Brutally Honest Advice to Build Confidence in Sales

this is brutally honest advice for my younger insecure self on how to actually build real bulletproof confidence hey I'm Marcus Shan found vley Consulting Group in which we provide modern sales training coaching reps and teams so you can blow out your sales targets earn A4 million doll plus and become the elite sales Pro you've dreamed of prior to this I was in corporate sales and sales leadership in which I HD and exceeded my qut of 13 years in a row doing 100 to 250% plus and hit Club literally almost every single year so if you

see me today most people would probably say that I have conf and times even borderline over confidence but here's the thing that's not how I was growing up so I'm going to share with you today six things that I did to build my confidence which ultimately helped me in sales relationship and life if you watch to the end you'll learn why five and six together have the biggest impact let's dive in number one be brutally honest with all your weaknesses you can do all the affirmations in the world the craziest morning routine but that won't

change the fact that you probably suck or is not as good as you hope you'd be at whatever it is that's making you feel insecure so first start off by making a list of all the areas that make you feel insecure this is incredibly painful but really necessary you want to be able to stack and prioritize them on what will actually have the greatest impact if you fix them this is probably by far one of the hardest steps to First do because you have to really face your demons and I'm going give you actually three

really specific examples in my own personal life number one one of my biggest insecurities especially growing up that I wasn't really willing to face my ability to speak in public at any time this is not even like in front of the crowd this could be literally just even raising my hand in elementary school just sharing an idea or asking a question deathly scared of it a lot of it really stem from not speaking to was four years old having a speech impediment getting made fun of by other kids having to go to special speech therapy

classes it was a thing that was just ongoing especially in elementary school but I wasn't really willing to the face that I was really insecure or lack confidence in it I was just like I'm just a shy kid for the most part this never really impacted me that much and obviously teachers will always give me feedback my report cards that I need to participate more engage more and do those type of things but that was really it now for me personally I didn't really see as a problem till about the age of 10 11 years

old where I actually started getting really into doing like street magic a little nerdy years ago at that time David bla was a street magician we on TV he go around and we just meet random people and do incredible magic tricks and I started to get really into it yeah I know totally nerdy but here's the thing because I had zero confidence in my ability to speak in public or talk to even strangers needless as they talk to people I know that was a huge obstacle for me to overcome so I had to really face

that fear and really look myself in the mirror like man like if I really want to actually do magic and like impress people and do cool tricks with my friends or family people don't know I need to be able to get really good at this and that's when I started really working at it and practicing something that had actually overcome that so that example number one another good example is I was probably a little bit older maybe 12 or 13 and at this point I've been competing and compar to swimming for a couple years now

it's getting pretty good but what was interesting was around the same time like literally a lot of my friends and buddies now we grew up with swimming they were all like hitting puberty they were growing putting on pounds of muscle and they're getting taller I basically say the same height I think I was probably five foot tall around that 11 or 12 age range but on top of that maybe really insecure was like I was super scrawny just a really scrawny little physique Not only was like a little guy 5et I this little scrawny physique

and they all made fun of me right CU they're going through puberty they're getting taller they're getting more muscular and for me I was starting to go through puberty too little TMI but that was still just like this little scrawny little Asian kid that really bother me again I'm going to share some of the things I'm going to talk about today to get to that point but my point is it's me being aware of what's actually making me insecure versus trying to fake it till a makeer or some sort of BS that you see on

some of these other YouTube videos another good example is when I was at 22 started my first B2B sales job and frankly I thought I'll be good try to try to be overly conf I try to be a fake the OV extroverted salesperson but my results were absolutely terrible and I thought by just being overly faking my confidence trying to be overly conf and pretending I knew what I was doing that people would just trust me and believe me and I have results but it didn't work and it just kept getting worse and worse and

I really had to face My Demons of realizing I really am not good at my job so again the example from my personal to in my professional life is that first step of making any type of change is literally being able to look in the mirror and like all right these are legitimate real weaknesses of mine if I really want to overcome them then I need to do something about that number one be really clear on exactly what your weaknesses are because then you can do something about it which leads to number two which is

you got to eliminate what kills your confidence whether we realize it or not there are a lot of things in our lives that drain our confidence I think a big one a lot of times is probably the people we spend the time with this could be friends co-workers teammates are those people who are actually draining your confidence so I'll give you a real example I don't want to say my name but there was a coworker when I first started my my BB sales job he's a little bit older than me and I looked up to

him he was very confident almost overly confident and he' always make fun of me he'd always tease me he teased how I sounded on cold calls he teased me about my results he teased me how I'm a stay in this world forever until I get fired he probably thought maybe it's pushing me it would make me more motivated but it actually didn't it killed my confidence especially when I already knew I wasn't performing but now I having someone else pushed me down and beat me down that didn't really help learning to separate myself away from

not be around that person was actually better for me because I was already hard on myself I didn't need someone else tell me that so that's a good example right there or if you have maybe friends or other people if they're bringing you down how can you eliminate them from your life at least at this moment because they're definitely not serving you they're only hurting your confidence another example is the social media highlight reel so I've also found too and anything I'm doing if I'm trying to improve whatever sometimes if I see too much of

the Highlight re on social media this going be on Instagram Tik Tok LinkedIn whatever if I'm just seeing everyone's winning with their dream life and here I'm struggling that kills my confidence even more and I know comparisons to the thief of Joy But ultimately you know this is actually why I have so many tools that basically hide my feed so I don't see my feed because that doesn't doesn't serve me at all I'm trying to control my focus so eliminate stuff like that the third thing the news I'll go back to my example of being

bad at sales right so being bad sales like Not only was I getting beat down from this cooworker at work who V my manager actually which was terrible but him just beating me down least at the time was all all already hard and then here I am seeing how successful people are on Facebook which is really popular at the time and then on top of that I'm also listening to the news which is purely negative I'm like man like it just killed my confidence like it just made me feel worse and worse and worse so

that's why it's really key to just eliminate or minimize those type of things that actually kill your confidence because it's really hard to be successful if you're mentally stuck in a very dangerous place if you jump into a 50° Ice Cold Lake and you're trying to stay warm by just moving around you can do your best you can work super hard it but at the end of the day your environment right around you it's super cold it's going to be very hard to get warmed up to the body you actually need to get to and

you're going to have to get out soon so again you have to eliminate what actually kills your confidence number three skill development here's the truth you lack confidence because you lack the skills in whatever it is you're doing for example if you have never driven a car before you're more than likely going to lack the confidence with driving now if you have taken driveing school and you have physical time and hours driving quite a bit your skills are going to be higher and so is your confidence me it's about the sales again because I lack

skills in sales first me just trying to work really hard and grind and play activity game that did not build my confidence so I do those two things I mentioned and then to increase my skills I didn't just hope time would increase my skills I knew I actually actively work at it so what did I first started doing I started to literally read viciously going to the library buying books I started to attend conferences I bought courses I hired coaches I joined masterminds and and ultimately this gave me a path for success to start increasing

my skills this is really important the reality is eventually especially in a role like sales people will uncover cover what you actually are not good at for example I've seen some people who interview for a sales role that potentially is a far more challenging role that requires more skills than they're actually claiming that they have get into the role because maybe they're just a great interview or maybe they have some connections but once you're actually in the role now they're getting exposed because now they have a a big quota on on their head they have

to deliver on but they lack the skills to actually do this do what they need to do to fill the pipeline up navigate complex sales Cycles close the deals quickly and be able to deliver on a high number and they could try to fake it till they make it as much as they can but eventually they will get exposed because the results simply are not there and the crappy part is if they don't realize that they're missing the skill piece and they just keep trying to work really hard what end up happening is they'll probably

end up getting fired or laid off or just something's going to happen where they get removed from the job what's going to happen to their confidence it's going to get shot down at as a result that's why it's really key especially if you're feel insecure in whatever it is you're taking the time to actually increase your skills and having a clear path for success but on top of that this next one is super vital which is number four trade fake it until you make it for walk it until you talk it I heard this phrase

I think from Alex Ros a while back and I absolutely loved it because I remember thinking years ago I used to believe you got to fake it till you make it it I used to totally think I'm I need need to act confident I need to act a certain way but this is so wrong the key is to walk it until you talk it this means doing the hard things every single day this is actually earning your stripes this is the price for Success so for example call calling espe early on I was absolutely terrible

at coold calling and I did what most people did when they are just not good at coold calling they're like I'm not getting results what what to do let me increase my numbers if I'm making a 100 calls make 200 calls and then let me just keep increasing the number and hopefully all it's booked by law of activity and yeah you probably will get some results but not neily great results I just didn't get any results frankly I just wasn't that good right so I knew if I wanted to get really good at cold calling

I had actually Master how I sounded on the phones and the issue also found as well was let's say if I made a 100 calls if I had a 10% connect rate let's say that it's the only 10 chances I have to actually book a meeting and chances were throughout the day I would botch it and not book the meeting and book zero out of 10 essentially so I realized the call the ding part wasn't something I need to practice with I need to have actually better skills and I need to actually get better and

then get the repetition in of actually doing the live conversations so what did I do to master it aside from just making you know hundreds of calls you up front what I realized was that I need to practice this far more so after hours I would be practicing my conversations with a decision maker literally role playing out loud exactly what I should say when they answer the phone how to overcome their objections gave myself all objection I did over and over for really hours on end on top of that I had a pretty decent commute

which is about 2 hours per day on the road just driving to and from work so instead of listening to music listen to the news what I did was I literally roleplayed out loud those phone scripts from start to finish going through the toughest situation every possible objection imagining that I would get four or five objections on the phone and being able to hammer through it I did over and over and over and over for my car ride so literally this gave me dozens of extra repetitions every single day so when you think about this

by me just doing extra two hours a day in the car 5 days a week that's 10 hours of extra repetition like literally earning my stripes and building my confidence of how I sound the phone so this way when I dig get on the phones of people and I had the 10% connect if I had five or 10 conversations I had far more repetition than anybody else on my team or really in the company because I was doing these things that people weren't willing to do I was doing the hard things every single day and

imagine this compounds over time so it wasn't just doing one week I did this every single day on my car ride for the first year so you can imagine how much that compounds over time because that's literally hundreds of hours now that add up over time of practicing that repetition that most people are just unto do so that's an example how I'm training that fake it until you make it for actually walk it until I talk it so when I was on the phones with people I sounded like the pro because I've done it so

many times I didn't need to think it was pure muscle memory which leads me to number five of building your confidence which is consistency we talked about this before but confidence really stems from your experiences so the more you do something the more confidence you're going to build I always picture it's a lot like a bank account in which everything you do either is a deposit into your bank account or withdrawal from bank account for example by me committing to role playing in my car two hours a day consistently I'm doing deposit into my confidence

bank account and my skill in cold calling and the days I didn't do it actually withdraw from my bank account so this is why it's really key to constantly be working at it and be really consistent with it because that builds a lot of repetition and builds a lot of confidence another example so it's about sales so some people say hey you're pretty confident but here's the reality from a sales perspective I personally have been on over 10,000 sales calls in the last 17 years like think about that for a second L over 10,000 sales

calls by being on that many actual live calls with real live prospects this is not including the practice not including the things I would do just to practice get myself right like can't mentally ready right this is literally on live calls with real profit in last 17 years over dozens of industry or thousand different types of personalities and different types of people in different types of weird situations because of that this gives me an insane amount of confidence back also by the reputation I've actually done and here's the thing because I still do sales calls

to this day it only further adds to my confidence think about this who's going to have more confidence somebody who reads 10,000 sales books or somebody who has run 10,000 sales calls now if you done both you're can to have an insane amount of confidence this is also known as a 10,000 hour rule that Malcolm glad while mentioned in his book outlawed a story of success in a nutshell what it talks about is true expertise is built by practicing something the right way for 10,000 hours and emphasis on the right way because if you're doing

the wrong things you're not going to be great so for example I've seen some people who have say they haven't been in sales for 15 20 years but they haven't been that successful they're going from job to job they're never really actually winning consistently year after year that tells me that they're not doing it the right way and it's not uncommon for me to meet someone who says oh I have 15 years experience but the results don't show it but they what they really have is onee experience repeat it 15 times true expert is built

by doing the right things the right way for 10,000 hours this is not sexy at all it is not fun at all but how real expertise is actually built Theory can't beat real world application it's like a few months back my washer completely broke and I took go look inside and the I don't know what it's called the the Rubber seal around basically popped off completely and I couldn't get it back into place I'm like this is weird and I have zero experience in fixing and replacing this but what did I do first I youtubed

it I Googled it I'm like okay I think it's going to be this part I think I would have to P part this way and actually replace it but I'm like I don't have time for that that'll probably take me at least four or five hours I don't have time to do that let me just hire someone to come take a look at that I'm not 100% confident my skills there but this is why I believe the issue I have somebody come in amazing reviews they've been doing this for 20 years this is their business

owner comes out starts to diagnose it within 10 15 minutes diagnoses three other core problems that actually caused that seal to basically pop off now again this is based off because this guy has s his 10,000 hours in washer repairs So within minutes he's able to diagnose the actual legitimate problem and recommend a better solution which would cost more than replacing the washer so he recommend buying new washer because I didn't have confidence in it if I just try to solve it that way I probably would have probably ordered the part TR to figure out

taken it all apart only to realize I just wasted like 300 bucks buying parts and it wasn't right issue so need hire someone else out it would it cost me far more so again Theory can't build real world consistent application if you done steps 1 through five consistently over time of doing the right things like 10,000 hour rule you're going to have a lot of confidence in whatever you're doing now if you implement number six this will take your confidence to a whole new level because you're going to stack confidence because number six is repeating

it in multiple domains because the reality is is confidence doesn't always transfer across other domains for example Michael Jordan had a lot of confidence in basketball he's one of the goats one of the greatest of all times but what happened when he went to baseball he probably had confidence of going into there maybe trying to fake it till he make it a little bit went to baseball actually was not good he didn't last that long so he had stop doing baseball confidence doesn't always transfer across domains for example you can be confident in speaking with

CEOs of SAS companies but then be less confident speaking with CEOs of manufacturing companies the more you can repeat the confidence cycle in multiple domains the more your confidence is actually going to build especially if they are really related for example sales for me and I shared some examples of you ear how I built confidence in maybe specific parts of like coold calling Etc but for me one of the gifts I was given early on was I was selling to literally dozens of Industries so because I sold a dozens of Industries this helped me build

a lot of confidence to sell to whomever I was having conversation with whether it was in manufacturing industrial businesses to software businesses to Consulting businesses to health care to Cloud it lit just because of so many different Industries it built me a lot of confidence and on top of that because it was a complex sale I sold to a lot of stakeholders those built me a lot of confidence but then on top of that by doing that successfully then getting promoted to a sales manager and running a team and still selling car in the bag

and helping them do it this built my confidence I could still continue to sell to all these different Industries but also teach others on how to do it as well I decided to change Industries in 2011 and do it again go back selling again build my confidence again sell dozen in different Industries and then get home to be a sales manager doing the same thing teach other people do making them successful to be an executive leader running teams and teams of people having dozens of reps underneath me and then being able to do same thing

over and over and then to my own business and each time I'll tell you when I made that LE to different domains my confidence went down because I was like can I do it again so even when I started my own business can I do what I've done for other companies for myself then when I was able to do it over time and build them my confidence in build a business from scratch as well so another really good example is Arnold Schwarzenegger so love him or hate him but he's done some pretty incredible things so

coming from Austria to becoming a worldclass bodybuilder world renown winning I think seven Mr olympias crushing it and building confidence in that domain but on top of that while he was doing that he's also built a really successful multiple s figure business from there transferring that over to acting okay it became one of the biggest action stars in the world all right and then again another transition to becoming the governor of California and another trans best sell author and and so much more and I share the example with you is when you're able to cross

domains doing this the same cycle I mentioned the five steps but you do over and over and over in different domains when you start combin together you start stacking your confidence over and over time again this is not sexy it's not easy it's really hard it requires consistency it's definitely not something you can just do overnight and if you just try to fake it till you make it you're going to get a lack luster results but if you actually walk until you talk it and you run these six steps you'll see your confidence will build

whatever you're struggling whether this is in prospecting coold calling executive conversations sales or whatever it is that is actually sapping your confidence so there you have it some brutally on advice how to actually build your confidence in six steps to do it now if you want our help to help boost your sales skills increase your sales confidence head below call to my team see it's a good fit for our coaching programs and if you want to boost your confident how you actually close and get yourself to over a 40% close rate all see is next

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