The need for approval is almost universal in the profession of selling. If you are addicted to approval, you’ve become a victim of the erroneous logic that you can measure your self-esteem based on the amount of approval or disapproval you get from others. You may even think this addiction helps you achieve sales success. In reality, the need for approval prevents you from getting what you want, professionally and personally. It makes you miserable and impairs your effectiveness with customers. Your moods become like a roller coaster depending on how people react to you. The impact of a rude remark from a prospect can plunge you into excessive self-criticism and painful feelings of anger and hurt.

THE DYNAMICS OF APPROVAL ADDICTION IN SELLING

One of the disadvantages of being an approval addict is that when prospects or clients criticize you, your company or your product, you tend to become upset. You may feel threatened or less worthwhile. This causes you to respond with either aggressive or defensive responses, which can easily kill a sale.

Aggressive Responses:

Arguing – You insist the customer’s point of view is invalid. Example: “You don’t understand…” or “You are incorrect…”

Interrupting – You prevent the client from communicating a negative point of view. Example: “Wait a minute…” or “Before you go on…” or “Hold it…”

Negative nonverbal expressions – Your body language testifies your need to fight any opposing view. Example: Hands motioning against client. Leaning far forward. Raised shoulders; hands forming fists. Increased rate of speech. Shaking your head negatively while the customer tries to speak.

Defensive Responses:

Self-blaming – You automatically assume responsibility for (imagined) mistakes. Example: “Perhaps there is something that I didn’t explain. Do you want me to go over parts again?”

Failing to listen – You don’t encourage the prospect to share additional information which has contributed to his negative point of view.

“Yes” escape – You agree with everything the client says, stop negotiating and lose the sale.

Your fear of disapproval makes you argumentative or defensive. The ironic part is that none of these responses will persuade a prospect to reconsider his (negative) point of view. Your negative reaction will only confirm his initial (negative) opinion.

These self-defeating responses can quickly destroy the chances of making the sale. The aggressive/defensive barriers that you’ve developed to protect yourself from criticism are the very roadblocks that prevent you from responding effectively and selling successfully.

THE FIVE-STEP PROGRAM FOR OVERCOMING THE FEAR OF DISAPPROVAL

1 Rewrite your own rules for personal approval. The unwritten rules developed by the approval addict may state: “In order to be worthwhile and feel good about myself, I must get everybody’s approval.” You’ll gain a more objective perspective by appraising the advantages and disadvantages of believing this.

Weigh the advantages against the disadvantages. Which seems greater? If the disadvantages are more, then revise your personal philosophy. Rewrite the rules so that you keep the advantages but get rid of the disadvantages. You might decide to think more along these lines: “I can want and enjoy approval. If I don’t get someone’s approval, it’s uncomfortable but not the end of the world. I can try to learn from it, but I don’t need to put my self-esteem in the hands of other people.”

Here is an exercise for you: Take any statement of our quiz “Are you an approval addict?” that you agreed with and make a list of the advantages and disadvantages of believing it. Then weigh the advantages against the disadvantages, and revise the statement so it becomes more realistic and self-enhancing.

2 Review the reasons why disapproval need not and cannot affect you: Remember, your customers or prospects cannot criticize you or disapprove of you! They can only criticize or disapprove of something that you’ve said or done. They cannot disapprove of you as a whole person. Therefore, there is no rational need for you to collapse or feel upset if someone is trying to put you down.

If someone criticizes something that you’ve done, there are only three possibilities: a) they are entirely right, b) they are partially right, or c) they are entirely wrong.

In no case is it necessary for you to become upset, because if they are entirely wrong, it’s their mistake and no reflection on you. It only shows that they are quite human, like the rest of us.

If partially or entirely right, this only means that you’re an imperfect human being. The biggest mistake that you can make in the face of true criticism is to fear your own imperfections. Accept them as part of being human. If you don’t, it will cause you to cover them up when people criticize you. This only irritates or annoys the prospect or customer. While you imagine that you’re doing a splendid job in building an effective “smokescreen,” people will usually see through it. Like many other irrational belief systems, the fear of disapproval harvests what you fear the most: disapproval.

Your best protection against disapproval or criticism lies in reappraising your main arguments for a healthy amount of self-respect. Here are the five major ones:

1. As time changes, people’s opinions change. A prospect’s disapproval is rarely permanent, especially if you’re willing to be flexible and open-minded. Differences of opinion are part of living and, in most cases, you can come to a common understanding later on.

2. Customers are allowed to make mistakes – so are you. When a prospect reacts negatively to you, it may be due to his own irrational thinking. Even if the criticism is 100% accurate, you can learn from your mistakes and view it as a growth experience. Most people will then think more of you.

3. Avoid the “Brush-fire Fallacy.” You may fear disapproval because you view it as a never-ending pattern of defeat. You think that disapproval is as dangerous as a brush fire, because you assume it will spread. You might tell yourself, “This is always happening to me,” or “Everybody will reject me like this fellow did – he’ll spread the word about me.” This is an illusion. Disapproval can’t turn into a never-ending chain of rejections. No one has enough power to influence everybody to turn against you. What could they possibly do? Put a headline in the newspaper everyday: “Sales rep makes mistake! Avoid him!” And even if they did, everyone will judge you differently, no matter what you do or say.

4. Stop magnifying your prospects so they become larger than life. Remember that the customer’s office is not the Supreme Court. Why give them the power and right to judge you?

5. Remember to separate your actions from yourself. Prospects can only criticize your actions. If you’ve done something wrong, it’s not you that is wrong – it’s only what you’ve said or done. And as a responsible person, you can make a decision to speak or act differently the next time.

3 Increase your skills for disarming the critical prospect: Instead of reacting defensively or aggressively to the critical prospect, learn to respond in a disarming manner with the inquiry, partial agreement or empathy response. For example: Customer: “Your company has the worst service record I’ve ever seen!”

Inquiry response: “I’d like to hear more about that,” or “Would you mind telling me what happened?” The inquiry response is designed to obtain a complete account of the facts. Ask your questions in a concerned manner, expressing genuine interest and understanding. It is important not to judge or criticize the customer’s replies, but to ensure a steady flow of coherent information. Be sure not to get embroiled over issues of right or wrong (in your mind) until you’ve listened to the complete story. By drawing out all the facts you’ll also draw out the stored-up frustration, anger and disappointment.

Partial agreement response: “There is certainly room for further improvement!” The partial agreement response is designed to show your customer that you don’t consider yourself (or the company’s service department) perfect. As you allow for the possibility of making mistakes, your customer will realize that he is dealing with a human being. He will eventually soften up. This will lead to more sensible communication.

Empathy response: “I can see that there is something about our service that has been upsetting to you.” The empathy response is designed to acknowledge the customer’s thoughts and feelings. In the above situation he appeared upset. By demonstrating to him that you’ve understood his negative feelings, you can reduce his frustration. This will facilitate the open discussion about his negative experience.

In your dialogue with your client, you may find it effective to use all three techniques. There are many more ways to disarm the critical prospect, and developing these responses will require a lot of determination and effort. However, it’s worth it, because they can dramatically increase your sales and enhance the warmth and trust your customers feel for you. Remember that when a prospect or friend criticizes you, you’ve got three choices: (1) The mad choice; getting aggressive. (2) The sad choice; getting defensive. (3) The glad choice; using disarming techniques, followed by a negotiation for a mutually satisfying compromise.

4 The self-recovery technique for the disapproval victim: This method is designed to overcome your feelings of hurt and disappointment after you’ve been criticized or disapproved of. Try to apply it immediately after you’ve left the customer’s or prospect’s office. If you’re too busy, then set aside ten or fifteen minutes later in the day to do this written exercise. Here is how it works: Take a sheet of paper and divide it into two equal parts with one vertical line down the middle from top to bottom. Write your critical thoughts about yourself on the left side of the paper.

Now that you’ve completed writing your negative thoughts on the left side of the paper, begin to appraise each statement objectively and develop a “rational response” on the right-hand side.

This exercise will help you become aware of how your unrealistic thoughts have turned into negative feelings. As your mind begins to focus on more realistic and objective thoughts, you will gain a more balanced perspective of yourself and your feelings will become more positive.

The method often works so well that you can achieve a dramatic change in mood within a few minutes. At the very least, writing down your negative thoughts will help you see in black and white just how hard you’re being on yourself. If you go back and look at them half a day later, it may become clearer to you just how exaggerated and harsh these thoughts are. The only disadvantage is that it will only work through the physical process of writing. So keep a pencil and paper handy in your car!

The reason this method is so effective is because at the time we experience rejection, our consciousness is severely limited to negative thinking patterns. By dividing the paper into two parts and writing our negative thoughts on one side, we are literally expanding our consciousness! By allowing room for reality (right side), we expose these thoughts to the light of reason. The result is a healthy and balanced picture of ourselves – and increased selling power.

5 Key strategies for getting approval and sales success: Seek disapproval and you’ll receive approval. What the approval addict does not know is that often the best way to get people’s approval is to be honest, human, open-minded and flexible. Start learning to solicit negative feedback from others; start welcoming the things you fear the most. For example, one sales rep who greatly suffered from approval addiction started his recovery by asking his boss each week: “Tell me several things I’ve been doing that turn you off and several things I’m doing that you like. Let’s start with the negative first.”

As he received the criticism, he made it his top priority not to respond defensively or aggressively, but to listen with an open mind and learn about his own mistakes. He also learned about things he was doing right. This helped him to grow personally and professionally. Not only did his career begin to go into orbit, but his relationship with his superior was strengthened. He chose his boss as his mentor and teacher (which was a compliment his boss appreciated greatly) and turned approval addiction into self-reliance and sales success.

Instead of fearing rejection, pursue it! Start calculating your own odds for making a sale. If it takes 5 calls to make one sale, you’ll know that you are dealing with an acceptance rate of 20 percent! To obtain 20 orders, you need to receive 80 rejections! It may be surprising to you, but mathematically each rejection represents 20 percent of every order!

So go after all the rejections you can get. The more rejections you have, the more sales success you will enjoy. Once you begin to view rejections as stepping stones to sales growth, you’ll feel less threatened each time a prospect turns down your proposal. This can help you reach beyond your current “safety zone” and you’ll become more willing to take risks in prospecting for new business!