Fear is one of the biggest cripplers of business! Getting Over Your Fear of Selling to Retail Stores is critical if you are going to be success in the wholesale arena.
When I first started selling to retail stores, I started out rather slow — building my business one store at a time. I learned over time what worked and what did not in my sales presentation. I learned, as you will learn, that buyers actually WANTED what I sold! Of course, failures and rejections happened, but I did not let them get me down.
First, failures are just a part of life. Rather than dwell on your mistakes, make your failures a learning experience. Look at what you can do, in the same circumstances, to make a better presentation, meet the buyers’ needs better, or just handle the situation differently. Failures are just a stepping stone to the learning process. Often we learn our best lessons when we have stumbled and moved on with a new perspective.
Fear of rejection can be very de-motivating if you let it control you! If you approach a potential buyer as a potential friend, your fears will decrease. And expect to hear a lot of “Nos” in the beginning. But remember, most negative responses you receive come from a variety of sources that often has nothing to do with you or your products. You may have caught the buyers at a bad time, during a personal crisis, or dealing with an issue that had distracted them from seeing the value of your products and services.
Following is a video from Fashion Brain Academy that discusses more tips and techniques to help you through your fear. This video is a clip from a live Seminar at the Chicago Fashion Incubator and it walks you through ways to re-frame that fear into a mindset of “maybe what I have to sell is actually GOOD for these potential customers”:
What do you think of the tips? Do you feel more confident about selling your products?
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