How about in sales? Are you more worried about how you will perform in the sales meeting or how the prospect is going to react? Are you more afraid of the competition you are facing or that your company doesn't live up to the standards of the prospect company's expectations and other service providers? How is your level of expertise compared to the person you are going to meet up?

Are you preparing yourself against your fears or not?

Many times I hear people preparing themselves thinking only how they could be better. At the martial arts gym, they train techniques they like and feel are their strengths. In a way, there is nothing wrong with this approach, especially if it builds self-confidence. Without self-confidence it is harder to succeed. But bear in mind, that there can be universal and situational self-confidence. You might feel confident most of the time, but then let your fears take over in a tough fight against a tough opponent, who seems to be better than you.


In sales, I have seen a lot of training on pitching and questioning. Pitching is helpful, in order to be able to communicate your offering clearly and understandably. With questioning, one tries to get the information from the prospect during a meeting, which will be helpful to build up a proper offer. But very often, I also see salespeople struggling with specific and most feared prospects. They might be well-known industry leaders, who's opinions are allover the media. Or they might represent a big company and have a reputation of not liking salespeople and act accordingly.

In both cases, you could start your preparations with considering first, what are you the most afraid of. What would be the worst case scenario from the start? If everything went wrong, how would that play out in the fight or in the meeting? Why would that be even possible? If you can push yourself into being afraid, well before the actual event, that will work in favor of you. Many times people feel confident during the training and lose their nerves, just before the event starts. Those who can prepare themselves well in advance, will not suffer from that at all. Therefore, the preparation with your worst fears, is the way to start with.

I am good vs I am afraid

I think most of my losses during my fighting career have happened to me since I was merely being afraid just before the fight or getting surprised during the fight. In one instance, I was to afraid to approach the opponent, due to his excellent skills. I just froze and tried to survive. He was quick and strong. The worst part was that I knew that I would be fighting him in the tournament and I could have prepared myself against him. All my preparations were about improving my skills, not preparing myself into fighting him. I cried after the fight, when I was so disappointed on my performance and me. The freight was unbearable and I was ashamed of me. From there on, I attached being afraid to being ashamed. That helped me to start mentally preparing myself way before the fight. I didn't want to look bad, which actually was my one of my biggest fear. I was more afraid of losing points than getting hurt. This revelation helped me a lot in my future career and helped me to overcome fears before a fight.

In sales, I have always prepared myself into bigger meetings. But more than once, I have got into a situation, where I should have prepared myself differently. Once, I called one of the biggest companies in Finland and actually reached the final top level decision maker on a very brief call. He asked me, why should he meet me and I gave the normal sales pitch. He replied that everyone says those things, but why should I meet you. I almost froze, but managed to say something and he was happy. I got the meeting and in the end managed to close a deal with them. Another time, I was prepared to give a perfect pitch to a second level decision maker, when I was asked to give the presentation to a C-level executive. I was in trouble, since I had thought I can easily convince the second level decision maker with my smart insights, but when the "opponent" changed, I knew I had not so strong case anymore. He had stronger background in the business than I was prepared for. I should have done my homework better and not to try to dazzle them by having too smart ideas, that were not 100% applicable to their business. 

Fear of losing happens in your head, because you are not prepared for the situation, not because you are not prepared at all. There is a big difference!

Nowadays, I prepare myself from both sides. Of course, it is important to be good at what you do, whether it is martial arts or sales, but also I consider it to be equally important to prepare yourself against your opponent or your prospect. If you can picture how the fight or the meeting goes in your head and play different scenarios on your own, you don't need to be the best at what you do or know. You just need to be the best in that situation and adapt to your opponent or your prospect. Losing doesn't happen because you were bad, it happens because you weren't prepared to that specific situation. Experience helps a lot, but you can also win a single fight or close a single customer by being prepared for the situation. Therefore, don't be afraid of losing. Use the fears you have, in your favor, in order to make you better before the event, not after.