Yes, even people who have a high level of sales motivation can occasionally experience a disastrous sales call. The key is when you experience this type of a situation to not let it throw the rest of your day into the toilet. Now don’t go saying this has never happened to you. It’s happened to me, and the real problem is not the disastrous sales call, but how it winds up destroying the rest of your day or even week.
Next time you have a sales call that turns out to be a disaster, immediately upon ending the call pick up the phone and call your favorite customer. Let your favorite customer pick you up — engage them in a conversation and you’ll find yourself back on track in a few minutes. Whatever you do, don’t call your spouse, a girlfriend, or boyfriend or even your mother. That’s the worst thing you can do. The reason is very simple. If you call a loved one, the only thing they’ll do is sympathize with you and console you in your time of misery. Having them console you will only ensure the rest of your day is wasted from a sales point of view. You’re paid to make sales, so if you aren’t doing your job, you aren’t doing anything to get your sales motivation back up.
I’ve been recommending this technique for years, and in that time, I’ve had numerous salespeople tell me how effective this approach has been in helping them get back on track and getting their level of sales motivation back up to where it should be.
3 Responses
Mark, I had a bad call this week and blogged about it at http://www.theSalesHabitudes.com. What I have learned through the years is that a bad sales call does not matter. Either the prospect did not perceive it the same way, they don’t care in the first place, and they don’t remember.
During the last decade I have had a few rotten calls. I immediately put that person down for another call after an appropriate amount of time.
When you call them back, if they are ready to buy, they will talk. This is how I know they don’t remember or didn’t care in the first place.