Why Needing to Be Liked Kills Your Sales

We explore how the need for approval quietly weakens qualification, pricing, and closing, and show how to replace people pleasing with authentic, confident selling. Practical steps turn soft conversations into structured, trust-building dialogues that end with clear next steps.

• defining the need for approval and why it harms sales
• being likable versus needing to be liked
• approval-seeking behaviours that show up in calls
• pipeline, margin, and forecast consequences
• separating identity from role to regain control
• simple habits to build boundaries and use silence
• qualifying with courage and setting next steps
• reframing criticism as data and owning mistakes

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If you have any suggestions for future podcasts, please get in touch, graham at salescraft.training

Welcome to the podcast!

Chapters

• 0:00 Setting The Stage: Sales Psychology
• 0:52 The Approval Trap In Sales Performance
• 2:52 Defining Need For Approval
• 7:03 Likable Versus Needing To Be Liked
• 12:06 How Approval-Seeking Shows Up In Calls
• 14:54 Pipeline, Margins, And Control Risks
• 16:23 Detaching Identity From The Role
• 17:48 Mindset Shifts And Behaviour Practice
• 22:09 Boundaries, Silence, And Self-Respect
• 25:31 Letting Go Of People-Pleasing
• 27:06 Confidence, Trust, And Next Steps
• 28:34 Closing Notes And Contact

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:07

Hello and welcome to another podcast. I'm Graeme Elliott. Now, in this episode, we're going to look at a little bit of sales psychology. So, what I'm going to describe might relate to you, it might relate to somebody you manage. And I really want to deal with the issues of how approval and how the need for approval, which a lot of us, pretty much all of us have to some extent or another, but how if it becomes too dominant in our interactions, it can really undermine our sales success. So please stay tuned to this. Please like and subscribe if you find this useful. Now, I want you to think of a salesperson. This might be you, it might be someone you manage, but they are pretty smart, they are motivated, they've got lots of potential, they seem to do well, but every time they come across a good potential, good sales opportunity, somehow it fizzes out. And in terms of results, they're tending to sit down around the 50% of year-to-date area. And as a sales manager, you might have given them feedback, or if this is you, your manager might have given you some feedback. And the kind of comment that comes back is okay, I'll take that on board and uh implement that. And what happens is the same results. And the reason that this fails is that if you're in this kind of situation, the problem is not so much what they're doing or what you're doing, it's what's sitting underneath your sales process. And that's what we're going to dive into. So let's just look at what I mean by a need for approval. So basically, as I've said, all of us need approval to some extent. Where it becomes a problem is when that becomes a more of a driving need. So we tend to look for approval from everybody. So we're looking for approval from outside, not within us. So one way of thinking of this is it's meeting that internal need to be liked, to be praised, to be accepted, and also feeling a lot of discomfort or anxiety if that need isn't met. So that will come out in all sorts of relationships, and of course, in sales, what we're talking about are relationships here. And where it becomes a problem is where we are looking for reassurance from others before we make decisions, where we're trying to avoid conflict. If we're feeling anxious about potential criticism or disapproval, and if you think about certainly a closing sequence, this underpins to some extent the kind of issues that I've spoken about in other podcasts. In fact, in the course that I have, consultative selling, it underpins some of the reasons why the majority of salespeople don't want to ask for the order. So there's that fear of rejection, there's that fear of not being liked, all these things come into play. There's this fear of not knowing what to do with a no. So some of those I've already dealt with in different podcasts. They're definitely handled in the course. But another one of those aspects can be this need to be liked and a fear of basically being disliked if you ask for an order and you get a no. So, how this tends to play out in sales is that you'll get someone who may be very likable, very easy to get along with, but they will not push and ask for the order, or maybe have more difficult discussions, ask more difficult questions. So, where I'm gonna go now is just have a quick talk about where this could come from. Now, obviously, this is not about me giving you coaching lessons. Uh, what I do want to do though is make it clear where these kind of things originate. There may be scope for you to explore these things further, if this is the major problem for you. Uh, but the important thing is to recognize if this is playing a role in your sales interactions, and especially if it's really impacting your numbers, if you're not able to hit target, if you're struggling, maybe you're even fearful of going in to see clients. This can all be connected to this need to be liked. So the need for approval, it's a psychological drive, it's where somebody is basically looking for validation, acceptance, or positive feedback from others, and they need that to feel confident or worthy. So, in other words, it's an internal desire to be liked, praised, accepted by somebody else, and there is a fear or there's an experience of discomfort or anxiety when that approval does not come, and that will lead to other behaviors to try and regain approval. And this is where things can unravel a bit if you're in sales. Um, someone who suffers from the need to be liked is looking for reassurance from others before making decisions. They are definitely avoiding conflict because they want people to like them. They feel anxious about any criticism or disapproval that might come up, or they may interpret something as come up in that way, and they base their self-esteem on other people's opinions. So basically, with people who are experiencing this, it can lead to people pleasing, it can lead to losing personal boundaries, and it can lead to a difficulty in being authentic. Now, in the course, and this is something I've referred to, I use the disk model to look at behavioral profiling, to look at the different types of people, four different fundamental different types of people. And depending on your makeup, the people-pleasing aspect is definitely something that occurs with one particular type of person, especially under pressure. So if you recognize you do that, or if you have somebody working for you who under pressure starts to just say yes to everything, then recognize that this may also be an aspect of their personality makeup. So there's nothing wrong with this, there's nothing wrong with these people, it's just recognizing that these are aspects of their behavior. We will have a particular behavioral makeup, there are behavioral types, and also certain behaviors can be predicted when we get under pressure in particular. I want to focus on that because in sales, uh, obviously for salespeople, that's a real concern because it's um one of those jobs that involves a lot of uh pressure. So, what I want to do is just clarify this, dive a little bit deeper, clarify this. What's the difference between likable against being light? So, hopefully, this will make it much, much clearer what I'm talking about and what the differences are. So, if you're being likable, this is essentially where you're just being natural. It's a natural quality where people enjoy being around you. It's down to your authenticity, your warmth, your confidence, your competence. And obviously, in sales, and this is something I've spoken about in other podcasts, when you are with clients, they want you to be confident, they want you to be competent, often because they are looking at you to give them advice in an area that they are not so knowledgeable, and that's one of the reasons that they're talking to you. So, this is really important. And if you're authentic, if you're warm, if you're likable, people are more likely to buy from somebody they like than from somebody they don't like. So these are all pretty basic things that we've spoken about before. So, what are the characteristics? Friendly, approachable, genuine, you treat people well because it reflects your values, not because you fear rejection, but you're just being authentic. You can handle disagreements or disappointments, but it they don't impact your sense of worth. So if something goes wrong or you have a disagreement with somebody, it doesn't impact your feeling of self-u-worth. And you set boundaries without guilt. So, in other words, you know how when to say no, because you whatever you've been asked to do is not acceptable to you. So you stand your ground. All of this comes down to your self-esteem, is essentially generated internally. So this is coming from inside you. To some extent, you know who you are, and you're quite confident in who you are. So the core motivation in all of this is that you are comfortable expressing who you truly are. So what happens when you're with other people is people tend to like you without you trying because you're just being yourself. There's no effort involved, you're just being who you are. And people will often warn to that. We don't necessarily like everybody we meet who's like that, uh, but if you're being genuinely authentic, people pick up on that, and that is definitely definitely makes it a lot easier to build up trust and respect. So basically, if you are needing to be light, this is different, and the key word there is needing. So this is a psychological dependence on other people's approval, and you need that in order to feel secure, to feel valued, or just to feel okay with yourself. So the characteristics of this, the the the giveaways, if you like, um, the tells, are that you shape your behavior to avoid upsetting anybody, you hide your true preferences or opinions, so you'll just go along with what other people are saying, even if you don't agree with them. Conflict or criticism feels threatening. There will be times, perhaps often, when you say yes, when in fact you actually want to say no, but you'll just say yes to people, please, go along with them. Your self-esteem rises and falls with other people's reactions. So the core motivation here is to avoid rejection or disapproval. And ironically, the outcome is that often people respect you less because we pick up on neediness, we pick up on insecurity, uh, boundaries are unclear, and if we feel somebody is just saying yes to us to be liked, it really undermines that sense of trust and confidence in that person. And if this does resonate with you, and you can certainly think of situations where you've done that, where you've said yes to someone where you actually meant no or would like to say no, and particularly in a sales situation where you've subsequently lost the deal, perhaps that's one aspect of what was going on there. There was something that they the other person picked up on. They might not necessarily have consciously known what it was, but they just felt uncomfortable with you. There was something about what you were doing and how you were doing it that didn't feel sincere. And again, put yourself in the buyer's shoes when you're with somebody like that. We tend to pull back. We'll go with the person who seems genuine, seems confident because we have much more confidence and trust in that person. Okay, so I guess to summarize the difference really, being likable is rooted in authenticity, needing to be liked is rooted in insecurity. Um, so one of them is just natural, it's just that person being themselves, the other is emotional dependence. Okay, so how does this show up in sales conversations? So if you are recognizing any of these, that's great, but let's just break it down a little bit further. So somebody who is suffering from this need to be light, let's call it that, or experiencing that need to be light, they'll tend to avoid tough qualifying questions. And if you've listened to me talk about qualifying questions, it's really important that in qualifying questions we qualify people out as much as we qualify people in. And in order to qualify them out, we're gonna be asking questions that may well elicit a no response or a negative response, and we need to get those because we need to be spending time with people who are more likely to buy. But for the person who needs to be liked, they're gonna modify those questions because they don't want to upset the client or anything like that. And the moment you start doing that, you completely devalue the whole qualifying process, and there's a very good chance that the people that you're having perhaps nice, safe conversations with, they're safe simply because that person will never actually buy from you. Um, other signs they over discount or say yes too quickly, that's a way of avoiding conflict. They talk too much to avoid silence. When you're talking, you're in control of the situation. As soon as you're silent and the other person can speak, who knows what they'll say? They might ask that question you're dreading, or something else will come up that you really don't feel confident to deal with. So you'll try and maintain control by talking, by avoiding silence. They may well fail to challenge assumptions that the client has made, and this is again really important. It's been very rare in my career, but occasionally I've had this. Somebody's made an assumption about what I was selling, which was incorrect, and I didn't pick it up early enough. So these things are really important that you challenge any assumptions that the client is making that could be incorrect. It could be also a situation where you're over-customising if you've got a solution that has a lot of options, you're over-customising when it's not needed, and this is all part of people pleasing. Another one that is likely to show up pretty regularly is leaving calls without a clear next step. And obviously, it's really important that whenever you finish a contact with a client, be it face-to-face meeting, telephone call, email, whatever, you have a clear next step. You set up what the next step in the process is. And the reason that they won't do this is that they don't want to appear pushy. So these are all flags, perhaps red flags, I'll call them that. Uh, that you're in a situation where you are perhaps being driven by this fear of rejection, this fear of not being light. So, what happens to the business when this comes into play? So, I've already spoken about a few of them. So, in terms of qualification quality, as I've said, you're gonna be getting people into your sales funnel who will never buy. So, it means your pipeline is weak, you're wasting time, your forecast is a nonsense, essentially. Uh, margins are like it'd suffer if you're unnecessarily discounting. And um, if you've listened to the free video that I have on the website, one of the lessons I learned in my first sales job was how not to discount because we were not allowed to give discounts, which meant we had to actually sell properly. Um, closing rates are likely to be really low. Um, prospects will not see you as a trusted advisor, you're probably not closing anyway, or very rarely. So, this is a real problem. Um, the control of uh deals as well, as you're going through them. If you're not agreeing and defining next steps, agreeing them with the client, following through, then you've lost control of that sale. The prospect now is dictating the sales process, and that is not how you're gonna make sales. And your confidence is short. You're gonna be reactive, you're not proactive, um, you are gonna get into one of those negative spirals. So I have spoken about getting into negative spirals before and what you can do about it. If it's a psychological issue, it does mean that you really need to stop um really stop doing what you're doing and step back. And we're gonna look at mindset in a moment. So, just to summarize the psychology here, as people, we all have a bias towards belonging. We want to belong socially, we want to fit in for that to happen. Conversely, there's a fear of rejection, a fear of loss. And the important thing here is that in your sales role, you it's really important that you recognize that this is not you. If you start making it personal, this is where this psychology will really come into play. So if you are making your sales role personal, then not only are you presenting this approval-seeking behavior, but prospects can subconsciously play on it. So they'll pick it up. Um, again, if you think of situations where you've met people like this, there's a real temptation that most people won't resist to just exploit them, just to get that extra discount, just to do whatever it takes to um um exploit that weakness that we sense in somebody else. So, what high-performing salespeople do is they'll nail the sales techniques, that's really important, but they are also in control emotionally, so they do not make it personal. And that that is, if there's one thing you take away from this, please um take that one away. So, before we finish, I'm just going to talk about a few things that you can do to we'll call it change the mindset. It's um because it's emotional, to my mind, it's not really about the mind, it's more about um how you handle things emotionally. But all of this can be done with training. So, the very first thing is to recognize what's going on. If what I've spoken about resonates with you and it sounds familiar, then I would suggest this is at least one aspect uh that may be impacting your sales performance. So let's have a look at what we can do here. And even if you're not really suffering from this, these can be useful techniques anyway. So let's go through step by step. Let's start with replacing external validation with internal validation. So instead of asking the question, do they like me? Think about do I respect how I handled myself? In other words, am I happy with how I handled that situation? And be honest. So the thing here is to be honest but not beat yourself up about it. If there are things you could have done differently, then note them and then apply them next time. So the power of this is to look at what's gone on, work on look at honest feedback, and then implement it. And if you do that, you will gradually improve. And this is a process, so don't expect it to change overnight. But keep your focus on yourself and your values and your performance, not on how other people responded to it particularly, unless you can use that as a useful uh factor to move you forward. Secondly, and really importantly, this one accept that not everyone will like you. Uh, the moment you realize that, life becomes a lot easier. I I can absolutely guarantee it. So, even if you're the kindest, smartest, most generous person, uh somebody will not like you, and that's just life. So, don't worry about it. Again, don't make sales about being light. Sales is about doing a job, it's about getting results, and yes, you do it in an ethical way, in a way that you are comfortable with personally, but not everyone is going to like you. Maybe redefine what likable actually means. So to start with, what it isn't is agreeing with everybody, it isn't being perfect, it isn't avoiding conflict. What it is is being consistent, being honest, being grounded, and having boundaries. This is really important. The next thing is to practice your behaviors. So, and I really want to emphasize this. This is about this is about starting small. So start with things that, or think about the things you default to, let's put it that way. So if you're using phrases like whatever you want, I don't care, it's fine, you might be saying it, you might be thinking it. Just turn that around a bit and express your honest opinion in that situation and start with really, really simple things. It could be about food, somebody asking you what you want, or it could be going to a movie, or it could be just setting up a time or a location to meet with somebody. Just be honest about what works for you. And if what somebody's suggesting doesn't work or you're not comfortable with it, just say it, just give it a try, see what happens. One of the things that you're likely to find is that funny enough, you actually get respected more when you're not saying yes to everything. So set small boundaries. So examples might be I can't tonight, I need some time to think, that doesn't work for me. And each time you do this, you're working on your self-worth. And the thing here is that if you work on these enough, they become second nature and they become automatic. And what that means is that you're no longer reliant on that external validation, you're basically being authentic, you're being honest. Now, another thing you can try is um a pause. So when someone makes a request of you, just try a three-second pause before you answer. So that where this is important, and and in fact, in any conversation, in any negotiation, silence is really uh a really important thing to master. Um, it can make a huge difference to negotiations, but start with a three-second pause before you answer. And the reason for doing that, it stops you just giving an automatic yes. And while you're having that pause, you can ask, just ask yourself, be honest, do I actually want to do this? What's the cost if I say yes? How why am I doing this? Am I doing this out of fear or out of choice? So, all of this helps you to build self-respect. And remember, self-respect grows every time you tell the truth, you stand your ground, you act with integrity, you admit your mistakes without shame. Just own a mistake, and the power of that is when you own it, you can do something about it. If you are just covering yourself and not wanting to own up, that's out of fear, and that will just sit there, it will just fester. Uh, you'll worry that somebody will find out. So it's far, far better to put your hand up and say, Okay, I made a mistake here, and then you can look at what you can then do to hopefully remedy it or at least minimize the impact. And always keep your word. So, one of the fundamental things that I talk about a lot in podcasts is to over over underpromise and over-deliver. I nearly got that wrong. Uh, but if you say you're going to do something, make absolutely sure that you do it. Be 100% reliable, keep your word. That doing that will build up a sense of trust uh on in on the part of the client, and also if you do this in other aspects of your life, it'll be the same with anybody you're working with, and again, it's really powerful, and also a lot of salespeople don't do that, which I find very disappointing. But but there you go. Also, remember that you are responsible for your behavior, your reactions, all of that, but you're not responsible for anybody else's how they choose to react to anything that goes on, that's their choice. So that's not your responsibility. So if that's something you worry about, how somebody else will react to maybe you giving them bad news or tell them telling them something they don't want to hear, that's not your problem, frankly. Um, it's none of your business. Um they have to deal with that. So let go of that one and just be straight and be authentic. Um, another one is to reframe criticism and disapproval. So if you see criticism as a danger, basically it isn't. Uh often the need for approval comes from associating disapproval with a threat. But disagreement doesn't mean dislike, dislike doesn't mean unworthiness, disapproval tends to fade pretty fast, actually. So again, don't be afraid of criticism, just take it as feedback. So these are some tips. Um, a good thing you can do is to just think about the people that you have around you. And with people you particularly trust as well, these little exercises I'm suggesting, these these are a good are a good place to start and just see how people respond to you. The truth of all this is that the more you get into this and the more you express yourself, and the more you stop being a people pleaser, or stop saying things because you think that's what other people want to hear, some things are going to happen. The first one, which might be uncomfortable, is that some people will fall away. And they do that because the likelihood is, and I know I like to say this, but they're probably exploiting you at some level. And because you are always very agreeable to them, you always agree with what they want to do, they feel they can do whatever they want. So the moment you start to lay down boundaries, the moment you stop to say yeah, the moment you stop saying yes to everything, those people are gonna fall away. And frankly, that's probably a good thing because the better, healthier people will stick around, and the chances are that you're gonna draw in new people who are more the kind of people who are gonna support you in who you are, you probably have healthier relationships with them, um, and it is a much more positive step forward, and this is not just in your sales environment, but in your in your life as well. So remember confident people don't chase, they don't overapologize, they don't need to fill silences, they don't try to impress, they don't strive for universal approval. And confidence is magnetic. So, as I've said, when you are confident, when you are authentic, people will warn to you because that's one of the things we look for when we're engaging with other people. And that's probably a sub uh in most people, it's a subconscious thing, might be conscious, but definitely in a sales environment, again, put yourself in the client's shoes. You want to be working with somebody who you feel confident, who you feel has your back, who you feel will be honest with you, who will tell you the truth, whether or not your solution is a good fit or whether it isn't. And this is something I've emphasized again and again. And if you do feel that you're one of these people who perhaps leans a little too much towards needing approval from other people, first of all, congratulations, because that's a massive step if you're acknowledging that. And then just take on board some of the things I've suggested here. So it's there's nothing, this isn't about making you wrong, it's simply recognizing this that this could be having a negative impact on what you're doing. So let's own it, let's deal with it, and let's start to turn things around one step at a time. Okay, so that is the podcast for uh today. I hope you found that useful. As I've said, this might you might recognize this in yourself, you might recognise this in somebody you manage, and um this is one of the more important things I think I've covered because the more subconscious psychological aspects of how we trip ourselves up can be the trickier ones to uh pick up. So, as I've said, please give me a like and subscribe if you feel uh that I've earned it. If you have any suggestions for future podcasts, please um get in touch, graham at salescraft.training, and I'll speak to you in the next podcast. Bye for now.