraid to be shot at for a pay check, how in the world did it make sense to be afraid of the “NO”, in the world of selling?  Let’s be clear, I have never, not one time, enjoyed being shot at, but I used to think, “I would rather get shot at than go on a sales call.”

That thinking has held me back for my entire life.  Somewhere along the line, I adopted a belief that caused my financial welfare to be dictated by what I thought other people thought.  RIDICULOUS, you say? Exactly.  I changed my self-talk to saying things like, “I love this sales stuff,” and “Sales skills are going to make me millions”.

Then I went to work learning sales skills.  I found out, sales isn’t a mystery, it’s a series of skills, just like marksmanship, or close quarters combat, or hand to hand/defensive tactics.  Once I learned the skills, and the order in which to do them, BOOM! Now, I really do love this sales stuff!! It not only is helping me grow the business, I’m helping a heck of lot of people along the way.  And oddly enough, I have never really cared what people thought of me, so how was that belief even in my inventory?

Don’t be afraid of marketing and selling, “COWBOY UP!!”  (If someone thinks less of you, whatever….I guarantee their rejection hurts less than a bullet.)

Boo Yah!!