Sales Rep 101 – Chapter 4

Ups and downs

Sales can be very challenging. Both on a daily basis and also over the course of the year. And this can be a major factor in determining whether you succeed or fail in sales. Let’s start with the daily ups and downs. Sales is kind of like golf. One day you can’t lose. You nail every presentation and a majority of clients you see are either interested in what you are selling or they move forward and buy. You come back to the office and are feeling great. You tell your boss about your exciting day and go home feeling like a million bucks. Then comes the next day. And you can’t sink a putt or hit a good shot to save your life. You lose a big account and none of your presentations went well. What happened? Ahhh….the life of a Salesperson. It can literally happen just like I laid it out. But that is sales and you have to be ready for it. You have to be strong willed and not let the bad affect you. If you do, it can have an impact on the rest of your week and not just that one day. The hardest part is when you start off the day bad and then you need to somehow find it in you to not let that affect you when you meet with clients the rest of day. Let’s say you come in Monday morning only to find out that one of your big accounts wants to cancel. But you won’t be able to reach them until later on in the afternoon. Now you have to go the rest of the day not knowing if you can save it but you have some important clients to meet that day. How do you stay focused until you can visit with your client? It is one of the hardest things that you will have to do. But that is what separates the not so good or just good sales people from the successful ones.

Year To Year

The ups and downs happen year to year as well. There are many factors that will have an impact on your sales and your goals from year to year. You have to be prepared for all of those challenges and be willing to adjust to continue your success. Here is an example. Let’s say you normally have 3 sales reps in your territory and you usually each sell about $1 million in sales each year. But, for whatever reason one year you lose one of your reps and now there are only 2 of you. Which means you will probably sell more than you normally would. You end up having a great year. But your company eventually hires another rep and now you are back to 3 reps. But that next year things have slowed in your industry and not only are you making less money because of them hiring a 3rd person, but you are also selling less in general that year. That can make a huge impact your income and unfortunately you may not have any control on that. It may just be the market at that time. I have seen many sales people get so frustrated that they will leave that job thinking that the grass is greener somewhere else. But, of course you know what happened. It was not greener and then his old job rebounded and his position was making record commissions. Be prepared for the long term ups and downs as well as the day to day. If you can find a way to deal with those pressures you will be just fine.