Build Your Self-Image

by Graham Denton

"Nobody can make you feel inferior without your permission."

That gem of wisdom came from Eleanor Roosevelt, who was perhaps the most accomplished and influential of American first ladies. To a sales professional, it's an exceptionally useful observation, because the single most lethal killer of anybody's sales success is the belief, however unfounded, that you're not up to the job. The first step to being successful is knowing -- not thinking or hoping or even believing, but knowing -- that you can be.

Zig Ziglar says it well in his widely read book Secrets of Closing the Sale. The chapter entitled "Your Attitude Toward You" begins this way: "If you're really interested in building your sales career, or for that matter any other kind of career, you've got to start by building a healthy self-image."

That's not the same thing as an inflated ego. Ziglar makes this point with great precision, revealing his understanding of a basic psychological principle. Whether they're in sales or not, people who "thump their chests" and proclaim "I'm the greatest" are "in almost every case, manifesting a poor self-image." Fans of Muhammad Ali, who made "I am the greatest" his signature line, may take exception to this rule, and it could be that Ali himself was an exception. But in general the rule applies, in and out of the sales profession. In Ziglar's interesting summation, "All great salespeople have strong (not inflated) egos. They cease to be great when the ego has them!"

What does it mean to say that "the ego has them?" It means that salespeople cease to be great when they are slaves to their egos. When they are so concerned about protecting their self-image -- about doing and saying the "right" things, following the "appropriate" selling methods, not "offending" anyone -- that they lose control of the work they have to perform to actually communicate with customers and therefore close sales.

Sales is basically the art of talking with people. Those who do it best do not have to advertise themselves; their communication skills are their own best advertisement. The customer responds to them not because they're "great" but because, within the framework of the business situation, they are effective. And invariably they are effective because they're concentrating on business. They don't have to concentrate on themselves, because that's a given.

Again, Ziglar sums it up with good economy. "When you can accept yourself, with your own faults and shortcomings, it's much easier for you to understand and communicate (I didn't say agree) with other people -- including your prospects." So build a sound self-image and you will build your sales.