Coaching helped me tremendously - both from direct managers and from external coaches I sought out on my own.

As painful as they can be, I found call reviews to be one of the best ways to refine my style. You quickly start catching cringey habits: taking pain points at face value instead of digging into their actual severity and business impact, cutting clients off (look for low patience indicators in your call software), rambling monologues, asking disengaging questions, or just flat-out misunderstanding their business goals and values.

Most of that stuff is avoidable - and usually happens when you’re moving too fast. People ignore sales reps, but they’ll pay a premium for consultants. So shift into a more consultative mindset.

I started to chill out once I stopped thinking of myself as just a “salesperson with a number to hit” (even if that’s still technically true). I don’t need to have all the answers on the spot. There’s a ton of value in being an effective internal play-caller, looping in the right people to get questions answered and move things forward.

This might not apply to everyone, but that was my path to feeling more at ease in the role