There is a difference between arrogance and confidence.

Of course, confidence that borders on arrogance has no place in sales. Confidence is about putting the other person first. Arrogance is about putting yourself first.

Are you truly confident when you’re in front of your customer? Is your customer confident with you?

This blog continues our series on The 7 C’s of Successful Sales Hunting

Confidence cuts two ways.

Confidence is not only you being confident, but the customer being confident in you. What happens is we actually create a level of competence. The customer now sees us as insightful enough and competent enough to be able to help them solve their issue.

via Titanic on GIPHY

Confidence puts the customer first.

Confidence isn’t about selling, it’s about unlocking the customer to be willing to share with you.

It’s absolutely critical that we ask ourselves, are we putting our customer first in everything?

I want you to go back and review your successes. Not what you’ve sold—that’s arrogance—but rather how you’ve been able to help customers.

You might be new to sales and say, “Mark, I don’t have any customers.” Fine. What are other things that you’ve done in your life where you’ve been able to help another person?

You see, sales is about putting the other person first and helping them succeed. That doesn’t just occur when we’re selling something, rather it occurs in everything that we do.

Confidence makes it your mission to help others.

Do you believe in the mission to help others? That’s the difference between arrogance and confidence. When I’m confident, I believe in my mission to help others. When I’m arrogant, I believe in my mission to help myself.

Are you going into each conversation knowing that you can absolutely help somebody?

Last week, I was making a number of prospecting calls to people I didn’t know, and I was doing them with a high level of confidence. I knew that I could help them.

Surround yourself with confident people.

Surround yourself with all those successes that you’ve had, but also surround yourself with other confident people. This is why I speak so highly, and so frequently about having a mastermind group. When you associate yourself with other confident people, it is amazing how you become more confident. If you surround yourself with doubtful people, naysayers, you’ll get the opposite.

Confident people are not pessimistic people. Confident people are optimistic people because they find the best in things.

via MANGOTEETH on GIPHY

Be confident in your product, but even more confident in yourself.

Are you asking enough questions? When you’re doing a sales presentation, are you beholden to the presentation? Are you beholden to the PowerPoint?

Sure, confidence is about product knowledge, but it’s much more about your personal level of confidence. Here’s what I’ve found: Give me a person who is far more confident in themselves, and I’ll take them as a salesperson over somebody who is far more confident about the product.

I want you to be knowledgeable about your product, but I’ve witnessed too many times where people are incredibly knowledgeable about the product, but have poor communication skills, or people skills. You need both.

*Continue this blog series for more on Communication skills, one of the 7 C’s.