Be Confident Like the Stupid Ones To Win at Sales

April 10, 2022

The Dumb Ones Have The Entrepreneurial Spirit

The biggest problem in business is that smart, capable people are full of doubts while the stupid ones are full of confidence and bravado….and confidence sells.

When I was selling in the Bay Area to Apple, Google and Facebook I saw Mark Zuckerberg’s slogan to move fast and break things.

He also talks about being bold.

This is a great example of when you are smart and bold, good things happen. (Sure, you may crack a few eggs, but how else are you going to make that omelet?)

Far too often I see good people—smart people—paralyzed with indecision, which leads to suffering for themselves, their families, and the clients they could be serving.

“Back in da day” when I was playing football in high school and at USAFA (and then coaching my 15-year-old son back in 2013) the instructions were always…

If you forget the play and don’t know what to do, hit* someone hard and good things will usually happen! But if you just stand there you’ll be in the way and probably get hurt.”

*DISCLAIMER: I’m talking about football when I say “hit someone.” Don’t go punch someone at Starbucks and tell the judge…

But Wes told me good things would happen if I smacked this guy that wouldn’t get off his cell phone!”

This is in line with Gary Halbert’s advice that motion beats meditation.

If you want to be confident, act confidently.

Feelings follow action, not vice versa.

You can be both scared to death and confident, even if the confidence is your confidence in what NOT to do.

So after you look around and realize the 87 ways you don’t want to go, take the leap of faith confidently and take massive action.

Some things you can do include:

  1. Commit to making 35 outbound calls a day for a week just to knock the cobwebs loose, get some feedback from prospects, and probably make a sale.

  2. Start a blog if you’ve never done one and commit to writing a great post every week for 12 weeks to hone your skills.

    1. You can write on Medium to get more eyeballs on your new content if your blog is new or does not get a lot of traffic.

    2. If your company won’t allow you to have your own blog, write an article on your LinkedIn profile each week.

    3. If they won’t allow that, write a creative post on LinkedIn each day for a month.

    4. If they won’t allow that—and even if they do—answer questions in relevant LinkedIn groups each week.

    5. You can also answer relevant questions on Quora each week.

  3. Launch a 30-day social media marketing campaign to see which platform—LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube—is the right medium for you.

  4. Launch a 30-day Google AdWords campaign to test headlines, USPs, landing pages, and offers and avoid the “stupidity tax.” (affiliate link)

  5. Create an entirely new product or program to sell and/or change up the combinations or offer bulk pricing to see if you can’t generate extra revenue fast.

  6. Get some professional help in the following areas:

    1. Create a better tagline, USP, and/or sales presentation.

    2. Get better at selling.

    3. Get Private Sales Training

    4. Get better at hiring salespeople and being a strong sales manager.

You need to be smart about what you do, but you must DO!

So leave a bold comment below then get to work doing what scares you, what’s “out of the ordinary,” and what’s bold.

Then come back and let me know how things turned out.

Market like you mean it.Now go sell something.