For the last three months I haven’t been able to hit my targets and I’ve completely lost confidence. My colleagues keep telling me to snap out of it but I can’t shake myself doubt. What do I do?
This is 100% natural and in sales you always have peaks and troughs, it’s part of the game. The key is how you are viewing the last 3 months. I am a strong believer that in sales there is no such thing as failure; it’s all feedback. So rather than look at it as what have you lost, view it as what knowledge have you gained – you’ve learned what’s not working and what requires tweaking in your approach.
Equally you would have found some companies that you just can’t work with for whatever reason. Although this doesn’t help you hit your target, you had to contact these companies at some point, at least they have now been called and you can move on to the next prospects. Therefore, it’s not a wasted call, again its part of the process.
During the past 3 months you would have identified some companies that you may not be able to work with now, although they are now in your pipeline of your activity. You have probably found out who the key decision maker is, which supplier they current work with, pitfalls with their supplier, contract expiry date, costings etc. the point I’m highlighting is focus on what you have achieved, as opposed to what you have not achieved.
When football Managers have a team talk and motivate them, they choose to do this in the trophy room. The reason for this is they like the team to be surrounded by past success. It’s a great reminder that they can do it and have done it! As sales people it’s important to continuously remind ourselves of our past success and to never forget that. I recommend keeping a record of all our wins, no matter how big or small, so we can look back at these and keep our confidence up.
