Times Are Changing – Your Mindset Should Evolve Accordingly.

I met Jim on a flight to home ( Jim is a sales professional). Our conversation revolved around his career in sales; With a background in engineering he started years ago with IBM, then Oracle, Minolta, Xerox (where he spends 20 years). He began his first job in sales development, then sales management, training and back to corporate B2B sales for the last ten years.

"Change before you have to." - Jack Welch

After three decades of sales success, he finds it hard to stay motivated and focused. He shared with me that he is experiencing mental fatigue doing the job he used to love with all his heart. While his production is still among the top 30% in the company, he feels that the job is becoming a drag and it’s taking a toll on him.

Getting up every day at 6 am, getting to the car and going on sales calls is getting harder by the day. He feels that protecting his existing book of business is getting harder. Client loyalty has dramatically eroded, many decision makers had been promoted to new departments, moved on to new jobs or lost their position. Jim feels that he is no longer making a meaningful difference in his client's lives, he is started showing burnout signs, starts taking failures somewhat personally ( yet he knows better), and thinks that he is losing enthusiasm and confidence despite his best efforts.

While he was telling me his story. I was wondering, how many salespeople around the globe share his current emotions, feeling and overall anxiety?

The game of sales has changed, and the changes will accelerate going forward. Many cutting-edge disrupting companies have created information parity. The internet evolution has localized global market competitors, allowing new players influence and diversification never seen before.

Interesting Statistics

According to Forbes study, 47.5% of sales reps leave their job due to job stress. Sales is high-pressure environment that may not be a great fit for everyone.

•      42.5% of sales reps take 10 months or longer to become productive enough to contribute to company goals. — Accenture
•      Lost productivity and poorly managed leads cost companies at least $1 trillion every year. — CMO Council
•      50% of sales time is wasted on unproductive prospecting. — The B2B Lead
•      Only 60% of sales reps meet quota. — CSO Insights
•      84% of B2B decision-makers start their purchase with a referral. — Edelman Trust Barometer
•      44% of buyers feel that only 25% of their providers help them maximize their value. — Gartner

Jim mental fatigues seem to be generated by his resistance to accept the evolution of time and the changes it brings along. Over the years, Jim has experienced a burst of continuous success throughout his career, and he expected that no significant disruptive changes would occur. Suddenly things have changed around him, and he finds himself in new territory with no compass to guide him or tools to manage the challenge. When changes are gradual, one cannot feel its impact nor its gravity until it’s too late.

Rather, than engaging other individuals and brainstorming for best practices to push past current mental obstacles. Jim retreated, he kept to himself, leaving in the past, not knowing how to get out of his self-imposed barless prison. Feeling sorry for himself, rather than facing head on the current market reality, learn the necessary new skills, adapt, adjust, then accelerate.

Set the stage

You must accept market changes as opportunities to harness; the key is to master surfing these wave of progress. Current setbacks and challenges are only temporary, invite few colleagues preferably representing different perspectives and generational angular thinking to help you with fresh ideas to reignite your passion. You may feel vulnerable by opening to colleagues about your current emotional state, but you will summon their empathy to help a good friend in need. Hence, cementing your relationship and creating a support group.

It’s best to include colleagues or friend that possess experiences and world-views that are starkly different from yours. Opposing views can be the trigger to generate meaningful changes. Suspend your thought process while listening to your colleagues' input. Remember, you are the one stuck and need ideas to get out the current situation. Listen carefully without biases or interruptions. As the owner of the challenge take a moment to reflect on the proposed solutions, then make the necessary needed adjustments to affect positive changes.

"We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them." - Albert Einstein

Welcome Everyone contributions

Spend time collecting ideas, some of the most surprising and provocative thought that you may want to dismiss may be the best ideas to tackle the current market challenges. Record your peers and colleagues suggestions or write them verbatim on paper, in order not to allow your unconscious censoring mechanism to prevent the consideration and adoption of ideas that may be bizarre to you at first but may appeal to the targeted market audience.

Feel free to add your thoughts to the mix. Reshape, refine and test these new ideas, allocate the necessary time to test the validity and success of every chosen concept. Conduct quick, frequent emotional checks to ensure that you armed rightfully to keep going forward. Purposeful momentum will alter your old belief and will dislodge your mental fatigue while rejuvenating your energy source.

"The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity. The fears are paper tigers. You can do anything you decide to do. You can act to change and control your life; and the procedure, the process is its own reward." - Amelia Earhart

Identify a path to create new success.

Jim mental fatigue is a state not related to age, lack of energy, or physical vitality. He is going through psychological trauma because he realized that the ever-evolving market forces were moving faster than his personal capabilities. His anxiety was triggered but the fear that he can no longer cope with the market evolution. His past frame of reference is no longer valid. The sells strategies that worked well in the past are less impactful, his targeted buyer audience is being hyper-targeted by new competitors with unique value-propositions. Furthermore, his past relationships influence has eroded adding a sense of failure.

Multiple studies have shown the close correlation between sales confidence and quota attainment. Consistent skill development and training promote morale and confidence. Leveraging adaptive technology to meet market demand and buyer’s changing behaviors is a step among many that are required to keep people like Jim able to adapt and excel at their job regardless of market evolution or challenges.

How to manage change?

Do not focus on past economic decision makers, instead continuously build a coalition of decision-makers and influencers. Build a new strategy that will allow you to create a report with internal defenders of your ideas and concepts. Resolve your prospect most pressing technical, human and system conflicts by demonstrating how your business solution will eliminate these crippling challenges.

Conclusion

Finally, salespeople must hold themselves accountable for personal growth. The status quo should be challenged by creating a discipline list that forces you to do whatever is necessary to stay relevant. One must carve out time daily to gather market and buyer’s information, analyze the data and find newer, better approaches and solution that create mutual value and craft better future.

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