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#34: Overcoming Limited Beliefs And Insecurity In Founder Led Sales

Read time - 4.5 min

Today I wanted to speak about something that is very often overlooked in selling, which is the mental side.

Being successful at founder led sales is about understanding that you don’t know what you don’t know. And oftentimes the things you think you do know about selling are inaccurate. One of the biggest barriers I help founders overcome early on in the journey is overcoming their limited beliefs around selling.

I define a limited belief as a belief someone holds about someone or something that constrains their thinking and clouds their judgment. Limited beliefs create barriers in your mental models. They are subjective, not objective.

When I listen to and review founder calls early on in an engagement. I can tell almost immediately where a founder is afraid, and the limited beliefs that are associated to that fear. Those same limited beliefs are being perceived by the prospect. And make no mistake, if you sound weak, timid and unsure of yourself when selling, the prospect either consciously, or subconsciously knows it, and is using it against you.

Whether you believe you can, or can’t; either way you are right.

~Henry Ford

Let’s look at the 3 most common founder led limited beliefs.

1. I really don’t want to sound too salesy, or pushy.
   This is one my favorites. Why? Because this is exactly what founders are doing without even realizing it. By not having a sales process fleshed out you are essentially throwing shit against (feature dump) the wall to see what sticks with the hope that a prospect will like something you said and move forward. That is selling. Doing the thing that you are afraid of. You are not in the business of selling. You’re in the business of solving. In order to solve a problem, you first have to understand where the problem(s) exist. We do this in the discovery call. You identify the use cases, timing, DM process and economics and you show them a path forward by using your technology. You’re not selling, you’re solving / empowering them with your solution.
   
   
   

2. We’re a new company, prospects don’t want to pay for a POC.
   They don’t want to move forward on a paid POC, because they might feel like they’re taking on too much risk. What they’re saying is paying for a POC is too risky. You’re goal then is to eliminate all downside risk and maximize their upside. How do you do this? Through an offer. The offer has to be such a no brainer with a money back guarantee, whereas if you can’t deliver on expectations you’ll refund the money for their inconvenience. Try this and any beliefs you have around prospects not wanting to pay will disappear.
   
   
   

3. Customers lack confidence in us because we are a new company.
   It’s not the customers that lack confidence in your product, it’s you that lacks confidence in your product. And this is rooted in your lack of process; or if you have a process, it hasn’t been mastered. There are 2 things that need to be thoroughly dialed in. (1) The discovery / demo process, And (2), knowing the most common objections that prospects will throw at you, and how to rebut them. When you lack these 2 things you’re confidence isn’t there and it provides a fertile ground for these limited beliefs to grow. The antidote is mastering your craft. Sales is a craft, and having a process to clearly articulate what you do and how you do it, will in many cases eliminate the objection.

   
   For example, if you were to respond to the objection - “Can you tell me more about - how many people / investors / runway you have?” You would absolutely crush that concern.
   
   Sure, we are backed by some of the largest investors and VC’s in the space. We’ve raised a total of $______________, and have roughly about 18 months of runway. The good news is, we have found early indications of PMF and are pretty close to being profitable, so any concerns that you might have of us not being around for the long term can be put to rest. There is a huge market need for what it is that we solve for, and our technology IMO is hands down the best. 

   
   Right now we are choosing only to partner up with companies who have use cases that we feel fit well within our circle of competence. We have a handful of big players in the space that we are working with, based on design, because we are very selective who we choose to move forward with. And based on the use cases you’ve conveyed we feel that we’d be able to crush it for you. 

   
   The next step would be to set up a scheduled demo to present our solution,  and from there, if you’re a green light following the demo we would present an offer to move forward on a POC. Does that sound fair?

Understand the only power that these limited beliefs wield is your belief in them. Your thoughts produce your actions and your actions dictate your results. If you keep hearing these objections being brought up on sales calls, it’s because you are giving them power in your beliefs. Master your processes, roleplay, run mock scenarios with you and your team. This is the path to confidence and closed revenue.

That’s it for today folks.

See you all next week!

Darren

P.S. If you’re interested in learning more you can book a call with me here.