Every sales professional struggles at some point. It may just be a bad day, but it could be a bad month, quarter, maybe even a bad year. There will be times in your career where the sales aren’t going to be reflective of the output you’re generating. You’re producing all the activity, doing all the work, producing all the metrics, making the phone calls, prospecting, sending follow-up emails and marketing. But there’s that element that is still beyond your control, no matter how talented you are. No matter how effective you are at the ability to influence somebody, you’re not always going to get somebody to say yes. And when that happens, it is natural and normal for us to get discouraged, to get de-motivated, to feel downright negative. When you find yourself in that situation, it’s time to shift gears.

Take a Mental Break

One of the reasons people can’t hang or last in a career in sales is they can’t handle the uncertainty. That uncertainty is usually associated with income, but sales is also an emotional rollercoaster. In order to be able to handle this business for the long term, you need to shift gears and rest, recharge and disconnect. Go back to a place where you’re comfortable and just completely recharge. I don’t mean go off into the woods in a cabin and assess all your numbers. I mean to take a mental break. Step away from your computer and turn off notifications on your phone. Once you’ve had that time to turn everything off, have a mental debrief with yourself and ask yourself these questions: Is who I am going to be affected by the results I put out? Is who I am going to be reflected by the level of my commission check? The answer is no. Who you are at your core is foundational. You’ve been building that up over a lifetime. One bad sales day, month, quarter or year does not mean you will never be a successful, top performing, high-income earner.

Be Strategic

Of course, when you return from this mental getaway, you still have bills to pay, a family to provide for, and a pipeline to be managed. If you don’t do this reset strategically, you risk slowing down the momentum that you may have had going in your pipeline. I often talk about the dangers of having slowed momentum. Being strategic in how you plan for a reset allows you to pick the lesser of two evils. When you are overwhelmed by the challenges of sales, you operate at 80%, and you at 80% isn’t effective for anybody. When you reset, you may be off the grid for a few days, but you come back ready to give 100% of your effort.When you go on vacation for any stretch of time, you need to plan ahead for that break; the day you return should be the busiest day of the entire year. From the moment you decide to take that break, you start planning for your first day back to be the busiest. Plan all the appointments before you leave on vacation, and you will come back to the busiest day ever, followed by the busiest week week. Properly planning ahead is going to help you rebound and prevent that momentum loss. If you disconnect and walk away from your business without a plan, you may mentally feel better during that down time. But when you return, your momentum will have taken a hit. That’s not fun for anybody, and you’ll be back at 80% in no time.

Now, if you’re in that position where you just had an unexpected bad day and just need to disconnect without time to plan, fair enough. One way to prevent that from slowing your momentum is to have automation in place in terms of automated lead management and automated prospecting. If you need help with that, you can reach out to me and we’ll talk how to ensure your pipeline’s full and robust for the future. Be sure to reach out to me. Also, you can text me at (661) 228-8967. Text ‘hello.’ Get connected with the community. I’ll be there to answer any of your questions you have.