Addressing Fear With A Coffee Challenge
Successful sales professionals have a road map that guides them to a YES more often than not.
However, on the road to YES, everybody encounters obstacles and roadblocks.
Probably the most common roadblock for a rep starting out in their career is FEAR.
More specifically the fear of hearing NO!
Hearing the dreaded word NO has steered many a rep away from even attempting to close the sale.
Fortunately, there is an easy way to practice overcoming this fear without losing your shirt.
Let me introduce you to a challenge where confidence, fear, and rejection all collide!
Sounds like an unpleasant experience but hear me out first.
The coffee challenge is an idea from entrepreneur and serial founder Noah Kagan.
The concept is simple. Walk into a coffee shop, order a cup of coffee and ask for a 10% discount.
That’s it!
You are not allowed to say it’s a part of an experiment or give any context behind why you are asking.
The genius of this exercise is its simplicity coupled with instant results and feedback.
Simplicity
You can try it out at any coffee shop at any time.
In fact, if you’re not a coffee drinker no worries, this exercise can be used for buying a cup of tea, water, etc.
Instant results
It’s pretty simple really.
Either you receive a 10% discount or you hear a NO.
Feedback
This is the most interesting part.
How did you feel as you asked for the discount?
What was the response to your seemingly absurd request?
Was the response as awful as you envisioned or feared?
The funny thing is you will be surprised at how often you will actually receive a discount just by simply asking for one.
Worst case scenario is you get a NO and nobody got hurt.
Once you experience what’s on the other side of your fear suddenly you learn that it has no real power over you.
Best-selling author Seth Godin talks about learning to dance with the fear since you can’t get rid of it.
How do I dance with the fear? Fear is not the enemy.
Paralysis is the enemy – Seth Godin