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What is your biggest fear - speaking, rejection, or failing?

It is said that speaking in public is a bigger fear than death. I don't buy it. I think if someone put a gun to your head and said speak in public or die -- you'd find that lost William Jennings Bryan oration within you.

By far the biggest fear of salespeople is fear of failure. It has a cousin -- fear of rejection. Rejection is the pathway to failure -- if you fear it. While failure itself is real, the fear of it is a condition of the mind.

Earl Nightingale's legendary tape "The Strangest Secret" says, "You become what you think about." If that's true, why doesn't everyone think "success?" The answer is a combination of what we expose ourselves to, and how we condition ourselves.

We live in a world of negative conditioning. The three big motivators are.fear, greed and vanity. They drive the American sales process -- and they drive the American salesperson.

Our society preys on the fear factor. It's in 50% of the ads we see (the rest are greed or vanity). Ads about life insurance for death and disability, credit cards stolen, anti-freeze for stalled cars, tires that grip the road in the rain, brakes that stop to avoid hitting a child on a bike, and security systems so your home won't be robbed. You see that crap enough, you become "fear-conditioned."

We are constantly reminded to carry mace, get a burglar alarm, and be sure we have The Club. To make matters worse we now see police at ATM machines, metal detectors in schools, and can rely on the local news to promulgate the trend. They are dedicated to promote issues of fear every minute they're on the air.

Once society gives you fear, it's natural that you take it with you into the workplace. It transmutes into a fear of failure. This fear intensifies in workplaces with hostile environments. Bosses and managers who threaten, intimidate and ridicule.

In the midst of this we struggle for success. And while we think we fear failure, or at least don't want it around us -- we all face it in one form or another every day. Everyone fails. But, failure is relative. It's measurement is subjective. Mostly it occurs in your mind. If you exchange "I failed" for "I learned what never to do again," it's a completely different mindset. The status of failure is up to you.

Over the years of my failures, I have developed a great way of looking at it (lots of practice). I learn from it, or I ignore it.

Thomas Edison - failed 6,000 times before the light bulb, Donald Trump had monumental failures on his way to the top, Mike Schmidt - third baseman for the Philadelphia Phillies, failed at the plate (at bat) two out of three times for 20 years, and was inducted into baseballs hall of fame as one of the greatest ball players of all time. Were these men failures? Did they fear failure?

There are degrees of failure in sales. Here are some external ones:

• Failure to prepare
• Failure to make contacts
• Failure to make a sale
• Failure to meet a quota
• Failure to keep a job

External (outside) fears, lead to internal (inside) fears -- fear based on what happens when you fail or are close to failing. Your reaction to internal fear determines your fate. It's not what happens to you, it's what you do with what happens to you. Here are the five typical reactions to rejection or failure:

1. Curse it.
2. Deny it (a nice way of saying lie about it).
3. Avoid it.
4. Make an excuse about it.
5. Blame others (the easiest thing to do).
6. Quit.

Failure actually only occurs when you decide to quit. You choose your results. Here are a few simple things you can do to avoid getting to the "quit" stage:

Look at failure is an event not a person. Look for the why, and find the solution (If you look at "no" hard enough, it will lead you to yes). List possible opportunities. Ask yourself what have I learned, and try again. Don't mope around with other failures -- go find a successful person, and hang around him.

Here are a few complicated things you can do to avoid getting to the "I quit" stage:

• Create a new environment.
• Cultivate new associations.
• Access new information.
• Get a new mind set -- create new background thoughts.

It's always too soon to quit.

Afraid to speak, or afraid to fail? Which is the greater fear? When you consider the complications and ramifications of failure, making a speech to 1,000 people, by comparison, is a walk in the park.

FREE GitBit... Want to laugh at failure? Learn to be more persistent. A list of 23.5 ways o be more persistent is yours free. Just go to www.gitomer.com - click FREE STUFF then click GitBit - register and enter the secret words, "PERSISTENCE".

Jeffrey Gitomer is the author of The Sales Bible, and Customer Satisfaction is Worthless, Customer Loyalty is Priceless. President of Charlotte-based Buy Gitomer, he gives seminars, runs annual sales meetings, and conducts training programs on selling and customer service. He can be reached at 704/333-1112 or e-mail to salesman@gitomer.com

#1008 Fear of rejection is bogus! And so are the people who warn you it's the reason for failure. I am finally calling BS on the biggest myth in selling. Salespeople quit or fail because they "fear rejection." Give me a break. "Fear of rejection" is totally bogus. Managers and sales trainers alike try to smooth it over by telling you crap like, "They're not rejecting you. They're just rejecting the offer you made them." Horse manure! People reject both people AND offers. THE MYTH IS: Salespeople don't like to cold call because they fear rejection. Hey Sparky, salespeople don't like to cold call because it sucks and it's a waste of time!  THE TRUTH IS: Salespeople aren't in fear. (Except maybe of their abusive bosses or proposed "changes" in their comp plan.) They're vibrant people who make the economy run. "Nothing happens until somebody sells something," said Red Motley in 1946. Fear of rejection is an easy way for sales managers and leaders to explain why their turnover is high. "Bob quit because he feared rejection." Really? I doubt it. Bob quit because your leadership is weak and your soft skills training are weaker. Fear of rejection and its evil twin fear of failure are best described as excuses. What you're looking for, as a would-be successful salesperson, are reasons and answers why a sale does not take place. So, what (other than fear) are the 10.5 reasons rejection takes place? And how can you decrease your rejection rate? Wouldn't you rather have those answers? Read on...  1. Lack of attitude. Not just lack of a positive or a YES! Attitude, but also the lack of a winning attitude. You need to carry a copy ofThe Little Engine That Could on your iPad or Kindle and read it every morning. 2. Lack of preparation in terms of the customer. You may know what you offer, but you may NOT know what the customer wants, or (more importantly) why he wants it. 3. Lack of belief. Belief is the most important and most complex, yet least understood emotion in the science of selling. Belief is broken down into five parts.    Part 1: You have to believe you work for the greatest company in the world.    Part 2: You have to believe that your products and service offerings are the greatest in the world.    Part 3: You have to believe you can differentiate yourself from the competitor in a manner that the customer perceives as valuable.    Part 4: You have to believe you're a great salesperson capable of transferring a message and understanding customer needs.    Part 5: You have to believe that the customer is better off having purchased from you. Not believing it in your head. Rather, believing it in your heart. Belief is both painfully obvious and completely ignored when teaching salespeople how to be successful. 4. Lack of sales skills. Since most companies provide poor sales training, it's the responsibility of the salesperson to gain their own knowledge by investing in books, seminars, online courses, and all other means to gain sales wisdom, not just sales knowledge. CAUTION: Do not learn a "system" of selling. Sell in a way that makes you feel comfortable. 5. Lack of personal self-confidence. Self-confidence and preparation go hand-in-hand. It's amazing to me that salespeople think they're nervous when actually they're just unprepared. 6. Lack of resilience. This is a key element in the rejection-failure syndrome. Resilience is your inner strength to react to what happens to you, your outer strength and mental strength to respond to what happens to you, and all your strength to recover from what happens to you. Building resilience wipes away fear. 7. Lack of personal pride in your work. Lack of attention to detail. Consistent lateness. Missed appointments. Cynical comments. Need I say more? 8. Lack of personal pride in yourself. Most people take more pride in their favorite sports team than they do in their career. This will be a direct reflection of the pride that you have in yourself and your performance. Think back to the time you made your biggest sale, and recall that memory and that feeling each time you're in a sales presentation. 9. Limiting self-thought. (I'm not good enough.) Most self-thought comes from the negative side, worried about what might happen versus dedicating yourself to changing the outcome. If you walk into the sale believing it probably won't happen, or you probably won't get it, than you're probably correct. If you want to change your outcomes, you have to change your thinking. 10. Low self-esteem. Someone told you that you're not that good, or not that smart, and you (like a fool) believed them. 10.5 Limited self-image. You don't consider yourself equal to the buyer, or good enough to sell the buyer. EXAMPLE: Stockbrokers talking to people of enormous wealth. Car salespeople trying to sell a car they can't afford to buy themselves. Fear of rejection? Totally false. Fear of failure? Equally false. People that espouse these false fears - avoid them.