How Your Anxiety Costs You Money

In a recent coaching session, a business owner asked for input on how he could be more effective in his meetings with potential clients. This professional has been in business for many years, and he is at the top of his game—actually, he is in an enviable position in his industry, his niche, and in his city. Still, he had a hunch this is an area for him to leverage his strengths.

It turned out that his anxiety was costing him thousands of dollars in new business. Here’s how we worked through it.

What Needs to Change?

I asked, So, what is your sense of what needs to change?

He said, Well, I wonder if my competitors use slick brochures or have a convincing sales pitch that wins business every time.

I’m thinking, No, that is not what you need, but I can see why you might consider that. It’s a common pitfall when we compare ourselves to others—more, better, different, flashier. But in my experience:

• No one wins business every time. The most polished sales presentations can fail.
• Many people are turned off by slick and overly prepared or worse, by a canned selling style—especially in the high-end market he is operating in.
• This owner has been hitting it out of the park for years, so he can’t have it all wrong with his current sales approach.

If he is simply wanting to be his best self with the kinds of clients he most wanted, then I’m on board to help him explore this. I am betting my client may be further ahead with a tweak in another direction—to a more relational connection.

I had worked with this client for six months and I observed some signs of keeping his guard up.   When I brought up the potential power in being more vulnerable interpersonally, he quickly expressed his concern that it would be a sign of weakness. Unfortunately, this kind of thinking  makes for missed opportunities for building rapport, a key competency of emotional intelligence. Leaders who work to tune up their EQ become far more effective in building their network and closing more business.

Connect The Head and The Heart

Anytime we are interacting with others, we are operating from two channels, whether we realize it or not. The most preferred for high-performing, competitive business owners and executives is primarily reliance on  their IQ—which includes knowledge, experience, and logic, with well-tuned verbal acuity. This is from the frontal lobe of the brain, responsible for logical thinking, reasoning, judgment, and decision-making. This may be called our “head” knowledge.

Another part of our brain, the limbic system (also called the emotional brain), is often underutilized. It is the one that has the capacity to attune, relate, understand, identify, and experience a wide range of emotions in ourselves and others, which we could label as “heart” knowledge. Executives excel when they use this awareness, which also raises their intuition, to read a room, sense when someone is clamming up, getting a negative vibe of some sort, and are able to adjust their approach to re-engage others to support their message and intention.

In the art of selling yourself, whether it is a sales appointment, a job interview, an idea pitch, a new strategy, a first date, or anything else where you want to make your case in the most effective way, tap into your whole brain.

2 Parts of the Brain, 2 Selling Styles

The Promoter Style

In the scale below—let’s say the right represents the cognitive or head channel—communication and exchange of ideas, content, facts, statistics, and in general doing a good job of advocating for one’s product or services. 

This style is prepared and has some clear points to make, uses logical examples, and may use sales materials to back up the talking points. A prospective client may come away saying, “I am impressed with that person.” If overdone, they might say, “He talked too much and didn’t seem to have much interest in getting to know me and what I need.” Worse, “She’s trying too hard, I don’t trust her.”

The Relational Style

On the scale on the left, let’s call it the relationship-oriented or heart channel—the focus is on understanding and building rapport. A person feels it in an unconscious way. This shows up in connection, a feeling of warmth, trust, and is characterized by asking good questions, listening really well, and asking deeper questions to draw the other out. Authentic interest and sincere desire to get to know the other. 

Accessing your heart channel helps you tap into any existing anxiety and will help you relax, making the interaction more felt and real. A potential client might say, “I felt comfortable with that person,” “I sense they really cared about me and want to serve me.” If overdone, the prospective client might come away not knowing enough about you and your services and may even perceive you as not confident enough.

Balance Your Sales Style and Improve Your Performance

In truth, a successful sales meeting requires a natural blend of both styles—integration of the promoter and relational styles sends a message that you know what you are doing, you are competent, and you also have the ability to communicate with warmth and transparency, which makes you easy to work with, easy to be with!

Are you well integrated in how you approach sales meetings? Do you favor or fall heavily on one side? At the heart of Emotional Intelligence is the ability to accurately assess oneself. Self-Awareness is a keen, accurate, and non-judgmental (blameless) view of your own strengths and weaknesses. Consider which side you fall on and what you can pump up or tap down to create more of an integrated approach with your head and heart. Here are ways to build on your non-preferred style.

Build Promoter Style by:

• Prepare stories of success with clear examples
• Have a short summary of your credentials
• Be ready with statistics that support your approach or field of expertise
• Outline in advance your flow of questions
• Set up the right environment to aid the discussion
• Send information in advance of the meeting

Watch out for: talking too much, being too boastful, being defensive, trying too hard to prove your point, trying to close too quickly.

Build Relational Style by:

• Ask good questions you’ve prepared in advance
• Show you’ve listened well by paraphrasing what you heard
• Follow up some prospective clients’ answers with further questions such as “Why is that important to you?” or “What makes that a priority?”
• Pause, allow for silence, and breathe to keep the pace relaxed
• When sufficient understanding is sensed, ask what questions they have for you
• Give succinct and clear answers

Watch out for: letting the prospective client have full control of the flow of the meeting, getting distracted and not listening well, leaving insufficient time to share about your services, and not being assertive enough at the end to identify next steps.

Conclusion

Whether you’re selling your services, talking to your children about their behavior, or negotiating the next vacation with your partner, using your full power involves your head and your heart. Most of us fall short on one side or the other and it reduces our potential to reach our goals and live the most fulfilling lives we can. Leverage your stronger side by being even more intentional and take a few easy steps towards shoring up your non-preferred style.

Want to talk about how to do that? Reply to this email or visit elainemorris.com.

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