Selling Through Hard Times

By Herbert M. Greenberg, Ph.D., Founder and CEO, Caliper

How can salespeople at wholesaler-distributors keep their chins up during these tough times? Staying ahead of the sales game these days depends more and more on how salespeople handle rejection.

In the best of times, successful salespeople have been characterized by their uncanny ability to bounce back from rejection, criticism, or any other negative situation. If they are anything, the best salespeople are resilient. Their sense of self is intact, so they are uniquely able to dust themselves off and quickly get back in the fray.

Unlike most people in the population at large who view rejection as a personal affront (or, at best, something to be avoided at all costs), successful salespeople often view rejection as just another learning experience, just another part of the job.

Getting turned down is simply part of the challenge, spurring successful salespeople on to the next effort. Such resilience helps them to maintain a positive outlook when knocking on the next door.

But what if that door also closes on them? And what if the next door after that isn’t even answered? In hard times, even the most resilient salespeople can lose sight of the prize. When markets become smaller and competition heats up, rejection can become a way of life. And many salespeople who were extremely productive in easier times seem to lose their competitive edge.

The best advice sales managers can give to salespeople is to keep it all in perspective. Remember, this is happening to everyone — not just to you.

So, step back and look at your client base. Don’t just concentrate on obtaining new clients. Also be indispensable to your present clients. Be everywhere you are needed, even in places you might not be expected, and you can find expanded sales in your own backyard.

Also, remember that many sales are not being lost in the traditional way. You are not being beat by a competitor. You simply are having decisions put on hold. This can be very difficult for salespeople who are impatient.

As a result, sales managers have to spend much more time coaching, encouraging, listening, and providing advice on ways to better qualify leads. Much more so than in better times, the sales manager’s role is to reassure everyone on staff and help smooth through conflicts, anxieties, and crises.

The most important lesson is for salespeople to separate negative occurrences from their sense of self. This can be particularly difficult since successful salespeople usually feel 10 feet tall after making a sale, and somewhat diminished when a sale falls through.

Sales managers have to emphasize that these tough times are happening across the board, so there is nothing personal about it. It is, for the most part, outside of any one individual’s sphere of influence.

As a sales manager, you can never make the disappointment from losing a sale go away completely — nor would you want to. That disappointment is part of the distinct psychological make-up of all successful salespeople. But you can try to help make the recovery period from rejection as short and painless as possible.

To this end, keep your style to coaching rather than confronting. A sales manager will only compound the negative feelings that accompany down times by being too tough. If your messages are too negative they can be internalized and actually inhibit salespeople from realizing their goals. Some people, even those who seem confident on the surface, have a tendency to believe negative messages more readily than positive ones.

In both tough and good times, to succeed in sales, you need to listen very closely to prospects and clients. Understand that they are going through the same thing. They have similar fears and anxieties. Be more patient, sharpen your skills, and prospect a little harder.

Ultimately, such attention leads to salespeople finding more creative solutions for their clients, and relating more as a consultant — which is really the relationship in which salespeople end up being most important to their clients and, therefore, most successful.

It is a delicate balancing act — having ambitious goals and realizing that you won’t achieve them right away. That’s where self-acceptance comes into play. It’s the ability to feel good enough about yourself to keep going when times get tough. Self-acceptance is a necessary ingredient for a successful salesperson, but particularly so in tough times.

And, above all, remember: This too will pass.

About this Blog

This blog is created by NAW and its partner Caliper, an international management consulting firm that offers a wide range of personnel services to wholesale distribution companies.