INBOUND 2016: Heather Hansen O'Neill - "Fear: The #1 Killer of Sales"

Are you fired up? Oh, not bad.

For the first time I'm excited. I think you're going to be even more fired up by the end of this session. It is called Fear, the number one killer of sales. How to define, diffuse and break through to success. I love salespeople. You are a special breed. I believe in line with athletes and entrepreneurs because you tend to be more willing to look within and do the work necessary to help you succeed. So I'm very pleased that you're here today. I'm going to spend about one minute telling you who I am and then I'm going to ask you a little bit about you. I know it might take a little bit to warm up. I understand. I'm not going to force it out of you. And then I'm going to give you some strategies so that you can be more successful in sales and hopefully some of it will translate into all areas of your life. So who am I? I am a speaker. I'm an author. I have a fire brand which is why I come on stage with Fireball. A lot of times I'm throwing fireballs, not the alcohol, the actual candy, into the audience. My books are find you'd fire and teams on fire. It's a thing. I am mom to Jake, Luke and Liam, three gray hair inducing children. I am an adventurer. Yes. I do things like jump out of airplanes, swim with sharks. I eat fire, fly on the trapeze. It's a thing. I also created a program called Elfocus which is leadership for our children's ultimate success which I enjoy greatly. And I am deathly afraid of rats. I hate rats. And can I tell you that I have no problem jumping out of an airplane at 14,000ft, but if you see one of these, it makes me turn into that. It's really awful. Like right now talking about it, I have goosebumps. It's really bad. So here's why. I used to live in Manhattan. I started dancing professionally at 13. I traveled around and I lived in Manhattan for a while and, and I rang the doorbell of one of my directors and apparently it was garbage day. And three cat sized rats circled me, kept going around me and one brushed up against me. I was never the same again. It was awful. It was awful. So my question to you is, who are you and what's your biggest fear? Anyone? Good, what's yours? Oh yes, that's a big one. Yeah, I'm not a fan either. Oh yes, I have a good story for you on that one. Yes, that's a good One, too. Graduate school in January.

Oh.

You'Re gonna ace it. Come on over here. Rejection, man. You guys are hitting on all the good ones. Yes, man. You're doing my whole presentation for me. Ironically enough, I would say fire. Fire.

Oh.

Oh, do I have something for you.

Okay, don't worry.

It'll be painless, I promise. But I've got a good story. Yes, Nick. Failure. Yes, that's coming on the screen momentarily. You're not alone. Yes. Oh, my gosh.

That's up there, too.

I love you guys. You guys just completely ruined my first point. And I'm okay with that. And that is that oftentimes when I ask that question, I hear crickets. Because no one wants to share their fears. Because one of the biggest problems with fears is that we feel that in sharing it that we become vulnerable. So you guys are primed and ready. It's the last day you've part of all these other amazing speakers, and so that's why you're so open. But in general, people tend to not want to share their fears. So what we're going to do is we're going to define them, diffuse them, and then break through to success. Because why? Fears, judgments, assumptions, beliefs that are no longer serving us are what often are the things that hold us back. So let's take a look first, and we have to know what they are before we can address them. Fear is the number one block to our success. And 95% of our behavior is driven by our subconscious thoughts, beliefs, and habits. So even you're very, very familiar with, with those blatant ones like rats and spiders and heights. But in actuality, the ones that are keeping you from everything that you desire in life are probably a little bit deeper rooted, and we might need to delve a little bit more to get to them. So these, which you guys hit on a lot of them, are in fact, the top 10 fears of the majority of the people. There are tons of research on this, and it just so happens that three of them have to do with sales. So most of the times you have to have some ability to speak in public if you're doing some type of a presentation. There is definitely rejection involved in sales and a fear of failure. If you travel for sales, you can add on flying onto that, which was on the other one as well. But in addition to those having the top three of the top ten fears, we as salespeople get all of these other fun fears as well. Fear of embarrassment, a negative first impression, success wherever you are. Over here. Cold calling the unknown, losing your job, being too pushy, not being able to deliver change, and losing yourself. I want to address this last one for a moment because some of you may be thinking, well, that's weird. So I had a recurring dream for a long time, and it had to do with play doh. I know. So the dream was that I was a ball of play doh. And I was being chased by a very, very, very large rolling pin. And the rolling pin would come, and by the end of the dream, it would always smash me and roll me out. It was horrible. I know it sounds really stupid, but it was awful. And I had it over and over again. And so I was talking to one of my friends who just happens to be a therapist. It's always fun to have a therapist friend. Free therapy. It's awesome. So she was saying, well, do you ever get to the point where they, like, mold you into something? I said, yeah, sometimes. Yeah. And she goes, I know what the problem is. She goes, people are molding you into what they want you to be, and you're afraid of that. I said, oh, yeah. So I went into one night, I went into my dream and I said, that's it. And I'm trying to sleep because I want the dream to come. And in the dream, I actually was able to turn around and confront the rolling pin and take it and throw it on the ground. And after that, I never had the dream again. And I think it has to do with the fact that so often in life, other people will roll you out and mold you into the perfect salesperson, or roll you out and mold you into the perfect business owner or wife or husband or parent or whatever it may be. And we have to. To begin this process, we have to turn around and take back control of our lives. Take back the rolling pin and not allow. So you were given, when you walked in, an index card of some kind. We're going to start with something fun. Getting back to the judgments, assumptions, beliefs, and fears that hold us back. I want to address some of the ones. I work with salespeople a lot. I speak at conferences across the country, and I do coaching with them too. And so they'll tell me some of these feelings, fears that have kept them. But they don't see them as fears. They see them as reality. So things like, I don't have enough experience. I have too much experience. People don't like to get a sales call at dinner time or breakfast or lunch or whenever they're busy. I'm not good enough, or I'm too short or I'm too tall or I'm too fat or I'm too thin. I mean, you come up with these things. People tell you that they believe with all of themselves to be true, and those things are holding them back. One for me, I'm into vulnerability. Today I already had goosebumps. I'm good. One for me is I had this belief that there's just not enough time in the day, not enough time in the day to do everything that I want to do. I am a single mother of three boys born within 18 months of each other. I own my own business. I'm an author. I'm a speaker. I get a lot done, but I still feel like there's not enough time in the day. And then when I realize everyone has the same amount of time and some people are wildly successful and other people are unbelievably stressed out, it has nothing to do with the amount of time that we have. It has to do with our prioritization. So sometimes we just need to figure out what's holding us back and alter it. Maybe it's let it go. Maybe it's use it in a different capacity. So we're going to start with that. You have these cards, and I want you to take 30 seconds and think of something that you believe to be true that could potentially be holding you back, and write it down. Is that clear? Okay. So the first part is figuring out what might potentially be holding you back. The next part is diffusing it. How do we diffuse it? You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You must do the thing which you think you cannot do. This is why I jump out of airplanes, because I believe very strongly in this. We need to take the actions to do the things that we think we can't. I have a story. This is one of my clients, one of my coaching clients. You're going to, if you haven't already figured it out, you're going to figure out that I am a little different than your average speaker and coach. So when I do coaching sessions, I sometimes do them while running, kayaking, walking, rarely over coffee. And so when I coached Croy, we would go running a couple of miles, and he would talk about some of the problems that he was having with his business and some challenges. I'd ask some questions. We'd come up with something by the end of the run that he wanted to work on. I held him accountable to it until the next time. So one of the Times we went running, he had this weird energy about him. He was simultaneously excited and a little trepidatious. So I said, all right, out with it, Croy. What's going on? He said, I have an idea. I want to run across the country. I want to start in San Diego and run a marathon every day for 100 days until I get to New York City. And I want each day to speak to underserved teens, to talk to them about dreaming big. And then he stopped running. And he looked at me waiting, and I said, oh, that's so cool. And he goes, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. You're not going to tell me I'm crazy? I said, no. He goes, wait. My best friend told me that I'm crazy. My wife said, you're never going to be able to do that. And my mother said, I'm sorry, honey, that's a bad idea. Why do you think that I should do this? I said, because you can. And because it's a seed planted within you. It gets you excited and think of the teens that you will impact if you do it. And he did. He ran across the country, hundred marathons in 100 days, talked to tens of thousands of teens, and changed their lives. Why do I tell you this? When you're going through the process and you're afraid of something, be very aware of who you are surrounding yourself with. Some people are going to tell you you're crazy. Other people are going to tell you that you're not good enough, that you're never going to make that happen. And that's a stupid idea. Stop hanging out with them and pick people that tell you not only can you, but you must. It's important. And remember what you're in control of. I believe that people clutch fiercely to things that are outside of their control. Things like the weather, the economy, presidential candidates, and other people's opinions. And we allow these things to infect us and alter our state. And then when it comes to the things that you actually control, what you think, how you feel and how you respond, we often allow those things to slip through our fingers. Remember what you control, because bad things will happen and beautiful moments happen, and the quality of your day, the quality of your life, is determined upon where you choose to focus. You get to control that. You get to control how you respond. You can't control the situations, but you can control how you respond. And that is a huge part of defusing fear and about breaking through to success. I gave you time to warm up to the idea of me and My requests for stepping outside of your comfort zone. It's time to pick a partner. It's very painless. You pick someone close to you, and you're going to spend one minute sharing with them a goal that you have that you would like to accomplish by the end of 2016. We're going to. Mike will kindly play some music while you do this. One minute.

Okay, let's bring it back.

Once I get you guys started.

All right, bring it back. It's time. It's time for the Heather Hansen o' Neill highly scientific assessment.

Here's what you're going to do. You're going to raise your hand, and you're going to put up the number of fingers for the amount of energy that your partner had in describing their goal that they want to accomplish. Because it's highly scientific, let me tell you what the fingers mean. Okay, Be careful. One finger means that we need coffee, stat. My partner is about to fall asleep. It's really awful. Then we've got 2, 3, 4, 5 is.

My partner's on fire. They are going to achieve every goal.

That they have ever set out. Raise your hand and put up. Awesome, awesome, awesome, awesome. Good.

Thank you. All right, Put your hands down.

I love human nature. Every single time I have ever done this, this is what happens. And then they see their partner looking at them every time.

It's awesome. I love it. All right, I'm going to share a.

Story with you before you find out why I just asked you to do that. This is about my father. When I was growing up, my father worked a lot. But when he wasn't working, we often went hiking together. And I remember I was 11, almost 12 years old, when this particular situation happened. We stopped and we were skipping stones in a creek. And I remember him turning to me and saying, heather, you can do or be anything that you want. I hope you choose something that makes you happy. Now, dads say things like this to their daughters probably all the time. Why did it make such a big impact on who I am and what I do? The backstory might be helpful to understand. My father hated what he did for a living. He would come home every day with pain etched in his face and evident in his body. Now imagine seeing someone that you love every day in pain and stress. And then imagine that same person turning to you and saying, you have other options. You get to choose. I never forgot it. I allowed it to lead me in my decisions throughout my life. It's why I decided to start dancing professionally. It's why I started My own business. It's why today I get the great pleasure of jumping out of bed in the morning. Yes, I'm this obnoxious in the morning because I love what I do. Because I ask myself that, is it going to make me happy? And I think that it comes through. And the ability that if I can touch one person, one person in here and help you to find that thing, that thing that makes you happy, that brings you joy, that's an amazing thing for me. Right? So I'm golden. I want you to think about that. Think about what gets you excited, what you're passionate about and get back to it. So now, one more minute you are going to get back with your partner. But this time instead of talking about a goal, I want you to share with them something that you're passionate about. It could be doing something for your family or a contribution to your community. It could be work related, something that when you talk about it, it starts to make you talk faster because it's so exciting to you. Take one minute and share that with your partner. Now, please. It's time.

It's time for the Heather Hansen o' Neill highly scientific experiment.

Raise your hand and put up the number of fingers for the energy of your partner. Now. Awesome. Take those fives and give your partner a high five.

You rock.

It's important to remember and to go back to those roots reasons that you are doing what you're doing. All right, we can all admit life is stressful. Even if you've got the best job in the world, it's still sometimes stressful. But you need to keep every day, keep coming back to what you're passionate about and why. Your why. And that's going to help you tremendously in overcoming your fears, your judgments, your assumptions that hold you back. All right, quick one on change. Anyone here experiencing any change? Good, good. Good to know. Okay. I think of change on a spectrum and the people and how you react to it on the spectrum. So I'm over here because we've already established that I'm crazy. So I actually enjoy change. I create it in my life on purpose. I am a speaker and an author. I like to travel for my business. There's a lot of things that I do, but still when life throws me a curveball, I still feel a little initial resistance until I can figure out what to do with it. And then on the other end of the Spectrum is my 14 year old son. My 14 year old son who he could be sitting down doing homework, which he hates. I could come over and say to him, put the homework aside. We're going for ice cream. Which is officially his favorite food. And his response will be, what?

You always do this to me, Mom.

Oh, my gosh. Because there are people that are hugely resistant to change, no matter how good the change may be. Do you know people like this? Yes. So figure out where you are on the spectrum of change, and if wherever you are is good, it's fine. Allow for that initial resistance. It's how fast you make it through the resistance that will make the difference in your life. And if you are on a team, perhaps you lead a sales team, or you have peers and you know someone down here who happens to be hugely resistant to change. And in your world, you know, change happens every day or it just happened again every second. Help them through by chunking it down and by allowing them to see the bigger picture of how it benefits them, whether it's you or them. I like to externalize it. Sometimes it's time to break through. Are you ready to break through?

Are you ready to break through?

Awesome. The best moments usually occur when a person's body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile. The reason why I jump out of airplanes. Right. So I want to share with you. No, you don't have to jump out of an airplane. But some of the things that I've studied in my research, I think we're all now realizing that, yes, our mind can alter our body. So when a person who has a type of disease decides to look at it in a different capacity or to remain more positive or to include laughter therapy, all of these things can impact their body and change their body. And we know that now because the research proves it. Well, I've known for many, many years before it became fashionable that the opposite is also true. And now I can talk about it, because now there's research that supports me, but that the body can alter the mind. So if you are struggling with allowing those limitations in or those fears in, alter your body and it will alter your state. So anyone here work out good? Well, other than looking like an Adonis, are there other reasons why you work out? Why do you work out? Peace of mind. Beautiful. Stress relief. That's a big one. Energy. See all of these things, you alter your body, it alters your state. I want to encourage you to do that. And I think of it like water. Anyone see stagnant water? What's it look like? Glass. What? Glass? Yeah. It could. Yes. Murky. Yes. What does it Smell like stagnant water that's not moving, that has bugs flying around it. In order to get this smelly, murky water to become clear, you need to stir it up, move it, maybe run it over some rocks. It's the same thing with us. If you are feeling stuck in your life and you want to become unstuck, clenching is not going to help you. You have to release and move. So come up with ways that things that you can do that you enjoy. When I do networking, sales, part of sales is networking, right? We're doing it here all the time. Even though sometimes I have to force it, like two people from Atlanta over here. I love when that happens. That's awesome. So when you're doing that, I have been known to include movement in my networking. So instead of saying, I want to have coffee with. I love coffee, by the way, I'm not putting down coffee. I want to have coffee with you at 9. I'm going to have coffee with you at 11. I'm going to have coffee with you at 1:30, right? Maybe you can say, hey, do you want to take a walk around the lake? Or hey, would you like to go kayaking and see what happens? Because when you're in a movement state, you're even taking a walk with someone, the endorphins, right? All of these positive things are going to go flowing through their body and they're going to now associate it with you because you've made it happen. Just saying it might be good discomfort. I want to talk about discomfort for probably two seconds because Megan's going to pull me off in a big hook in a second. I want you to imagine a circle, a very large circle. Inside of this circle is everything that you desire in life, your extraordinary life. This is making a tremendous amount of money, doing what you love to do. This is having warm, open, wonderful relationships. This is travel and excitement, or maybe it's peace and contentment. Inside of this circle is your extraordinary life. Where are you? We typically reside just outside of that circle, in our circle of our comfort zone. And in order to achieve that circle, we need to expand our comfort zone. Expand our comfort zone so that it at least intersects it, hopefully taking it over. And in order to expand it, we need to become uncomfortable every day. So that's why I do crazy things. But for you, it could be simply walking into a room like this and starting a conversation with someone that could be hugely uncomfortable for you. It could be going to Starbucks for that coffee and humming and not caring if anyone looks at you. Funny. Whatever it is for you, do something uncomfortable every day. It's like training yourself, building that muscle so that you can expand enough to be able to take over your extraordinary life. Take it over. So figure out what motivates you. Is it desire? Is it ambition? Is it goodwill? Is it fear? Pride, love, compassion, ego? And then come up with some solutions for it. Some of the things that I mentioned already that you might want to incorporate is choosing a new motivation or a mindset, consciously choosing to view something in a different way. Looking at that bigger picture, if you're going through change, being more prepared, if you're afraid of something, if you don't, if you're going into a sales call, do the research that you need to do so that you feel more comfortable. Add value. Know what your value is and add more on top of it. Content. You guys are all about that. Create a flow state. If you are stuck in any capacity, add movement. Create flow. And come from love. Because the opposite of fear is not courage. The opposite of fear is love. So if you are coming from fear, start to think of what you're grateful for, what you love. It will help tremendously. Okay, so we are going to let go of some of our fears, but in order to do it, I'm going to tell you a story about the first time I flew on the trapeze. Who here has flown on the trapeze? You rock, camera, dude.

Awesome.

Okay, good. So you guys are going to know what I'm talking about. The first time, I was mildly apprehensive. It became worse as I climbed the rickety ladder. It's not just. It's the actual climb up to. To do the scary thing that's just as scary. I get to the top and I see my instructor. She has long, dark, curly hair and a mischievous glint in her eyes. And she tells me to step up onto the platform and hold onto the pole. So I do. And then she says, now let go with your right hand, step over to the edge of the platform and reach out for the trapeze bar. So I do. And then she says, now let go with your left hand, reach out for the trapeze bar and jump. She probably thought I was hard of hearing, so she repeated herself.

Let go of the pole, reach out.

For the bar, and jump. No, I was absolutely petrified. I couldn't move. And she leaned in and she said, honey, sometimes we have to let go and in order to fly. So I did, and I flew. It was incredible. I've flown on the trapeze numerous Times I take groups to fly on the trapeze to help them break through. But that's not what this is about. This is about her words. Sometimes we have to let go in order to fly. So I want you today to let go of whatever it is that may be holding you back. I was doing a sales retreat recently for a large hotel chain. So what I told them was, okay, we are going to write down our limiting belief, and we're going to write it up here. You're going to come up one at a time, you're going to read it to the group, and then you're going to light it on fire and let it go. Yes, that's how they looked at me, too. Yes, I understand. So I'm explaining a little bit more about why we're doing this and what we're doing. And I see a woman that was sitting right around in this area. She started to sweat profusely. She became very pale, and she was visibly shaking. So it was a small group. So I was walking around as I was talking, and I kind of touched her shoulder and I said, are you okay? And she told me that she had. She'd been in a fire when she was younger, and she had been afraid her whole life, and not just of fire, but of everything. And I said, don't worry, you don't have to do this, but you don't have to decide right now. Can you just listen a little bit more until you make your decision? She goes, okay, so we're going around and people decide that they're going to do it. So they come up one at a time and they read off their belief. They light it on fire, they let it go. And everybody walks away from it just looking amazingly stoked. Until we got over here. There was a gentleman that was sitting in this area of the room. No. Okay, let's go past you for a second. Because I knew where it was going to lead. And everyone else finished. And I came back to the woman over here and I said, I'm going to give you a couple of choices, and I want you to tell me what you want to do. You can say no, because we know that that's okay, or you can read it and give it to me to light on fire, or you can do it. What would you like to do? And she's still sweating and shaking, and she goes, I'm going to do it. And she got up and she. She read it and she lit it on fire and she let it go. And she started sobbing profusely while simultaneously laughing. It was mildly creepy. But everyone there, they got up, they ran over to her, they hugged her. They're so proud of her. And later on, she saw me and she said, I have never felt so free in all of my life. Thank you. Amazing things happen when we let go of the things that are holding us back. I appreciate you guys coming in here today. I know we don't have a lot of time, but I want you to please take something away that you can use. And I will stay over here if you do have questions, and I have cards and things if you'd like to contact me with your questions later. Thank you again.