Sales Fear Series – Fear of Disappointment

In the 30+ years that I have been in sales, there had been a nagging question that irritated me up until about the last four years - - - why was I so hard on myself when I didn't achieve my sales goals?

After internal debate and conversations with a few trusted consummate sales professionals in my network, I was finally able to answer that question. Thus, we have landed on our latest Sales Fear Series topic, the Fear of Disappointment.

As a sales professional with a family, failure simply wasn’t an option for me. Every potential customer interaction was like a must make free throw in the championship game, with the score tied and 10 seconds left in regulation. (If you know basketball, you know!) For all others with limited or no basketball acumen, let’s just say it was really important that I make the sale. The fear of disappointing my partner when I couldn’t pay for something the family desperately needed was very real. To have a chat with one of my children and tell them that they weren’t going to be able to go on that overnight school field trip was going to be disappointing for them and myself. Being an essential provider and not supplying was like a fire hydrant that couldn’t dispense water in an emergency.

I know lots of salespeople in similar family situations. This fear can be real. And even if it doesn’t permeate a salesperson’s every thought, it is certainly in the back of their minds. Salespeople have others that rely on them to be successful. That may be immediate family like a partner and children. Or they could be a caretaker of an elderly parent. It might even be a sibling that needs their help. They don’t necessarily roll into the office and declare it to everyone. And they especially don’t openly share it with their direct supervisor. To do so may erode trust and give the impression that the salesperson cannot focus on the prize. But believe that this is their truth. And when they underperform, know that there is pressure building. Susan Scott in her book, ‘Fierce Conversations’ said, “We don’t know what people are thinking unless they tell us.” As simple a statement as this may be, it is a rare breed of management that understands what their sales team is facing. That goes for their teams’ personal or professional lives for that matter.

On the topic of management, salespeople also have a fear of disappointing their leadership. Now if we are being clear, that fear probably is associated with the loss of their jobs if they don’t consistently produce. Which is a reality. Fact is that salespeople are hired to be solution finders and sell. Their main function is to move product or solutions that produce revenue for their companies. And when they don’t, the list of disappointed upper-level management runs deep.

For sales managers, there is hope. You CAN help. There is a balance to applying support and accountability for your sales team. It is imperative to reinforce positive skill attributes after a sales flop.  Help your team find the things that they are good at and how that will aid them in future sales successes. And most importantly, do this proactively. To share this insight after you’ve prepared them for a 30-day Performance Improvement Plan is a complete failure.

Finally, a true sales professional doesn’t have any greater fear than disappointing themselves. Ego is an essential element for any sales champion to have. You must believe that you can do it before you ever see it completed. When you miss that mark, that fear of disappointment in your abilities gains a little more power each time. Shaking off a single sales failure is easy. Doing this after multiple occurrences during a quarter is a very different thing. Get to the end of the year and find yourself missing the year’s goals, and let’s just say there is a flurry of emotions flying.

I am a believer in failing forward. I may fall but I am still positioning myself to learn from those hard moments and grow. There is no failure in that. In fact, there is only hope. Hope that when I see a similar prospect engagement, I will use what I learned to drive the sales opportunity to a CLOSED WON status. (If you’ve used Salesforce, then you know.) The result should be a satisfied customer, a satisfied leadership team, and a very proud and well compensated sales professional.

How do you manage that fear of disappointing yourself or others in your professional and / or personal life?