I just had the realization this week that burnout in sales is like Insulin!
What?!
Yeah, you heard me, Insulin… bear with me…
Here’s the situation, you’ve been selling for years, and one day, you are done. Your numbers are poor, you motivation is down, you are experiencing call reluctance and you can’t get it together.
You tell yourself, just do the numbers, just make the calls, just follow up, etc… but you struggle. You don’t seem to have any more gas in the tank.
For some people, selling does not come naturally, at least the ability to take rejection. In fact, it’s not just rejection, it stems deeper than that. It is fear of looking bad, fear of being out of control, fear of looking stupid, fear of making a mistake, fear that the presentation or cold call won’t go as expected, fear that you might forget what to say, and on and on.
These fears can paralyze us. We psych ourselves out thinking of all the things that could go wrong. We worry. We get nervous. We don’t want to be judged or look bad.
What do we do? We “overcome”, we “persevere”, we “act confident”, we “push through”, we do it anyway.
Imagine a swimmer who every time before they jump in the water, they do what Chevy Chase did in the movie “Vacation”… He is about to jump in the water and he is psyching himself out, breathing heavily, waving his arms back and forth saying “this is crazy, this is crazy, this is crazy” before he finally jumps in. If you were this swimmer, and you did this for years, it becomes exhausting. Now compare this to the swimmer who stands at the edge of the pool, excited to jump in. Day after day, she is excited to hit that cold water. The person that enjoys ‘jumping in’, usually sticks with it longer.
The problem? After years of “overcoming”, we can get exhausted. Every time we think of picking up the phone, cold calling, calling a high level person, we burn “thought” energy, and physical energy. And then something happens; we run out of juice… we are done. We just can’t muster the energy any more for more of this. We are burned out.
Who wouldn’t be, after years of having the stress of making calls or the stress of getting psyched up before you dial.
So, just like insulin for a diabetic, we have run out. In a diabetic, the body can no longer produce insulin. It’s done. Used up. The body can’t produce enough, and the body says “no mas”.
In selling, after years (or months for some), when we have to mentally and emotionally get ready for every single call or meeting or customer interaction, we get tired. And burn out sets in.
So how does one change this?
Think about top reps. The reps who make selling look effortless. They produce month after month, year after year. They DON’T attach meaning to their interactions with customers and prospects. They don’t “worry” about what will take place. They don’t have fear of “looking bad”, “making a mistake”, “looking stupid” or “losing integrity”. They don’t play the negative “what if…” game. They don’t think about everything that could go wrong or how they will look. They perform and think in the moment.
Because top reps don’t attach so much meaning to what people think of them, they are free to just be. They are free to live in the moment without the exhaustive thinking, psyching, or mental gymnastics necessary to pick up the phone, make a call, knock on doors, or talk to a senior level person. They don’t tax their mental system. They have an endless supply of energy. They live in the moment, not the worry of the future. So for them, selling is easy.
You know these tops reps…some have great skills, but there are some you know without great selling tactics and skills that still produce more. Think about them… they just “do it”… they don’t worry about how they will come across. They don’t worry about what a prospect will think of them. They are proof that the first real keystone to success is taming the gremlins in your head.
Can someone who is not performing or burned out turn things around?
It depends.
If one can learn to detach meaning when they speak to a prospect, it can turn things around and be energizing. This means, you are not in need of “insulin”. You have nothing to combat any more. Key ways to try this:
1. Recognize when you feel anxiety, tension, stress before a call. Take note of what you are feeling and what you are worrying will happen or could happen. Do you think you might look bad, stupid, not smart, make a mistake or some other make-up projection of the future?
2. Realize that the feelings you have are based on a future projection or belief of what “could” happen in the moments that follow or the future that follows.
3. Live in the moment. This means, you can’t worry about “what might happen if…” Remember, “worry” is a projection of what the future moment will be, and it is always a negative expectation. If you are worrying about what someone will think of you, worrying you might not find the right words to say, worrying about making a mistake, you are thinking of what could go wrong in the future, but you are letting it impact you right NOW!
When you worry about what other people will think of you and you let it bother you, you are letting your imagination about what you think they are thinking impact you in the now and you are making it real. To show you how silly this can be, what if I thought you could fly? Does that mean you can? What if I think you are a saber tooth tiger? Does that mean you are? NO! Do we even give it a second thought? NO! Just because YOU THINK someone ELSE thinks it about you, doesn’t mean it is so. So why do we think that if one person (the one we are calling on) might possibly care enough or take the time to think of us as not smart, that we all of a sudden believe it and relate to it, and let it bother our day/call/actions?!
Live in the moment, call in the moment, and ignore thoughts of what could or might possibly happen in the thoughts of the other person in the future.
Pick up the phone, call another prospect, ask to speak to the president, VP, senior director, etc… and without worry of what they will think of you and how it will look, that call becomes easy. The phone all of a sudden becomes a thousand pounds lighter. No energy will be used up. No psyching necessary. This is how top reps feel. They have an endless supply of energy because they don’t worry about what others think of them to their detriment or drain of energy.
When you can be in the moment, without worry of what people think, you too will have an endless supply of energy and selling becomes fun again, and you will see amazing results.