I’ve been pondering an
email I recently received; a young salesperson described his most pressing challenge: The sales roller coaster. When things go well, he’s up, emotionally, and when things don’t go well, he’s down. The swings from up to down were wearing on him. His real question is one every salesperson must confront and successfully resolve: How do I manage myself to keep my emotions up and my energy high?
I’ve often thought that this is one of those fundamental challenges for a salesperson. It’s one thing to focus on closing the sale and presenting to a sufficient number of prospects and other such tasks, but
the real heart of the issue is managing yourself so that you can do these things effectively on a regular basis.
If you are depressed and listless, it doesn’t matter how good your selling skills are. You won’t have the energy to apply yourself. Managing yourself is the first challenge.
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The depth of this challenge is unique to the profession of sales. In most other jobs, you know what to do, where to go, and when to do it. This is not so in sales, where all these decisions are yours
to make. Thus, you have the option of not being at your first call at 8:00 if you choose not to be there. And you have the option of taking a two-hour lunch and being done at 3 PM. At least for a while, until someone catches up with you.
If you have a positive
attitude, an optimistic mindset, and are “up” emotionally, all these decisions are a lot easier to make than if you are dragging around in a state of depression.
I know about this because I
am given to depression. I’m a type-A, high energy guy. But, I have the tendency, when things aren’t going my way, to become depressed. Let me illustrate.
In one of my sales jobs, I
encountered a slow-down in the number of projects I had going. It was just a lull in the usual feverish level of activity to which I was accustomed. And I became depressed.
You know, there is a cycle
to depression. For me, it went like this. Since I didn’t have as much to do, I became depressed. Since I was depressed, I wasn’t nearly as active as I had been. Since I wasn’t as active, I didn’t create much new activity. Which meant I had even less to do. Which meant I became more depressed. Which lead me to even less activity. See the cycle?
It doesn’t take long to become almost paralyzed. That’s what happened to me. I became so depressed that I couldn’t leave the house.
In my case, it took the intervention of a wise sales manager to lift me out of my depression and get me back to work.
But not everyone has that option. And not everyone becomes that depressed. But, on a day-to-day basis, the impact of being “down” can be lethal to your success. So, every salesperson has to
formulate an effective answer to the question, “How do you get yourself back up when you are down?”
