Sales Resilience: Harnessing the Power of Positive Attitude and Mental Preparation
Josh Hirsch
CEO - Specializing In Revenue Growth, Sales Team Development & Efficiencies
To be successful in sales, you have to learn how to bounce back from rejection and keep driving forward toward your goals.
Every day, the world presents us with challenges. Whether at home or work, we consistently encounter situations that can be difficult to handle. Resilience refers to the ability to overcome those obstacles and keep moving forward.
Resilience is an essential skill to have if you want to succeed, and nowhere is this more true than in sales, where rejection is unavoidable. So how can you develop resilience? Read on to find out.
What is resilience in sales?
If you’re in sales, you always want to win. Converting leads into paying customers and closing deals are probably the highs that motivate you. But as anyone who’s been in the game for very long knows, you’re going to take your share of losses in sales, too.
Customers may decide to go with a competitor or opt out of a deal at the last minute, and there’s nothing you can do about it. So being able to move past rejection is an essential skill for sales success.
Sales resilience – that ability to pick yourself up and dust yourself off after a loss – can help you stay motivated no matter how often a customer or prospect says no. It keeps you moving forward and trying to close more deals no matter how many hurdles stand in your way.?
It shouldn’t be surprising, then, that resilience and a positive attitude go hand in hand. You can't have one without the other. When you have that can-do spirit, you see rejections and setbacks as opportunities to learn something new and improve yourself. Hence, you’re always optimistic and encouraged.
Benefits of resilience in sales
Building sales resilience is essential if you want to succeed in sales and establish yourself as an authority in the field. Let’s look at some of the ways resilience can help you.
Improved performance
Let’s face it: It’s easy to give up when you hit a setback. And the effects can snowball until you begin to expect failure at every turn. For resilient people, however, the opposite is true.?
Resilient people stay encouraged and positive even when things get complicated. Hence, they can focus on hitting targets and meeting deadlines, which will ultimately drive their sales performance. Resilient people are also goal-oriented, so they only take their foot off the gas once their goals have been reached.
Increased confidence
Chances are that other people, including your prospects, can tell when you lack confidence. It shows in your posture, language, and gestures. A lack of self-confidence can affect your communication with customers, leading to rejections. Resilience helps you stay confident no matter what comes your way.?
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Additionally, resilience fosters a positive self-image. You don’t feel inadequate or unqualified in the face of rejection. Ultimately, this will help you close more deals since you can’t expect customers to believe in you unless you first believe in yourself.?
Better customer relationships
Building strong relationships is the key to converting customers and holding onto them for the long term. When you’re resilient, you don’t easily give up because you quickly bounce back from rejections. Hence, you keep interacting with customers until you land a sale. You always focus on how your product can help the customer. When customers see your persistence, it can build trust, leading to a stronger relationship.
As you can see, honing your sense of resilience can benefit all aspects of your career, helping you turn rejection into opportunity, which ultimately leads to closing more deals.?
Developing resilience in sales
Now that you’ve seen how important resilience can be to succeeding in sales, you’re probably wondering how to build up more resilience of your own. All it takes is a few simple steps.
Mindset and mental preparation
It’s important to remember that your mindset will reflect in your actions. For example, if you constantly fear rejection, you’ll likely act nervous or anxious with potential customers, which will give them a bad impression of you and make it even harder to close the deal. A resilient mindset, on the other hand, doesn’t fear rejection. Instead, it projects confidence and positivity, which can help win over prospects.?
If you have a positive mindset, you’ll anticipate positive customer feedback. Hence, you're always optimistic. When you receive a no, it doesn't discourage you because you know your product is valuable. You get to understand that rejection doesn't mean failure.
Building a support system
Having a circle of people who support you is essential to building resilience. That's why your fellow team members are vital to your success as a sales professional. You should all form a support system that encourages each other through setbacks and cheers on every success. This helps improve morale and boost confidence, increasing the resilience of everyone on the team.
Continuous learning and self-development
Developing yourself through training and other learning opportunities can help you gain skills and knowledge to handle the different situations you might meet in the field. You might also gain insights into why people could reject your products, which would help you plan and prepare before closing deals. In addition, self-development can give you the tools you need to handle rejections and bounce back stronger.
So you can see, if you want to succeed in sales, you need to be resilient. Apart from the fact that it builds your confidence, it also helps you establish strong relationships with your customers and also creates the foundation for you to improve sales performance.
Build a resilient sales team today
Do you want to train your team to withstand the challenges and setbacks of working in sales? Then you need skilled professionals to provide the training your employees need to stay confident and maintain a positive attitude. At MetaGrowth, we work with you to build a world-class sales team through training and coaching. Contact us today.