Let me explain to you why salespeople almost inevitably wind up seeking approval and even end up chasing after it.

One thing I routinely see when training salespeople is an inferiority complex. I’ve mentioned the television and Hollywood stereotypes of salespeople that contribute to this. With or without that, however, it’s usually there, because salespeople are led to believe that the prospect is the boss and the salesperson is there to serve.

Although this may be partially true—you certainly do need to serve your customers after they buy—it gets salespeople seeking and chasing the approval of prospects when in reality they could just as easily show up as an equal or a superior and never have to deal with any of that nonsense.

You sure as hell are not obligated to serve anyone who hasn’t paid you and become your customer, so don’t give in to their demands that you do.

In my case, what happened was that I went into sales, got my first outside sales job, went off to sales training, and was ordered to cold call relentlessly.

Now you know my opinion of cold calling. It doesn’t work anymore in our twenty-first-century, Information Age economy. There are simply too many ways for prospects to find what they need on their own, which is why they no longer accept cold calls and why you need to position yourself where prospects will see you and proverbially raise their hands to show interest.

Having said that, I didn’t know any better at 22 years old and just made the cold calls. Whether it was on the phone, going door-to-door, or what have you, I made at least a hundred a day. I remember walking buildings and hitting every office and sometimes doing that until 7:00 in the evening, feeling exhilarated, and believing the old sales trainer myth that I’d “planted lots of seeds” and would soon get to reap the benefits.

For some reason, it didn’t seem to work out that way.

What actually happened is that I was hung up on and had doors slammed in my face day after day after day, complete with being yelled at and thrown out of offices. I’ve even had the police called on me once. This wore on me and it had a lasting, negative effect on my self-confidence. I was told that after hearing no enough times, it would just naturally start to roll off me like water off a duck, but the exact opposite happened. Over time I became terrified to make those cold calls. I finally became paralyzed with fear and simply didn’t do anything at all, which led to a lot of job-hopping because I wasn’t making my numbers. (By the way, that’s where the bizarre morning ritual of “lead sorting” comes from—the paralysis of inaction.)

Remember that discussion about sales rolls and ruts? This kind of nonsense is exactly how one gets into a sales rut. I mean, what worse thing could there be for a salesperson other than total inaction? But that’s what happened to me when I was continually beaten down with rejection, all because I took the stupid advice to cold call people all day.

I started saying desperate, idiotic things like, “What will it take to earn your business?” (Remember that one?) I began seeing prospects as superiors, because, after all, they were in charge each and every time. They must be; after all, why else would they have had the power to shoot me down all the time?

Here’s what happened as a result:

The continuous rejection damaged my own self-confidence to the point that it quickly became apparent, through my nonverbal subcommunication, that I’d been beaten down into a spineless, supplicating, typical annoying salesperson. Like all the others who would come calling, I became just another faceless salesperson with nothing of value to offer. At least to them, anyway.

Even the devil hates the man with a rubber backbone, for he smells bad burning!

—Napoleon Hill

Experts have said that as much as 93% of person-to-person communication is nonverbal. Now that figure varies wildly, from that high of 93% down to numbers as low as the upper 50s in terms of percentages.

Either way you look at it, nonverbal cues still make up the majority of our interpersonal communications.

And when you’ve been hammered on relentlessly, day after day, believe me when I tell you it will show in your nonverbal communication.

What is nonverbal communication? It consists of body language, vocal intonation and volume, our facial expressions, not to mention much more subtle communication we unknowingly transmit and that the prospect unknowingly interprets through his or her subconscious mind.

Have you ever had the feeling that, upon meeting someone for the first time, you simply didn’t like that person? Odds are you had no idea why—you just had a gut feeling about it. Your brain was saying, “Get away,” and you did.

After being beaten down with endless rejection, I began giving off those same subtle, nonverbal cues, and the effect was the same. Prospects wanted nothing to do with me.

I was coming across as a loser and people only want to work with winners. That’s just a hard fact of life that you must accept and adapt to. Like death and taxes.

Be a winner.

“The Reality Factor” states that fighting reality is difficult, painful, and ultimately fruitless, while accepting and adapting to reality is easy and will make you successful. So let’s just be done with denying reality and see the real world for what it is—a rough-and-tumble place to be in the business of selling. In other words, you must come across as a winner in order to succeed. That’s just the way it is, so let’s just adapt to that and work with it to your advantage, because being a loser is, well, a losing strategy.

“Just a Few Dollars”

I once read a story explaining why money, or lack of it, can profoundly change a person’s outward appearance to others, by dramatically influencing that person’s subcommunication.

It talked about an unemployed man who was looking for a job. He still had the same nice car, still wore the same high-end, finely tailored suits, and otherwise looked just like everyone else, but there was something in his walk, in his eyes, in the tone of his voice that communicated failure to all those he came into contact with.

He’d walk down city streets, looking into businesses and envying the people who had secure employment. He felt empty without a definite purpose to aspire to every day.

George W. Bush, when he ran for president, famously said, “In Texas we call it swagger” when someone commented that he walks funny.

Well, the man in the story certainly didn’t have swagger. He had shuffling feet, a slight slump in his posture, a look of defeat in his eyes, his head hung low, and all the other cues any potential employer would pick up on, decide there was something about him they didn’t like, and turn him down for a job.

The only difference here is money. If the man had a few more dollars in his pocket, things would change, but without money, and the associated success and security that comes with it, his demeanor changed from one of a successful man to that of a failure.

Likewise, having sales coming in gives you a tremendous amount of self-confidence. You’ll naturally walk with swagger without even realizing it. Your head will be held up high. You’ll have a smile on your face, or a serious look of definite purposefulness. You’ll move briskly because you have places to go and things to do. And that is what gets you on a sales roll. It’s why one of the very best pieces of sales advice ever given is to get out and see prospects the moment you close a sale—your success and enthusiasm will be contagious and you’ll get more sales as a result!

Now, are you beginning to see the similarity between the man in the story, and how a lack of sales will drag you down?

Without sales coming in, you’ll transform into the man who needed just a few more dollars if you’re not careful. That’s why it’s so important to practice the body language, likeability formula, and other details in this book if you want to become a star salesperson.

Worst of all, you’ll become too available. This may sound paradoxical in the world of sales, where you need to be ready to go pick up a deal when the prospect is ready to buy; however, being too available is a display of low value.

Once I’d become a veteran salesperson and hung out with the other star producers in the office, it became a running joke to watch the rookies get a lead, or manage to get an appointment via a cold call, and haul ass out to their cars and rush to the prospect’s location.

Inevitably they’d come back with that signature look of defeat in their eyes and no swagger in their walk, because the prospect wasn’t truly qualified. They were just looking.

That’s why those of us who did extremely well would challenge an interested prospect! That’s right—we didn’t jump in the car and rush over, we challenged them.

How?

By attempting to qualify them out. Although it’s a natural reaction to want to visit an interested prospect as quickly as possible, it’s also the wrong reaction. What it communicates to prospects is that you have too much free time on your hands, not enough deals in the works, not enough happy customers giving you referrals … and in the end that gut feeling that there’s just something about you they don’t like will kick in.

On the other end of the scale, when I had an interested prospect on the phone, I’d immediately ask what their budget is. Naturally, most refused to say because they assumed I was trying to figure out how much to price my proposal for maximum profit. (I wasn’t.) What I was doing was, first, making sure I wasn’t wasting my time on someone who couldn’t afford to buy, and second, I was subcommunicating that my time is valuable and the prospect will need to earn my time.

(By the way, in case you’re wondering, when they’d refuse to tell me their budget, I’d get some basic info and throw out a ballpark figure on the higher end of the scale. That quickly got rid of the unqualified prospects.)

By making a declaration that your time is valuable, in this case an indirect declaration, what happens is that good old-fashioned human nature kicks in: The more you make them work to get to meet with you, the more desperate they’ll become to want to meet with you—and buy!

Never forget that human beings want what we cannot have. When something is given to us free, we don’t appreciate it. We only appreciate and desire the things we have to work for, to earn. Likewise, prospects don’t desire to meet with a sales rep who will drop everything he’s doing to jump in the car and speed over. They do want to meet with someone who is obviously busy and has a lot on his plate, because that’s the hallmark of a successful salesperson.

There’s an old saying that if you want something done quickly and correctly, give it to a very busy person, because they get stuff done.

Continuing on with this theme, I didn’t rush to call people back. I had a policy, which I still teach to salespeople: If someone leaves you a voicemail in the morning, call them that afternoon. If they leave a message that afternoon, call back first thing the next morning.

Why?

Because you appear to be a busy person with a lot going on, and as we all know, busy people are successful people! Think about what impression a busy salesperson makes:

• He is out closing tons of deals.
• He has a large book of customers to take care of.
• He gets tons of referrals from those satisfied customers.
• He is financially comfortable and not desperate for new business.

And much more. Overall it is a powerful display of high value.

The salesperson who has endless free time to respond instantly to prospects displays the opposite—a display of low value by being too idle and not busy enough. And no one wants to do business with someone who displays low value. After all, if you have low value, how on earth can you bring value to someone? You can’t!

Approval-Seeking Behaviors

There’s a long list of approval-seeking behaviors as you might imagine, so I’m going to cover the most important ones first:

• Asks what it will take to earn the business, and similar begging-type statements.
• Ends sentences with “right?” or “you know?”
• Drops everything to go see any mildly interested prospect, even lukewarm ones.
• Allows prospects to run the sales appointment instead of the other way around.
• Uses excessive hand gestures when talking (there’s a lot of debate on this one, but per the science of social dynamics, lots of hand gestures or otherwise moving around while talking is a release, and therefore a display, of nervousness).
• Makes relentless follow-up calls, pestering the prospect about whether or not they’ve made a decision yet, instead of moving on to highly qualified prospects who are ready to buy now.

You get the idea. I could go on and on, but for the sake of brevity, let’s work on these specific areas of approval-seeking behavior.

Much as limiting beliefs are reversed by writing them out in a statement, then writing a new, positive statement to replace them, Sales Badasses replace loser behavior with winner behavior.

For example:

• Instead of asking what it will take to earn the prospect’s business, or promise to be at their beck and call, the Sales Badass works to qualify prospects out, and, instead of making those idiotic, approval-seeking statements, seeks to learn the buyer’s timeline and who else will be involved. (Sales Badasses only meet with decision-makers. Only!)
• The Sales Badass never ends a sentence or statement with, “Right?” or “You know?” Instead, each statement is confidently ended with the appropriate vocal intonation down.
• The Sales Badass seeks to qualify prospects out, rather than meet with anyone who is willing, and strategically times return calls and emails to avoid looking desperate.
• The Sales Badass is in charge and runs the show. If a prospect is taking phone calls or otherwise being inconsiderate and/or not paying attention, the Sales Badass terminates the appointment and tells the prospect to let him know when he’ll be free without distractions. Likewise, if the Sales Badass is made to wait very long past the scheduled appointment time, he’ll leave and reschedule.
• The Sales Badass speaks confidently and is like a rock—no endless hand gestures.
• The Sales Badass doesn’t do the stereotypical activity of calling to ask if a decision has been made only to be blown off over and over again. He knows that if the prospect was going to buy, it would, and he moves on to more high-value prospects.

In other words, what the Sales Badass is doing is displaying high value. Meanwhile, losers display low value, and that’s why Sales Badasses kick their ass at sales.

Ditch Your Secret Excuse

Everyone has a secret excuse or did at one point; I’ve managed to get rid of mine.

For me it was the fact that I’d dropped out of college after only one year. When I got into sales, I found myself working with nothing but college graduates, and indeed the jobs I held technically required one. (Thankfully my sales record spoke for itself.)

Likewise, I got out to networking mixers, got involved politically, and did what I could to make contacts. Inevitably, the next question asked after, “What do you do for a living?” was always, “Where did you go to school?”

I’d always sheepishly answer, “I didn’t.” Of course that impresses people now that I’m a New York Times best-seller, but back then I had no social or economic status and I let it damage my self-confidence. I’d back out of group conversations after that came up and go find someone else to mingle with, only to have it happen again.

Why did it matter?

The beautiful truth is that it didn’t! However, you wouldn’t have been able to convince me of that at the time. For me it was just more rejection and being looked down upon, on top of already getting beaten up every day in sales.

My lack of so-called education became my secret excuse. Like the alcoholic who uses his alcoholism as an excuse to hang onto the bottle and keep on drinking, I used my lack of a college degree as an excuse for my failure and wondered what the hell my life would turn into, because at the time, it seemed pretty damn hopeless. The only jobs I could get were in sales, and I wasn’t even making it there. This was all because of society’s reaction to my lack of a college education.

The dating game wasn’t helping me, either. My introversion was a problem as well as the lack of self-confidence I was experiencing as a result of continued rejection, in both my business and my personal lives. Okay, so I’m good-looking. I’ll give you that! However, I’m of below-average height, and when people are in their early twenties, they’re at their shallowest in terms of whom they’re willing to date. (By the way, don’t worry—I’m nowhere near as short as Vladimir Putin. That dude has a major Napoleon complex.)

So I made a decision, no doubt inspired by one of the hundreds of self-help books over the years: I decided to get over my height and prove to myself that it didn’t matter. That meant pursuing taller women. And to my shock and amazement, when I approached them with confidence, they didn’t reject me! This became so ingrained in me that taller women became my preference, and now my wife is taller than me. It’s amazing how strongly the mind will manifest thoughts that are fed to it, isn’t it?

Now think about how powerful that is in terms of feeding your mind positive thoughts, thoughts of achievement and success, rather than thoughts of defeat and anxiety and failure.

My experience with taller women was a huge eye-opener to me. I’d always been led to believe that attractive women only like taller men.

But guess what—that myth is a classic secret excuse used by men who fail with women because they won’t put in the work to improve themselves!

Powerful stuff, these secret excuses!

I call it the brainwashing. Human beings are gullible creatures. We’re naturally trusting and want to believe that what we are told is true. (Really, who likes being lied to?)

As a single twenty-something I was brainwashed to believe that I’d have to settle for whatever dates I could scrounge up because I was too short.

As a young, naïve rookie salesperson, I was brainwashed to believe that if I’d just put in enough effort—just make enough cold calls—that I’d reap the rewards of my hard work, yet it never seemed to work out that way.

So I turned it around and began the “reverse brainwashing.” I took all those limiting beliefs and turned them on their heads. I dated two different six-foot tall blondes and three different fitness models. Then I obliterated the sales world by overturning those limiting beliefs and, as if by magic, I became a star in the field of sales, including the top rep in my company’s entire region.

Just like endless rejection feeds itself into an endless downward spiral, endless victory feeds itself into an endless winning streak!

As I wrap up the writing of this chapter, I’m coming to realize that it may be the most important chapter in the entire book. Study it. Reread it. Learn it. And then use it.