It’s Not So Easy

Being a sales professional really has its highs and lows. Sales requires a level of resilience, that I certainly didn’t have when I first started out, frankly I was unprepared.

From experience in working in multiple call centres, I noticed just how a lot of other people, in the same role, also felt they didn’t have the tools to cope with such twists and turns. Your good days are good, but your bad days seemed somewhat amplified.

There’s an expectation on salespeople to be able to deal with rejection. What if you have tons of ability when it comes to swaying customers, but when they do reject – which a lot of customers do – you just struggle to deal with that side of the coin.

That’s where I was. I knew all the right things to say, I knew how to communicate effectively with a customer to further my interests, but when I did get rejected, I folded. I became the shell of the salesperson I thought I was.

I had to learn that to be a good salesman, you have to be resilient. I learnt that skill isn’t everything, mindset plays a huge part.

For example… I could have an excellent month by exceeding targets, hitting all KPI’s and earning a big bonus. This would fill me with great confidence, every day I’d walk in like I owned the place (to an extent). It was great, I was thriving. And if the following month started with two poor days in a row, that threw me off completely. I was then derailed and disengaged.

This was happening because I was not being realistic in my expectations, I thought I was going to ride that wave forever and that was my mistake. It meant I had my guard down, and so did my resilience. I had to learn to set goals, manage expectations and realise that there will be bad days, and when that does happen, to accept it.

So when I did go on another winning streak, the bad days wouldn’t seem so bad because I was prepared and therefore able to bounce back quickly.

I overcame that, and so can you.