How to get out of a sales slump when you’re a sales rep
From time to time, you can be faced with an unfortunate set of circumstances or just sheer bad luck, that leads to you failing to close a couple of sales in a row. Pressure starts to rise and feelings of discouragement and depression begin to develop in your mind. Whenever this occurs for a longer period of time and performance is lacking, you find yourself in a sales slump.
It’s easily one of the worst nightmares of sales teams, as your lacking performance and negative mindset can be contagious for the rest of the team. Before you know it, the whole sales team can find itself in a sales slump.
It’s very important to try and seek positivity during these sales downturns and to find ways to cope with, and eventually overcome them.
As a good salesperson you recognise the slump early and know that you have to get out of it, rather sooner than later. Even the best salespeople find themselves in a slump from time to time, but it’s how they get through it that differentiates them from the rest.
If you’re a salesperson in the midst of a slump, or just want to prepare yourself for when you’ll face it, you’re already doing great by reading this blog. Here you’ll find our list of top tips to get through a sales slump fast and to start performing like a rockstar again
Our top tips to get out of a sales slump
Don’t give up
As a salesperson in a slump you’ll tend to stop doing the things that make sales because you don’t see the use of it anymore. By doing this though you decrease your chances of closing deals and therefore won’t be able to get out of your slump.
Don’t wait for the slump to pass by, but keep getting in front of prospects and other activities that lead to sales. Don’t give up, try to change your mindset and stay positive. It’s important that you are able to realise that being in a sales slump does not equal failure. When having changed your mindset to a more positive one, you’ll be out of the slump before you know it.
Don’t change your ways
Keep on working like you used to before you ended up in a slump. If you have been successful before with your approach, then you know exactly what to do to regain that success. Don’t overhaul your approach to sales based on other people’s advice, as that can leave you with a way of selling that doesn’t work for you.
Take some time to look at where you might have gone wrong. Compare what you were doing right before the slump with the times when you were successful. Is there anything you’re doing now that’s different and causing your performance to drop?
More often than not you’re unconsciously aware of the cause of the slump. So analyse your process from beginning to end and find out how you can do things better, but still in a way that fits you.
Break your habits
At first this tip might sound contradictory to the previous one, but it’s not. You can keep using the same selling methods as before, but you may consider breaking some of your other daily habits such as skipping breakfast or listening to a podcast instead of your favorite music on the way to work. It’s all about telling your mind that things are changing and reducing the negative feelings associated with the slump. Breaking one pattern often contributes to the breaking of other patterns, including that of poor sales performance.
Get your head in the game
The right mindset is key to getting out of a sales slump as we’ve highlighted in our first tip. If your mindset isn’t right, getting out of the slump will be extremely difficult. Do whatever it takes to stay positive and focused. Perhaps you could give motivational podcasts a try, break some patterns (see our previous tip) or other things that might pump you up to get focused.
Start with a clean slate
It may be a good idea to just press the ‘reset’ button when you hit a sales slump. What I mean by that is that it’s okay to reset your sales statistics and start the week or month over. This will have the effect of giving you a fresh start and will reduce the stress of having to get out of the slump, leading to higher motivation. With the pressure taken off, you’re in a great position to move forward and get back to peak performance.
Wrap-up
When in a sales slump, there’s no such thing as giving up. As a sales person, you need to face it and come back from it stronger than before. At first it might seem like an insurmountable task, but armed with the tips discussed above, you’ll be out of the sales slump quicker than you think.
A little effort and determination will already bring you a long way when you have the right approach and tools for overcoming this sales nightmare.
Advanced sales tools like salesnudge can be of great help for preventing or getting out of sales slumps. Salesnudge combines sales team management, coaching, reporting and actionable sales performance data into one easy-to-use sales solution for managers and reps.
