Sales Blog: What Barriers Are Holding You Back?

Having goals is great. Everyone agrees with this. Having goals written 

down is even greater. No one would gainsay this. But having written goals isn’t enough. You need to do some soul searching to figure out what your barriers to success are.

At different stages of our growth as salespeople, we all have different success barriers. And we have to confront and do something about removing them, before we can move forward.

If you’re unsure what these barriers are for you, please know that successful salespeople pinpoint and remove these barriers. If you don’t know where to start, then these barriers to success can help you get started:

• You’ve resigned yourself. You’ve resigned yourself to staying in the status quo. You tend to cling to things as they are. You’re unwilling to move yourself forward. This is like saying to yourself, “I’ve come this far in my sales career. This is my fate to be where I am now.
• You lack priorities: You don’t have your life in order. You work harder and harder, but you don’t mover yourself ahead. You spend all your time working without results to show for your efforts. Your life is imbalanced. On the other hand, successful individuals lead a life with their priorities well defined. They work hard, play hard, and live hard. The more successful they are, the less they work.
• You suffer from low self-esteem. You don’t like yourself for this or that. Then ask yourself this: What would you do for someone you didn’t like? Chances are, not much. Not liking yourself can get worse and you spiral down. The less you like yourself, the less you do. And the less you do, the less you like yourself. Successful people like themselves. They don’t blame themselves. They look at themselves realistically and feel emboldened to reach ahead, to take reasonable risks and confidently rise to challenges.
• You feel hopeless, depressed, disappointed. You have high expectations you haven’t met. You didn’t get to where you wanted to go. This could be because you lacked a well-defined process to move you ahead and to reach your expectations. Successful salespeople follow a better way. They move themselves according to a process they develop to get them where they want to go and what they need to do.
• You need approval and fear rejection. Maybe you don’t see sales for what it is: A way to get you to the bank and to meet your financial needs. Instead, you perceive sales as a way to meet your approval needs met and to reduce fear in your life. When it comes to sales, follow the Sandler maxim: Don’t do sales to get your emotional needs met.

By the way, don’t feel alone in all this. Every one of us salespeople has barriers that stand in our way and that we have to resolve and move through. The point is to perceive and do something about them.