The Psychology of Selling: Increase Your Sales Faster and Easier Than You Ever Thought Possible pdfdrive com

Obstacles to Sales Success
There are two major obstacles to making and closing any sale. They are both
mental. They are the fear of failure and the fear of rejection.
The fear of failure is the biggest single reason for failure in adult life. It is not
failure itself, but the fear of failure, the prospect of failure, the anticipation of
failure, that causes you to freeze up and perform at a lower level.
The fear of failure is a deep subconscious fear that we all develop early in life,
usually as the result of destructive criticism from one or both parents when we
are children. If your parents criticized you continually when you were growing
up, you will experience this deeply entrenched, unconscious fear of failure as an
adult, at least until you learn to get rid of it.
Why Customers Don’t Buy
The fear of failure in the mind of the customer or the prospect is the one
greatest obstacle to buying. Every customer has made countless buying mistakes.
He has purchased services that he later found were overpriced. He has bought
products that broke down and that he could not get repaired. He has been sold
things that he did not want, could not use, and could not afford. He has been
burned so many times in sales experiences that he is like a long-tailed cat in a
room full of rocking chairs.
This fear of failure and disappointment is the number one reason why
customers do not buy. So, one of the most important things you can do in the
process of building trust and credibility is to reduce the customer’s fear to the
point where he has no hesitation about going ahead with your offer.

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The Fear of Rejection
The second major obstacle to selling and closing is the fear of rejection. This
is the fear that the potential buyer might say no. The fear of rejection is triggered
by the possibility of rudeness, disapproval, or criticism toward the salesperson
by the prospect.
The rule is that 80 percent of sales calls will end in a no, for a thousand
different reasons. This does not necessarily mean that there is anything wrong
with the salesperson or the product or service being sold. People say no because
they simply do not need it, do not want it, cannot use it, cannot afford it, or some
other reason.