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Sales Success Key #1 – Resilience

In my list of ten keys to sales success, there is a fundamental element that stems from personal psychology – resilience. Do you find yourself giving up too easily? How much does rejection bring you down? And how quickly do you bounce back?

Disappointment, frustration, and hurt are all parts of the salesperson’s job description. After all, our role is to influence others, and people are often resistant to being influenced. Therefore, hearing the word “no” is inevitable. As Sartre so aptly put it, “Hell is other people.” Interestingly enough, the more you ask, the more you are likely to be told “no.” Paradoxically, the more “noes” you hear, the more successful you actually are, assuming you also receive a steady stream of “yeses.”

Resilience is essential for navigating the day-to-day challenges of the sales profession. From finding and keeping customers to gaining their trust, a salesperson faces a variety of hurdles. You may encounter fierce competitors, miss sales targets, or receive feedback that suggests your ideas, products, or services fall short. Colleagues and customers might perceive you as overpromising, unrealistic, or simply difficult to work with. But you must keep pushing forward, as giving up only leads to further decline. Resilience is the crucial ingredient.

The level of resilience you possess depends on various factors, such as the company you keep, the frequency of disappointments, external pressures in your personal life, upbringing, compensation structure, physical well-being, the strength of your aspirations, the consequences of failure, your determination, and your self-soothing habits (e.g., talking to yourself, taking a bath, indulging in retail therapy). All these factors influence your response to rejection, the duration of your recovery period, and your ability to overcome adversities.

But how can you obtain more resilience and “sticktuitiveness”? It’s a fascinating question that many have pondered.

Self-esteem plays a significant role. It relates to your belief in your own capability to accomplish what you set out to do and your sense of worth. Those with high self-esteem are typically able to transcend their impulses. Therefore, if your self-esteem is sufficiently high, you can overcome the impulse to shy away from rejection.

Managing your inner monologue or self-talk is another way to overcome the inclination to give up after a setback. Your internal dialogue can either foster a negative attitude or serve as a remedy. Have you caught yourself saying, “That proves it, nobody wants this stuff”? Or maybe, “Our prices are too high,” “The competition has become fiercer,” “I’m not very good at this,” “I messed up,” “We need more marketing,” “There’s a lack of internal support,” or “That customer was unpleasant.” Negative self-talk can create a negative emotional response in your mind and hinder your recovery.

However, you can achieve a quick recovery by reframing your circumstances. Self-awareness is key in this process. Recognize your reactions to rejection and become intimately familiar with how you process it. Understand what you tell yourself, the origins of those beliefs in your past and present, and what triggers them. Identify how your response might not be rational or may be detrimental to your progress. Make a concerted effort to override your habitual response and replace it with a resolute mindset, flexed muscles, and, in your own eccentric way, declare to the universe, “Whoooaa!”

To some extent, this is about reorienting yourself. Overcoming an impulse (and manifesting or elevating your self-esteem in the process) essentially leads to reorientation. Managing your self-talk also contributes to reorientation. Speaking to your boss after experiencing a misfortune can ideally provide a form of reorientation as well.

Ultimately, it may even require changing the entire paradigm. That is the pinnacle of reorientation. One of the most significant lessons I’ve learned about mental health and emotional intelligence is that you can’t entirely free yourself from negative feelings. However, you can either structure your life in a way where hurt is less likely to occur or strive to see things from a different perspective.

One of my favorite examples of reorientation comes from a technique I learned from a group of life insurance sales representatives I trained two decades ago. It involved handling the challenges of cold calling and was called the “paperclip technique.” While it may seem somewhat old-fashioned, it perfectly exemplifies my age.

Imagine you have to make 100 calls today. Place 100 paperclips right in front of your phone. Your goal? Move the pile 12 inches to the right, one paperclip at a time. Each time you make a call, say, “Hello, Mr. Smith, do you have a minute? No? No problem. Have a good day.” Click. Move a paperclip. Next call. Next paperclip. Observe your pile shifting. Stop only when you’ve achieved your goal. The objective is to focus on moving the paperclips, not on the rejections.

Do you get it? It’s not about you.

Sales Success Key #2 – Numbers Orientation

Yes, it’s true that “sales is a numbers game.” This often refers to the concept of throwing spaghetti against the wall and knowing that some of it will eventually stick. That’s the simple side of the numbers aspect in sales. However, there’s a much more rigorous aspect to it as well.

In my opinion, the most successful salespeople think in terms of volume and rates. And I’m not just talking about sitting with a spreadsheet and analyzing those numbers, although that certainly can be helpful. I mean that their minds are wired to naturally operate in that manner. Either they have trained themselves to think that way, or they possess an inherent inclination for rational thinking. Just as you seek to invest your money in accounts with the highest returns or pay off credit cards with the highest interest rates first, salespeople must also invest their most valuable asset – their time – into activities that yield the greatest returns. In a capitalist environment, a salesperson’s goal is to sell as much as possible (volume) with the highest profit per sale (rate) within the finite amount of time available.

We don’t want sheer volume alone; we want volume that is profitable. Our aim is not to obtain as many appointments or give as many presentations as possible. Instead, we want qualified appointments and presentations for audiences most likely to commit. It’s a delicate balancing act where we strive to optimize both factors.

If you have a sales territory, you want to maximize the efficiency of your travels. If you manage large accounts, you aim to allocate your time based on where you’ll gain the most return for your minutes. If you generate leads, you seek to measure the conversion rate and evaluate the cost per lead and cost per sale by lead source. If you focus solely on volume, you might compromise efficiency. Likewise, if you focus excessively on efficiency, profitability, or productivity, you might fall short in volume.

Every business has its own mathematical aspects. The best salespeople are fluent in this language. Take, for instance, the retail sector. The objective is to bring in as many customers as possible, maximize the rate at which they make purchases, increase the average transaction value, and optimize the average profit percentage per transaction. It’s all about volume and rates – volume and rates.

Succeeding in this game requires a person with sharpened left-brained intuition or a natural affinity for differential calculus, where you dream of minimums and maximums. Alternatively, an incessantly nagging boss can foster this style of thinking.

The challenge, of course, lies in integrating integrity and compliance with laws and policies within this framework. All our efforts must operate within certain boundaries. This is where the clash between capitalist values and other considerations surfaces.

But let’s save that discussion for another day.

Sales Success Key #3 – Creating Great First Impressions

Today, my daughter is going through an interview process for a temporary position at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. No disrespect to my daughter, but it got me thinking about the importance of making outstanding first impressions.
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Ihab Salloum