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[EDITOR’S NOTE: This is a replay of the WOMEN IN SALES Webinar sponsored by the Institute for Excellence in Sales and hosted by Gina Stracuzzi on October 13, 2020. It featured Women in Sales leader, coach and trainer Michelle Hecht.]
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EPISODE 282: Women in Sales: The Sales Rebellion’s Michelle Hecht Lists Ways to Get Past the Anxiety and Stress that Get in the Way of Your Sales Success
MICHELLE’S’ TIP TO EMERGING SALES LEADERS: “If you’re stuck in the middle of a crisis, if you’re feeling anxiety, to change your perspective be mindful of the limitations that it’s creating. You’re feeling anxious, “I can’t do this right now because I’m overwhelmed”, cut out the unnecessary obligations. Take a look at your week, your day, figure out how many hours you’re doing for each thing and then when you come up with a number of what you need to be your productive time, break that up and write down what you want the outcomes to be and get comfortable with saying no. Don’t just think about it. Write it down! You don’t have to get in people’s faces, you just have to say no to the things that are not serving you personally and professionally.”
Gina Stracuzzi: I have my dear friend Michelle Hecht with me today and she is truly amazing, we’ve been discussing just how difficult this period is even when you have a good mindset and you’re doing everything you can to be upbeat, it can be tough. Michelle and I decided that it was time to bring her back on so she could talk to us a little bit about what she does to overcome the stress and anxiety that goes along with these periods. Selling can be stressful and anxious-ridden to begin with and then you throw a little pandemic in it and you grow a little awkwardness about what to say to people and you have a really fun time. Michelle and I are going to discuss how we can actually capitalize on some of these emotions and put them to work for ourselves. Welcome, Michelle.
Michelle Hecht: Thank you so much, Gina, it’s so wonderful to be back here with you.
Gina Stracuzzi: Thank you. You are a Sales Rebellion coach, why don’t you talk to us a little bit about what that is?
Michelle Hecht: I am a sales coach, sales trainer with The Sales Rebellion. Many of our listeners already know about The Sales Rebellion, just a quick shameless plug about who The Sales Rebellion is and why it’s so great to be a Rebel coach. Our approach is different, we do things a different way not in the sense of a process or a method that we’re teaching, it basically starts with a more holistic approach with who we are as people, as salespeople. What we want our sales walk to look like, what we want our life walk to look like, how we can channel who we are as individuals, as human beings into our process in terms of connecting with other people and building relationships. Building community and in the process, bringing out the best in ourselves and bringing out the best in other people.
The focus is not so much on all the metrics and the quotas – while all of that is very important and we’re not saying it’s not, it’s just that we don’t believe it should be at the forefront of every little thing we do and every move we make. It starts with the human connection and walking alongside of people, our prospects, our clients and then ultimately our community, our friends, our family and so forth. That being said, what it means to be a Rebel coach is somebody that channels that mindset into every opportunity, into every conversation, into every approach that goes into the process of selling. What I do is as a coach, I work with my clients to on one hand unravel so much of the toxic stuff that we’ve been taught over years and years about how to sell because face it, we get a bad rap.
There’s a reason why people say, “Salespeople are sleazy, they’re used car salesmen or they’re just concerned with their commission.” There’s a reason all those things are said in many instances because of people that did it poorly, so as a coach I help people unravel a lot of that stuff and dig a little bit deeper into how we can manifest emotional intelligence and self-awareness and that natural ability to connect with other people on a deeper level into their sales walk. I know that was a lot [laughs].
Gina Stracuzzi: That’s a perfect segue into what we’re going to be discussing today so it wasn’t too much at all. Let’s start with anxiety because it is present no matter what we’re doing these days, there’s just so much uncertainty and it creeps into how we sell and what we feel comfortable talking about, so why don’t you take us through how you work on these things either for yourself and with a potential client? You can pretty much pretend that our audience is a client, what would you say to them and how would you help them use anxiety and stress to their benefit?
Michelle Hecht: Great question. By the way, I just want to let you know I’m so excited to speak about this especially now with what we’re going through because there’s a lot of people going through it. Like you said, a lot of people talk about it, a lot of people don’t but it’s there and we all know it’s there. How could it not be? This is a global pandemic and there’s just so many things going on as a ripple effect of that. In terms of anxiety, I think I can speak so well about it because I’ve gone through it multiple times throughout my life. At certain times it was greater than others but now is one time I think collectively so many people are going through it. Anxiety creates a lot of fear, a lot of worry, apprehension to do things, it has a negative connotation, it creates physical sensations, negative thoughts and often times it spirals.
On the other hand, there’s stress but there’s a good kind of stress called eustress, those are the feelings that we get when we’re on a roller coaster ride or before a first date or starting a brand new job. That’s all the positive stuff that gets us excited, it’s almost like adrenaline. The crazy thing is sometimes the body doesn’t know which one is which, your brain is not going to say, “Which one is this?” You’re going to feel the sensations, you’re going to feel something emotionally and physically and then you’re going to have to decide how you’re going to channel that. In terms of anxiety and what I do with my anxiety is I try to put it in check, I have a mantra – we should all have some sort of a mantra whether it’s 6 different things. In fact, I have one behind me, I have affirmations, I keep them on my wall, I look at them all the time.
Before we go ahead and get started with our day or with an activity, a task, before we go into a meeting, it goes back to asking ourselves, “Let me stop right here, I know I’m feeling something, let me check that. What is it that I’m feeling? What’s the message that I’m getting from this?” and then pause and say, “Let me focus on what I’m doing right now, let me get through it.” I’m not dismissing my feelings, I’m not dismissing the messages, I will handle that a little bit later, it’s almost like making an appointment with yourself later in the day to handle it but it requires work every day. It’s these little steps that you connect the dots and over time it will help you channel that anxiety and frustration into more productive work.
Gina Stracuzzi: I like that idea of an appointment with yourself. “I’m feeling these things. I can’t talk to you right now, things, but I’ll get back to you.” That’s really good advice.
Michelle Hecht: It’s that nagging little voice in your head that’s like, “Come on, you have something going on right now, don’t you want to think about it? Don’t you want to talk about it?” and it gets louder and louder. You’ve got to flick it like, “Not now, I’ve got things to do.” [Laughs] If that what it takes before you get on a webinar or something, you just go like that, there it is.
Gina Stracuzzi: When you feel that kind of anxiety that we were just talking about, is there a way that you have come up with to take that energy and turn it around and use it on a sales call or prospecting call to your benefit?
Michelle Hecht: Great question, absolutely. Going back before when I was saying how sometimes your brain doesn’t know exactly what the source is, it just sends signals to your body and you’re feeling certain things, your heart might start racing a little bit and you start sweating or whatever it may be, it starts with obviously acknowledging where it’s coming from. Taking a deep breath and just pausing and saying, “I understand where this is coming from and what the message is, but I can’t stop it” which is most of the time what happens. We can’t just flip a switch and turn it off, so in order to use that productively sometimes even taking sales calls like prospecting, calling people, getting on the phone – not so much with email because you’re sitting down. If you have to have a conversation, and I know some people feel it’s a cliché but it’s been in movies, it’s been proven, motion creates emotion.
Standing up when you’re on the phone versus sitting down, your voice projects differently, if you’re smiling people can actually tell when you’re happy on the other end of the phone. There are certain non-verbal cues and non-visual cues that people can pick up from your tone of voice and how you’re projecting it and the inflection that you might not realize but they will pick up on. Just by doing something simple like that, also changing your environment. We’re all working from home right now, many of us. If you’re always in the same spot and you’re always working at the same desk in the same room, it’s amazing just if you switch your environment and you decide for a day or a week, “Let me see what it’s like to work in a different room. Let me set up a table or a tray and a chair” whatever it takes. It’s unbelievable how by changing the slightest little things it has such an impact on how you feel, on your anxiety, on your frustration. That’s coupled with standing up, allowing your voice to project, taking that anxiety and using it as energy to talk to people with those few examples that I just gave. That’s just one or two examples of things that have worked for me in the past.
Gina Stracuzzi: A lot of people are working by email and through LinkedIn. How do you channel the eustress in your emails and your reach-out on LinkedIn?
Michelle Hecht: I don’t know if many people would be comfortable with doing this, I know a lot that do it. A lot of how I coach, a lot of how we do things at The Sales Rebellion is through total transparency and what I mean by that is we’re not reaching out to people and we don’t coach our clients to blast generic emails where all we’re doing is inserting the person’s name on top. There are so many people these days that feel that is the most effective and appropriate way to do things, maybe it worked six months ago for them, maybe it worked a year ago, it’s not really working right now and there’s a reason for that because people want to feel like they’re connecting with their prospects. Prospects want to feel that they’re connecting with organizations, with the people that represent those organizations.
There’s a very big need right now for our more cohesive environment and not just out there but in business, so turning eustress into prospecting gold for me is total transparency. I have reached out to people and #1, it’s never about me. I could have the best product, the best service in the entire world, I don’t start out by pushing that on anybody or even talking about it, it’s not about me and what I can do for you, it’s about the person that I’m addressing whether it’s on the phone, whether it’s in an email. I want to know about them, I want to be able to meet them where they’re at but I’d also like to infuse a lot of humor into my prospecting. I love to infuse humor and sarcasm, I would reach out to people and if I’m having a bad day, I will say, “Dear Smith, I’m reaching out to you with the hopes that you’ll respond to this message because if I don’t get you on the phone within the next day or two I’m either going to self-combust…” or whatever it may be.
I don’t do that blindly, I do research on the people that I reach out to and I look for a commonality that I might have with them whether it’s being a mom, being a wife, being in sales, a specific industry. I’ll take one or two little pearls that I have in common with them and I will use a little humor, a little sarcasm but it’s an intro and I’m not looking to sell anybody anything, I just want to make a human connection with them first. If the conversation continues and it goes back and forth a couple of times, then I will talk to them about what I do, I’ll ask them what they do and I want to meet them where they’re at.
Again, it’s detailed, this is a long answer but it’s a long answer because it’s something that I have gone over and over so many times, tweaked and tried to figure out my sweet spot and that’s what works. It’s connecting with intent and with purpose and not for the sake of selling anybody anything, use that energy whether it’s positive or negative, that anxiety and channel it into connecting with some people, getting to know people and expanding your network and making new friends, if you want to look at it like that.
Gina Stracuzzi: Betsy C. wants to know what kind of language you’re using these days when you’re reaching out to a cold call. She went on to say she feels really awkward because she doesn’t know what environment they’re in.
Michelle Hecht: Are you referring to the pandemic and not specifically talking about using certain words or bringing up anything? Because for me, that’s a rule of thumb. I never talk about global pandemic or ‘unprecedented times’ or ‘I hope that you and yours are safe right now.’ Those are phrases that we use not so much to be lazy, I think that we use those phrases because we don’t know what to say, we don’t know how to approach people, we know that there’s so much going on right now but you never know who’s on the other end of that email or on the phone and they could be going through absolute hell right now. You don’t want to be the one to open Pandora’s Box so I never talk about that stuff, I never bring it up.
Gina Stracuzzi: She said, “Yes, I was talking about the pandemic. Interesting.” I agree, I think that’s one of those areas where people don’t know if not saying anything is better than saying something and then if you don’t say something, do they feel like you’re tone deaf, like you have no appreciation of the situation? Someone named Dana Karen said, “Best coach ever, loved my coaching with Michelle.” [Laughs]
Michelle Hecht: Thank you, Dana. [Laughs]
Gina Stracuzzi: That’s really great. I think that is an area that people are still struggling with. In the beginning it was easy because it was a lot of, “Can you believe this?” but we are way past the, “Can you believe this?” It’s more like, “Can you believe this is still going on?” Now I would say we’re in an even more awkward time because the real ramifications as you’ve mentioned are so extensive for so many people and other people are still in an area of some inconvenience. Their job isn’t threatened, maybe they don’t have a really comfortable chair at home but that’s their biggest problem where as others have been completely devastated. As you mentioned, you don’t know what’s at the other end of the line in terms of issues, so I can appreciate how people don’t know what they want to say but not saying anything seems a little awkward too. You’re saying you don’t mention it at all?
Michelle Hecht: I don’t mention it at all in the beginning. I think this requires a great deal of self-awareness and emotional intelligence, if we’re all in sales that’s one of the rules of thumb. We have to be able to gauge the people that we’re talking to whether it’s over the phone or whether it’s in person, we have to be able to take what I call an emotional temperature of the situation. When I say, “Don’t bring it up” what I mean is not in the beginning, not the first sentence or two in a conversation or an email or a message. It’s something that you can weave in subtly if you feel that it’s going in that direction or you can tell by the tone of the person that you’re talking to, but to start with that, I personally would never because I think that it does more harm than it does good.
Gina Stracuzzi: What are the steps you take at any given day to start your prospecting, especially if you’re having a particularly stressful day? Like a few minutes before we were supposed to start I realized my laptop wasn’t plugged in and we have just moved into our new house and there are boxes everywhere, and I could not find my cord to my laptop [laughs] and I was stressing out a bit, to say the least. That’s the thing, you can be moving along and you’re all ready to dive in and then something goes wrong. If you could talk to us a little bit about what it is you do, the steps you take to prepare yourself to start prospecting.
Michelle Hecht: You can plan all you want, you can get all of your ducks lined up in order, you can do sound checks, you can have everything plugged in, it’s just life that sometimes we’ll get caught off-guard and we’ll be blind sighted and something will happen. What I like to do almost every single time I’m in a situation where that happens, I always ask myself two things: what is the best-case scenario and what is the worst-case scenario? For example, if I had been in your situation which I’ve been in so many times, I can probably write a book about the crazy things that have happened at the eleventh hour. If I’m in the middle of a storm, instead of just reacting and flipping out which we have the propensity to do depending on what it is, I ask myself, “What is the best-case scenario, what is the worst-case scenario?”
The best-case scenario is this will work itself out, I will do exactly what needs to be done, it will go in the direction it’s supposed to go in and it’s a win. What is the worst-case scenario? I don’t find the cord, I can’t plug-in, I’m not on the webcam. In that moment it’s hard to do but you have to be able to tell yourself that no matter what happens, is this something that is going to harm somebody? Is this something that god forbid is going to have a detrimental effect? What is the ripple effect? By doing this repetitively, if you can honestly say within 10 seconds, “I got this, I’ll figure it out and if I can’t, this is my backup plan and I might be a couple of minutes late.” It’s the ability to think a couple of steps ahead is what I’m trying to say. I think many people get caught up in the moment, “What’s happening to me? This is going to be crazy.” If we train our minds to think just a couple of steps ahead and we almost envision the strategy of what will play out, positive, negative, and if we can be okay with both, we’re in a good place.
Gina Stracuzzi: After I ran around for a few seconds like a chicken with its head cut off I thought, “Okay, I’ll just do it on the phone, I’ll be this big but it’ll work.”
Michelle Hecht: There’s always a plan B and a C sometimes.
Gina Stracuzzi: We have a question/comment here. “On the alternative to getting people to connect, I like that clients and prospects feel comfortable enough to share their experiences with me. However, hearing about so much emotional baggage on a daily basis while I face my own personal pandemic struggles can be quite draining. Do you have any tools or techniques that you use for protecting your own personal well-being?” That is an excellent question because we are all getting a little worn down with being empathetic.
Michelle Hecht: For anyone out there that is a coach, a trainer, a mentor or somebody in a leadership position, regardless of sales or not, we’re all working with people that are sharing a lot, they’re people that need support out there. If you’re a trusting person and you’re a leader in your fields or you’re supporting anybody for that matter, people are going to come to you, they’re going to talk to you, they’re going to share with you what they’re going through. On top of what you’re going through also, it’s a lot and sometimes it’s hard to separate all of that from the task that you’re trying to do and from the goals that you’re trying to accomplish. I think it comes down to boundaries and it’s very difficult sometimes to set those boundaries because you don’t want to make anybody feel that they’re not important and that you don’t care. Of course you have to be empathetic and you have to listen and you have to support people because that’s what we do, that’s what makes us human.
But if it’s bleeding into the work that you’re trying to accomplish with that person or whatever it may be, if it’s taking up too much of that time and it’s eating into it where you’re not being productive, the best way to establish boundaries is to stop and to take a look at your patters, what you’re doing and how you’re filling your days. Ask yourself, “Where can I scale back from the things right now that are not serving me?” I don’t mean that in a malicious or selfish way, I just mean that we all have the exact same 24 hours and if we take out the time that we’re sleeping, exercising, eating, spending time with family, if we have a snapshot of how many hours a day I have to be on and work? You have to take a look at it and say, “I can’t take these 8, 9, 10 hours and 6 of them collectively devote to listening to all of these things and to getting sucked in. You have to create boundaries and you have to figure out, like Tony Robbins says, your focus goes where your energy flows.
Gina Stracuzzi: That’s a very good point which brings me to someplace I know you are and I know a lot of women in sales are and that is the really fun added piece of homeschooling while in this interesting situation. In the beginning when it was the tail end of last school year it was cute, your kid would come in and ask you a question in the middle of a web meeting or something and everybody thought it was endearing but now the kids really have to produce stuff, they have to be at their computers. It’s different now and I know a lot of women are struggling because the brunt of those, “Mommy, what about this?” comes to mommy. I know you have small children that look to you for that help too, what are you doing to put those boundaries up but also help them? Do you ever use that in your prospecting? I suppose maybe once you know if somebody is also in that same situation, but it is something that women ask me about in the Women in Sales programs, “How are we supposed to be dealing with this?” Especially if you’re in a company or environment that maybe isn’t quite as compassionate about that, that can be difficult.
Michelle Hecht: It’s very difficult and I’m so glad that you brought that up. I wish there was a one-size-fits-all approach to this but there’s not because there are so many variables with how we’re set up in our homes and the companies we work for and like you just said, the environments, whether or not they’re conducive to letting stuff like that go or calling women out on that. There’s been so many articles written and published recently that working moms have the hardest time out of anybody else right now throughout this entire pandemic. Women have been affected, especially working mothers but women in general have been affected by this more than anybody else and there are statistics to prove them. I don’t want to cite them because I don’t know them 100%, I don’t want to give the wrong information but it’s a juggling act and I’m not going to sit here and say that I’m not struggling with it, I am struggling with it. I started a brand new business venture at the height of a global pandemic in April when everything shut down, but it’s about the long game. I know I’m going to struggle for a couple of months or maybe a year but I know what I’m doing is worth it and I’m doing the best that I can. Whether it takes 6 months, a year or 5 years to turn itself around, I have to be diligent, I have to move forward.
Going back to your question about how we juggle, I work from home, my husband works from home most of the time, we’re both in sales and I’m coaching. He’s downstairs with his office setup, I converted half of my kitchen into an office. This is the corner and this is where I work but I wanted to do this here because right next door my younger one has a desk set up and a whole thing in there. I changed around my dining room and I made it work and then my older son is upstairs at his desk in his room. You do what you have to do and as far as prospecting, that’s definitely something that I inject into my prospecting. If I can tell from somebody’s profile or from just learning about them from doing research that they’re a parent or whatever, it goes back to me being funny or sarcastic. I’ll literally write somebody a message, “I don’t know if I should introduce myself to you as a psychotic parent, a mother or a teacher who’s about to jump off the edge or a Rebel Coach with The Sales Rebellion. When I figure out how I want to introduce myself to you, I’ll get in more detail about who I am but how are you today?” That’s how I speak, that’s how I talk, I am not that buttoned-up, go-by-a-script, I’m not that person, I will never be that kind of person but I want people to want to talk to me and have a conversation with me because of the fact that I’m so authentic, real and transparent. I don’t come across any differently over the phone or email than I do in person.
Gina Stracuzzi: I hope that helps you, Twigs. What I love is giving yourself permission to be real. For me, I know that if I can be real, if I can say, “This is really not fun, it’s not a fun period for me right now, this is what I’m struggling with, what are you struggling with?” Sometimes I find just asking questions can help me figure out who I’m talking to and if they’re in the same boat and if they want to have one of those, “Yes, I’m struggling” conversations first before we get into business. Sometimes something simple will give you the answer very quickly as to who you’re dealing with, do you find that?
Michelle Hecht: I couldn’t agree with you more and this is nothing against men, I just think that if women feel supported and understood and that they’re being listened to about anything, we’re always talking about supporting other women and building each other up and straightening each other’s crowns – do it. There’s no other way to say it, it’s not just a phrase that we can stick on our profile or stick on a resume or promote as we’re “one of the girls” and, “We’re with you.” But then when it comes down to conversations that nobody will ever know about, you turn your back and you don’t do what you say you do. If I had a nickel for every time I put myself out there and was that woman to another woman, I’d be a gazillionaire, and I’m not [laughs].
It’s by being human, it’s by caring, it’s by understanding that there’s a long game and that having these conversations, connecting, listening, sharing your vulnerability and your struggles, listening to other people’s struggles you might not get the sale right now or get the client but you just made a new friend. You’re developing a relationship that maybe in a few months would turn into not only a client for you but come along with 10 referrals for you. If everybody is so stuck in the now, it’s counterproductive. It’s the long game and creating experiences and being human and establishing relationships, that’s what it’s all about.
Gina Stracuzzi: I think that for women, the giving yourself permission to be human and actually asking for help, I know it’s one of my husband’s biggest complaints about me, “You won’t ask for help.” “You should know by now when I need help.” [Laughs] we get in that mindset of, “It should be obvious that I need help, I shouldn’t have to ask for it” but people are in their own states so actually saying, “I could really use some help with this” or really hard words, “I’m struggling with this.” I think people are now perhaps more willing than ever, even guys, to say those words or to say, “This is not easy, this is really hard for me.” I think we’re more in that boat and I was having this great conversation with a woman the other day about this, that perhaps there’s never been a better time for women to talk about what they actually need and set real boundaries on their lives.
Before when you had to go to the office, leaving early or leaving on time could be a sense of weakness or like you don’t care and then somehow you’re not on the same par with the men in the office who aren’t leaving on time. But now that we have this environment where we can stop for a couple of hours in the middle of the day, perhaps and then pick back up at the end of the day and nobody’s really going to notice because the work is still getting done. Now you can say, “This is how I need my life to be” and people are getting used to it. The hope is that we can carry forth with this when we go back to a more-than-virtual world. Do you think about that in your work and how you’ll be using what you’re putting forth now when we’re back into whatever normal is going to look like at the end of all this?
Michelle Hecht: I want to go back to one of the things you said before about it being difficult for women to step up and ask for what they need and ask for help. I know that men go through this too but for the sake of Women in Sales and the forum and the fact that it’s Women in Sales Month and I’m sure most of the people on this call now are women, it is very difficult for women to ask for help because by nature, we’re multitaskers. We’re wearing fifteen different hats and if we dare to show that we are dropping one of those balls, one of those hats that we’re juggling, I’m guilty of this too. I can name 10 people that I’ve complained to in the last two weeks about this for myself because we’re hard on ourselves and we don’t look at it like, “That’s just one thing and I’ll get to it but there’s 9 other things that I’m handling and I’m doing it so well.”
We don’t want to appear to be weak, we don’t want to appear to not have it all together and so many women are in an all-or-nothing mindset. They don’t realize, including myself sometimes, that there’s a gray area in between and that everything is not going to go wrong if we don’t master with perfection every single thing that we do. We have to start asking a little bit more for help and if we’re afraid to ask with the people that we’re immediately surrounding ourselves with, then we’re not with the right people. If we’re working in environments and if we’re talking to the same few people every day and we can’t even be transparent and ask somebody in that circle, “I’m struggling with this” or, “I need to delegate this” or, “I need support with this”, you need to really ask yourself if you’re surrounding yourself with the right people. If you can’t honestly say yes right away, you need to rethink who you’re surrounding yourself with.
Gina Stracuzzi: We might know that intellectually from a social perspective but we don’t always think about that in terms of who we work for and work with. As you say, if you can’t be honest with the people you work with and for that, “I’m a little over-burdened here, I need some help on this” or, “It’s just a little too much on my plate for this time frame” then maybe you should look elsewhere which I know is easy to say and harder to do. It’s definitely a good point.
Michelle Hecht: It’s also important to note that I don’t mean that if you’re working on a team and you don’t feel that you can talk to the people that are on your team right away, you obviously can’t replace those people on your team. If you feel that you can’t really go to one of them, think of one advocate that you have within your organization, somebody that you can talk to that you can get honest feedback from that’s not going to tell you what you want to hear but what you need to hear. If you can’t find a person like that, then you look outside of your organization or you go to somebody that you trust that can give you sound advice personally and professionally. But you have to ask, if you don’t ask, you don’t get.
Gina Stracuzzi: Or you find yourself a great coach like Michelle.
Michelle Hecht: Yeah [laughs].
Gina Stracuzzi: Michelle, can you give us one immediate tip that we can use today, tomorrow and really implement to start down this road of rethinking how we go about dealing with the stress we’re in?
Michelle Hecht: First, I’d like to say to anybody, male, female, no matter what industry you’re in, understand that if you’re in a business where you have to get people to want to like what you have, whatever it may be, instead of thinking about all the little nuances, “Is it my marketing strategy? Is it my process? Is it the way that I’m prospecting?” The big picture, the long game is you want to meet people where they’re at, you want to create and evoke an emotional response in people and the best way to do that is not your technique, your best way to do that is by being yourself, allowing yourself to be a little bit more vulnerable and to speak your truth and to connect with people based on that. As far as actionable steps, if you’re stuck in the middle of a crisis, if you’re feeling anxiety, to change your perspective you can do three things.
Be mindful of the limitations that it’s creating, you’re feeling anxious, “I can’t do this right now because I’m overwhelmed”, cut out the unnecessary obligations. Take a look at your week, your day, figure out how many hours you’re doing for each thing and then when you come up with a number of what you need to be your productive time, break that up and write down – not just think about it – what you want the outcomes to be and get comfortable with saying no. You don’t have to get in people’s faces, you just have to say no to the things that are not serving you personally and professionally.
Transcribed by Mariana Badillo