Resilience in Sales: How to Overcome Tough Months & Bounce Back Stronger

Every salesperson faces difficult periods, but your response to these challenges defines your long-term success. This candid exploration of sales resilience provides practical strategies for navigating the inevitable ups and downs of sales performance.

We begin by acknowledging a fundamental truth: tough months happen to everyone. Whether due to seasonal business cycles, market fluctuations, or simply following an exceptional performance period, sales slumps are normal. The difference between top performers and others lies not in avoiding these downturns but in how they respond.

One particularly powerful strategy we examine is revisiting previous leads that weren't fully closed. As the great Zig Ziglar noted, "People don't change their minds, but they can make a new decision based on new information." Through a realistic role-play scenario, we demonstrate exactly how to approach past prospects with something genuinely new and valuable while validating their previous decision rather than making them feel wrong.

Beyond tactical approaches, we delve into the critical mindset components of resilience. Your feelings directly influence your behaviours, which ultimately determine your results.

Perhaps most importantly, we challenge the limiting effect of target fixation. By shifting focus from arbitrary numbers to delivering genuine value in every customer interaction, you not only serve customers better but often achieve better results naturally. Remember - customers don't care about your targets.

Ready to transform how you handle sales challenges? Visit realitytraining.com to discover how our training programmes can help your entire team develop the resilience needed for consistent long-term success.

Explore resources, insights, and tools tailored to support your team's success and strategic growth at realitytraining.com.

Transcript

Introduction to Sales Resilience

Jeremy Blake 0:14

Welcome to another episode of Trist. The reality is sales training.

Bob Morrell 0:20

So today we're going to talk about resilience. It would be lovely if every month for you as a salesperson was a good month, but life, I'm afraid, isn't like that. You're going to have tough months. So we're going to look at the reasons why you might be having a tough month and then we're going to look at what you can actually do about it.

Bob Morrell 0:41

It may be that your business is cyclical and so that you'll have some times of the year where you know you're going to be busy and there'll be some times of the year where you know it's going to be quiet, and just the seasonality of it means that it's just one of those things. It also means that you're unlikely to hit your target, unlikely to earn much commission, and that's slightly demotivating. But it could just be a business cycle that there's very little you can do anything about. It could be that there's just a lack of demand, for whatever reason, for the products or services that you're selling, and that means that the demand's dropped off. So you've got less leads, which means you're having less conversations, which means you're having a bad month, which means you're having less conversations, which means you're having a bad month, and it might just mean you had an amazing month last month and you've exhausted that area or that product that you're going for, and then this month is more of a slog.

Revisiting Old Customer Leads

Bob Morrell 1:34

There's lots of different reasons why it may be. The first thing to do is to recognize that you are going to have tough times occasionally. It's absolutely natural, and that how you approach the tougher month actually makes the difference. Jeremy.

Jeremy Blake 1:53

Well, where do we start? There's lots of things that we can share from our own experience of being a salesperson, as Bob has said, undulating months. Not everything's perfect, but the classic thing is to look at what's within your control rather than what's without your control. And the classic thing for salespeople who are having a particularly good time is, as you've just said, there's been good demand, good amount of leads. What we have seen a trend in over the last 10 years is the resilience of salespeople to go back to leads that haven't necessarily been fully closed off. Part of your resilience is to not just look at the hottest, shiniest new leads that are coming your way, but to go back to customers that have said not now, not yet, but they haven't said no forever.

Bob Morrell 2:50

Let's do that now, jeremy. So I'm going to be the customer. You're going to approach me. Let's imagine that I was going to buy some software for you, for my company. It was going to cost me two grand a year or so ago, and I decided not to do it at that time. You're going to ring me up, out of the blue, it seems, and let's see if you can get me interested again. Okay, so let's try it. Ringy ring, ringy ring. Hello, oh, hi, is that?

Jeremy Blake 3:14

Bob Morrell. Yes, speaking Bob, it's Jeremy Blake. I'm wondering if that name rings a small bell in the back of your head.

Bob Morrell 3:23

Oh, yes, yes, the learning software. Link it all up, good name.

Jeremy Blake 3:30

Yeah, we spoke a year ago and you said you were very happy with your current software and you wouldn't switch. If you've got a few minutes now, I'll tell you why I'm ringing and what may have changed for you. So my first question is what's, I suppose, been another year of using Linky Link instead of Link it All Up? What has been your feeling of having another year of you and your team using Linky Link? It's been okay.

Bob Morrell 4:00

Yeah, it hasn't let us down.

Jeremy Blake 4:03

Okay, it doesn't sound that you're ecstatic about it.

Bob Morrell 4:06

No, but I mean it hasn't been something that we've had to think about too much either no, and it's there in the background.

Jeremy Blake 4:12

So when we last spoke, I think you were completely right to send me away and to say no, and the reason for that is we didn't have enough to go up against Linky Link. There's been two innovations in the last year, one particularly that, I think, will give you an edge and why you should perhaps put us back on the table for reconsideration. Okay, so one thing that Link it All Up now does is when your salespeople are calling back people, we have a follow-up reminder system.

Jeremy Blake 4:41

So instead of relying, on your salespeople to diarise this. It immediately follows up.

Bob Morrell 4:46

Now that's a great example of going back to an old lead. Now the thing to remember is this I know why you didn't buy from us last time and I now think there's a great reason for you to consider it now. So you're accepting that maybe last time their decision was correct, but you're now saying there's something new you need to know about. Now. This is a great approach to old leads. Because they were interested once, there's no reason why leads because they were interested once. There's no reason why they shouldn't be interested again. But you've got to give them that hook to understand.

Jeremy Blake 5:20

And the great late Zig Ziglar said people don't change their minds, but they can make a new decision based on new information. Excellent, and also, just as you've said, you don't slag off somebody's previous decision you agree with why they made it, because you can't say you made the wrong decision.

Maintaining Positive Mindset

Jeremy Blake 5:36

You've been batted away for a year, you've been batted away for six months, but they're on your not dead leads list. I mean, the other thing about resilience for salespeople is how are you feeling? Because how you feel about the work you do engenders the behavior. So the feeling comes first, then the behavior. So, if you're feeling quite good about your products and services, that's very important. If you remind yourself how good they are, what's very good about working here? A bit of gratitude, what do I get? What is good about this place? The products.

Jeremy Blake 6:05

That should fuel a more positive mindset, because it's vital that you believe you have something valuable to offer companies. So you might need to do a bit of reminding of that. Also, if you've got a downtime in a downturn, there's no harm in doing a bit of learning. So what could I look up? Are my techniques good enough on listening skill? You're listening to this now, so you're putting the effort in to gen up on upping your skills. So if you have got time, don't just click A to Z and look at your emails and play solitaire Probably not a very popular common game played by Gen Zers, but do something that builds up your skills, because if you build up your skills, you'll feel more resilient as a result.

Speaker 3 6:52

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Bob Morrell 7:21

I think, the other thing which is under-discussed. Quite often, when there's a tough month, people are left to their own devices to see how they cope, and I sometimes think, if you're a good team leader or a good sales manager, what you'll say is look, there's eight people here. Two of you guys are doing pretty well under the circumstances. The rest of you are not having a great month at all. What can we do to help these people who are doing quite well, to definitely hit target or go a bit over? Could we help them? Is there anyone here who we can help as well, to help them do a bit better, even though others we're accepting are not going to do quite as well? We're combining the efforts and strengths of our people to help others. Now, there's not enough of that. We always used to maintain that if you were going out for business meetings with customers or going knocking on doors, two people was always better than one. You know why don't we do those sort of co-sales?

Jeremy Blake 8:18

yeah, double up yeah absolutely and well, instead of having a team of eight individuals working in isolation and battling a solo exercise, team up, especially if there's time, you see, because if the time lags, if you're really all busy and flat out there's no time, but if you're sitting there twiddling your thumbs and walking around and sort of feeling low, then you've got to feel better about things.

Bob Morrell 8:39

So you need some positive energy to flow around yeah help each other out and a couple of things not to do. So don't just get the hammock out and make sarcastic comments until the next month begins, because that's not going to make you look very good. And also, don't sandbag for the next month and think I'm not going to do anything for this month. I'm going to set sandbag for the next month and think I'm not going to do anything for this month. I'm going to set things up for the next month and you may well be doing that because that's sometimes how it goes, but to consciously do it is actually damaging the business.

Bob Morrell 9:13

Think about integrity, think about the reputation, because the customer doesn't care when they buy. You care because you have a target to hit. The customer buys when it suits them and that's all it comes down to. And what we need to be doing is setting people up to buy in the most positive way, when it's right for them, and if you do that enough times, you will do it enough times to hit your target subsequently. So there we are.

Addressing Attitude, Knowledge and Skills Gaps

Jeremy Blake 9:38

Often in a flat period, you're flat. So if you think of the three gaps that exist in a salesperson, it's either a knowledge gap they don't understand the product they're selling enough. They don't understand the marketplace, the customer type, the business, some knowledge gap, skill gap they're not particularly skilled at objection, handling, asking great questions, delivering product knowledge, enthusing, you know. Or is there an attitudinal gap that they're flat. Their tone is weak, they sound disinterested. You've got to work on that attitudinal gap first, otherwise the other two won't flow. So something about improving your motivation, feeling particularly good. If you feel better and you're up, you're already going to not be so down yourself. You can walk into a room of salespeople and see the mood within seconds. You kind of feel it. Back to Bob's point about the leader. I think the leader is also responsible for energizing that mood and doing something as a collective group, getting the group to re-energize together.

Moving Beyond Target Fixation

Bob Morrell 10:36

Now the other thing to do, which is a tough one, I appreciate Sometimes. If you can remove the idea of targets from your brain, just don't think about targets at all and just operate in the best possible way you can in the hours that you're working, the chances are A you're going to hit targets anyway, but you're going to do way better than sometimes, the way that targets limit you. So often we think I've just got to my target, well, I'm not going to try and do any more. Well, the target's just something that someone's dreamt up. In the end, your effort every month will constitute the result that you get to.

Jeremy Blake 11:16

The customer that you're helping a business customer or a consumer doesn't care about your target, but if you are selling them your service or product, you're enhancing their life. So if you enhance one more person that month but you miss your target, you've still done something purposeful.

Jeremy Blake 11:29

You sometimes hear salespeople going yeah, thanks for buying that. I'm still off my target. You've just helped me. What are you doing by flattening my mood? I've just bought this wonderful mower off you. I've just bought this fantastic system software off you. Why are you saying this is negative? I had salespeople sell me things and tell me that they still haven't hit. And I'm thinking what? You've just sold me something bizarre.

Bob Morrell 11:49

Right, Good luck with that Work on your resilience and I hope you don't have too many bad months. But in the meantime we'll be back with another reality of sales training soon. Thank you for listening. Bye.