Stress is never a good thing. A little nervous tension may heighten your senses and allow you to perform better. But stress does nothing but waste energy and make it harder to focus on what is important in the moment. When you experience stress what you are doing is either anticipating the great and wonderful things that will happen if the call goes well or dreading the devastation that will occur to your quarter or your year or your career if the call goes awry. All that added pressure degrades your performance and makes it less likely that you will be successful. What you should realize that any sales call no matter how big or important is only a conversation between you and another human (or two). And, you are skilled at having conversations. When you realize that you have an effective sales process, the conversation will be successful whether you get the outcome you wanted or not. More importantly, you need to realize that there are plenty of other prospects out there to replace this one if you lose. Ironically the less stressed you are, the more successful you will be, and you will have less to be stressed about. However, if you insist on putting extra pressure on yourself you will fail more often and have more to be stressed about. So, break the cycle of stress and relax. You will sell more and have fewer gray hairs.
