When sales are lagging and the pressure mounts, motivation can nosedive. The easy instinct is to slow down, take your foot off the gas, and hope things will turn around. But that’s not how momentum is built or regained. Staying in the game, even when it’s tough, is what separates top earners from everyone else.
Stick to Your Routine
The biggest mistake when things slow down? Getting off track. A routine locks you in. It prevents drift. The way you start your day matters. If the alarm rings and you start scrolling, you’re already losing. Instead, start with the same actions every morning. Exercise. Plan. Tackle your most important task first. Don’t allow ambiguity or distraction to creep in.
“Momentum leads to action and action creates momentum, which creates success.”
If you get just one thing right, let it be your morning routine. That first hour sets the tone. Keep it disciplined and intentional.
Control What You Can
The economy, the company, the season; there are plenty of things out of your control. Let them go. Focus on what you can actually influence: your conversations, your activity, your attitude, your customers.
Existing customers are a goldmine. They already believe in you. Support them. Look for ways to add more value. Learn more about what they need, and help them solve it. That familiar ground builds confidence and keeps you productive.
Don’t chase only the big wins. The mega deal might come, but betting on it is like banking on the lottery. Rely on small wins: sending those emails, making those calls, having those sales conversations. Measure what you can control and celebrate when you hit that metric, no matter what the results look like.
Measure and Celebrate the Small Wins
Know your numbers. Not just sales, but the steps that lead to sales. How many calls? Emails? Proposals? Break it down. Set a daily target you can reach, and when you hit it acknowledge the win.
“If you know that your day is to be focused on helping others… you celebrate it because I want you to end the day on a positive note.”
Each day, look back and find one thing that went right. Maybe it was a great conversation or a well-written email. Whatever it is, end your day with something positive, then use it to fuel tomorrow.
Small wins create motion. Motion creates confidence. Confidence leads to bigger wins.
Set Smaller, Achievable Goals
That big, scary number, the one standing between you and your annual target, can feel overwhelming. Slice it down. Set goals so small you can’t miss. Accomplishing them builds momentum. Momentum compounds.
Reconnect with why you’re in sales. It’s not commission. It’s helping others win. Focus on the people you can help right now, not just the ones who will close.
Share referrals if you can’t work with someone. Reach out. Lend a hand. Help someone else win, and your own motivation will climb.
Avoid the Naysayers
Negativity spreads. If you spend your time with the complainers, the doubters, or the folks who always predict the worst, you’ll start to believe them. Surround yourself with high flyers: the doers, the motivated, the positive. Their energy rubs off.
“You become the sum of the five people you associate with the most. Pick your friends carefully.”
Guard your mindset. Protect your energy. Who you spend your time with will shape your outlook and your results.
Play the Long Game
Peaks and valleys are part of sales. Don’t get stuck in the depths and don’t assume the peaks will last forever. Keep working your process no matter what. When you’re in a rut, make a list of everyone you’ve helped and everything good that’s come from your work. See where you still have opportunities. They’ll return. Valleys never last as long as they seem. Mountaintops aren’t quite as high as they feel.
The secret? Your mindset. Not your product, not your price, not your customer list. Attitude coming into a call determines the results coming out. Start every call focused on helping, serving, and sharing new ideas.
Build Momentum, Day by Day
Stay in the game by focusing on activities you can control such as serving customers, sticking to your routine, setting smaller goals, celebrating every win, and cutting out negativity. Most importantly, remember:
“Your level of motivation is all driven by your mindset.”
Start each day strong. Stay connected to your purpose. Serve others with integrity and you’ll find the motivation to push through any slump.
Mark Hunter :
How do you stay motivated when sales are down and things are tough? Hey, we’re in the middle of the summer right now and it can be tough. It can be hard. I’m going to share with you some strategies and the show begins right now. You’re listening to the Sales Hunter Podcast with Marc Hunter, where the focus is to help you as a sales leader sell with confidence and integrity. And now, here’s your host. Hey, you want to stay motivated. You want to stay in the game, but sales are down. And how do you stay motivated? How do you stay in the game? It is hard.
Mark Hunter :
And let me tell you something, because of the economy, it can be really weird out there. But here’s the thing. The worst thing you can do is stop. Don’t stop. Keep going. Momentum leads to action. And action creates momentum, which creates success. It’s a very simple concept.
Mark Hunter :
In fact, I call it the Success Wheel and I talk about it in my book, Mind for Sales. But here’s the whole thing. Now more than ever, if sales are down for you, stick to your routine. I can’t stress that enough, especially with how you start the day. I’m a stickler on how you start the day because I’ll tell you what, if you don’t start the day with a very set routine, It is very easy to start sliding off. This is why when the alarm goes off, your phone rings, whatever, however you wake up, you get up and you get in your routine. For me, it’s lifting weights. It’s going for a run.
Mark Hunter :
It’s working out. I have a very set routine for the first hour and a half of my day because I’ll tell you what, it gets me going. It keeps me— I’m also being adamant about understanding what are the tasks that I got to be doing, and I’m focusing on the most important thing. Too many times what I see happening is salespeople who are becoming a little demotivated because sales are tough. They start wiggling and shaking. They start going in all different directions but the direction that they need to do. What do I mean by this? This means focus on the most critical activity you have to do first thing of the day. You know, I talk about the 10 AM rule.
Mark Hunter :
The 10 AM rule is by 10 AM every day, you want to have accomplished something significant. Because what does that do? It creates success. It creates momentum. It creates motivation. It keeps you in the game. Now, let’s get into some very specific things. First of all, control what you can control. There’s a lot of things that you can’t control.
Mark Hunter :
You’ve got to let them go. Focus on existing customers first. I say this for several reasons. One, You already got them as a customer. Focus on them. Love on them some more. Demonstrate some more value to them. Ask yourself how you can help them.
Mark Hunter :
Be very curious in terms of understanding who their customers are. Who are they selling to? What are the challenges? What I have found is this. When you focus on existing customers, it does a couple things. It really does increase your confidence. It increases your confidence because you’re helping customers that you’re familiar with. And this makes a big difference. Second piece is focus on small wins. See, too many times what happens is people get demotivated because they’re falling behind their number, and they are suddenly looking for the, the big mega deal to close.
Mark Hunter :
And somehow that’s going to make their number. Well, that big mega deal just doesn’t come. Oh sure, we all love it to come, but it’s same thing with winning the lottery. It just doesn’t happen. So what I want you to do is I want you to focus on small wins. Now here’s what I mean by this. You got to know your metrics. You got to know your metrics.
Mark Hunter :
Now I’ll talk more about that later, but here’s the thing. There may be certain specific things that you know you need to do. You need to send out X number of emails every day. You need to make X number of dials, calls each day. You need to know what those are and celebrate it when you accomplish that. Because if nothing else, if you know, for instance, that you need to send out 25 personalized emails a day, and when you do that, you send out 25 personalized emails in a day, you feel good. Okay, maybe nothing happened, that’s okay, but you feel good because you’re doing the metric that you know that’s ultimately going to create results for you. You know, in my own job, and I’ve shared this with you many, many times on the podcast, the one metric that I’m absolutely adamant about is 5 conversations a day.
Mark Hunter :
5, 5 conversations a day. And that’s with either current customers, customers who are buying, who are going to buy from me. In other words, I’m prospecting, or people who can refer me. And those are 5 conversations. That means I’m on a Teams call, Zoom call. I, I’m, uh, I’m actively engaged with them on the phone. It may be a rapid-fire exchange in terms of email or WhatsApp, but it’s got to be, it’s got to be deep. It’s got to be.
Mark Hunter :
And here’s what I found. I know when I stay focused on those 5 and I achieve those 5, even if I don’t get any business, even if I don’t get anywhere, I still feel good. You see, it’s understanding what your metrics are. Now, if you don’t know what your metrics are, I want you to look at your business and I want you to begin breaking it down and say, okay, how many sales do I need to close this quarter? Okay. And then you begin to ask yourself, okay, how many offers do I need to make to get that? In other words, what’s my close ratio? We’ll say it’s 33%. So I need to close 10 deals a quarter and I have a 33% close rate. So that means I’ve got to put 30 offers across the table. Well, how many prospects, qualified prospects, do I need to get to have 30 offers across the table? Maybe it’s a 3-to-1 ratio.
Mark Hunter :
So now I’m up to 100 qualified prospects. And in order to get 100 qualified prospects, I may have to have 300 leads. You see, you begin breaking down your numbers like that, and you can begin to see how much activity you have to do. And then you begin to ask yourself, how many How many conversations this can take, how many calls is it going to take, and you begin backing yourself in. But what you’re doing is you’re breaking down your numbers, and you’re not going to accomplish everything all at once. Don’t even think about it, because again, you’re not going to reinvent your business in a day. The idea is just getting motivated and staying motivated. Now, I’ve had this challenge many, many times over my career, so don’t think that I’m immune to it.
Mark Hunter :
You can ask my wife, you can ask my kids, because again, what it is, it’s about staying focused on small wins. And the small wins are always the customer. It’s not about commission growth. And this again is a little thing. So you said, now, Mark, hold on, you said small wins and emails you send out, conversations. Yeah, because you’re helping people. If you know that your day is to be focused on helping others And again, my definition of sales is helping others see and achieve what they didn’t think was possible. My definition of prospecting, or the reason to prospect, is if I have the ability to help someone, I owe it to them to reach out to them.
Mark Hunter :
Now, I’ve got a number of other podcasts that break this down further, and I’ll challenge you to go in and jump into those. But here’s what I’m talking about, is that you’re focused, and as a result, then you celebrate a win each day, each week. You absolutely do this. Hey, at the end of each day, look back on your day, and I want you to find the one thing that you really do believe in. Wow, I did something. It may have been just one conversation. It may have been just one email that— I don’t care what it is, but you celebrate it because I want you to end the day on a positive note. Because what does that do? That helps prepare you for the next day.
Mark Hunter :
And you do that again each week. Each week you look back on the week and say, well, what is it? And as you do that, then you begin to set up what are your goals and objectives for the next day. That’s it. And break them down into small enough goals that you know you can accomplish. Here’s what I found. When I’m having a hard time staying motivated when sales are down, if I look at the big fat number I got to achieve at the end of the year, I can’t, I can’t get there, I can’t get there, and it demotivates me. So rather, I take a smaller number. I take a smaller number.
Mark Hunter :
Okay, well, hold it, hold it. Achieving a smaller number isn’t going to make my number. Yeah, I get it, but you know what’s going to happen? It’s going to create momentum. You see, set yourself small enough goals that you can begin to achieve them. Here’s another piece. I want you to reconnect with your purpose. Reconnect with your purpose. Go back and be very serious about this.
Mark Hunter :
Early on in my sales career, I struggled. I got fired from my first 2 sales jobs. I was on my 3rd sales job when my boss— I still remember it, Bob Stone— sat me down in his office and asked me why I was in sales. And I really couldn’t answer him because I was really in it for the company car. The company car was the number one reason I was in sales. It wasn’t exactly what he wanted to hear. And see, he got me to say, hey, hold on, you gotta look at the people you’re serving. Are you really taking the time to understand them? Are you really taking the time to listen to them? You see, the role of sales is to help others.
Mark Hunter :
When you help others, then you’ve earned the right to sell them. You see, stop and ask yourself, is this what I am doing? Because I find too many people, what they do is they’re demotivated because they’re purely chasing their commission. Now again, I’ve been there, but if you take a step back and begin identifying who are the 5, 10, 15 people who you know you can help and you focus in on them, one of those ways that you might help them is you might just give them a referral. I have found many, many times when I’ve been demotivated, if I can just give somebody else— or in fact, I did this today. I did this today. I had, I had a situation, a speaking engagement I could not do, and I gave the, the company names of 3 people who I highly recommend, and I felt good. I hate losing the deal, but you know what? I was already booked, and, and I wish they could have changed it. They couldn’t change the date, so it’s the way it is.
Mark Hunter :
You see, you’re reconnecting with your purpose. Your purpose is to help others. You’re serving others. That’s the role of sales. That’s the role of prospecting. Here’s another piece for you. You can’t become a victim of naysayers. Naysayers are out there.
Mark Hunter :
They’re out there. They are all over the place out there. And I’ll tell you what, they love to bring you down to their level. I see this all the time when I walk into organizations, and it’s amazing. But there, there could be a negative salesperson, and subconsciously people don’t realize this, but they’re working to bring others down with them because they, they don’t want to see other people succeed. They don’t want to. So you may have naysayers in your company. You may have naysayers in your industry.
Mark Hunter :
You may have friends that are naysayers. You’ve got to cut loose from them. Because I’ll tell you what, and again, I’ve said this a lot. Jim Rohn, the— Jim Rohn, I should say, not the sportscaster, Jim Rohn, the motivational person who passed away probably about 15 years ago. He said, you become the sum of the 5 people you associate with the most. Pick your friends carefully. Your moms were spot on when they told you, and I know my mom told me, be careful who you play with at recess today. Yeah, because she only wanted me to be associated with really high-quality people.
Mark Hunter :
You’ve got to be careful of this. This is so critical. This is so key. And here’s where I’m going to with this. If you can associate yourself with high flyers, it’s amazing how you become a high flyer too. You be— you become the sum of who, who you play. Final piece, I want you to play the long game. Play the long game.
Mark Hunter :
Don’t get caught up in peaks and valleys, because let me tell you something, when you’re in the valley, it, it’s— it looks dark, it looks that, and you think it’s never going to turn. But you know what? It does. It does. This is why I said right up front at the beginning, you got to keep going, you got to keep motion. Don’t stop prospecting. Don’t stop going through each phase of your selling process. And again, I, I’ve had to do this a number of times in my career. I’ve been in a valley, oh, and I’ve got to take a piece of paper, I go into my CRM system and look, and I begin writing a list down of all the customers I’m thankful for, everything I’m grateful for, for the business I’ve been able to get, and who, who and where are my opportunities.
Mark Hunter :
And I know they may not turn around quickly, it may be a long time. But they will turn around because here’s what I found. The valleys are never as deep as you think they are. And oh, I hate to pop your bubble, but the mountaintops are never as high as you think they are. You see, here’s what it comes down to. Your level of motivation is all driven by your mindset. It’s not your customers. No, it’s not your product.
Mark Hunter :
It’s not your pricing. Now you’re gonna say, Mark, hold on, you’ve been saying talk to customers. I know, but here’s the whole thing. You know what’s interesting? Your attitude going into a sales call predetermines the results you get coming out of it. Stop and think about that. Your mindset going into a call predetermines the results you get coming out of it. When you’ve got that great mindset and you’ve got that mindset that you’re going to be able to help them because you’re going to share with them some ideas, some strategies, to be successful. It’s amazing how it does.
Mark Hunter :
Yes, staying motivated when sales are tough, it’s hard, but you can do it when you stay in the game, stay focused on serving the customer, keeping your routine up. And it all begins with how you start the day. Hey, my name is Marc Hunter, The Sales Hunter. You’ve been listening to The Sales Hunter Podcast, 2 episodes a week. One like this where it’s just me. Second, I have a guest joining me where we do A subject matter expert conversation on a key topic. If you haven’t picked up my book, Integrity First Selling, do so, would you? And hey, leave me a review on your favorite podcast app. I’m Marc Hunter, The Sales Hunter.
Mark Hunter :
Great selling.
