We all have bad days, but we have a problem when bad days turn into months or quarters. The key to handling slumps is to avoid getting into one in the first place. I share 9 quick tips to get out and stay out of a sales slump in this slide deck below. In the rest of this article, I’ll explain how to get out of a sales slump – and stay out!
Way back in 1962, a company was struggling through a massive slump. They couldn’t even make a profit and had to do something. They had to change things up, and what they did was they decided to work hard and, in fact, ‘work harder’ became their goal, their mantra. In fact, they said, “We try harder”. That was their mantra. That was their goal. They decided we needed to put in more effort. And that effort is what made all the difference to turn their business around.
We simply need to try harder.
Sales slump is a common phenomenon | How to get out of a sales slump
A slump could be defined as a sudden downward spiral right or a sudden downward decrease in anything, sales performance, activity, profitability, or anything from time to time and sales. It’s natural to experience a slump from time to time.
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Before A Slump | How to get out of a sales slump
Things you should do before a slump:
Start Saving For A Raining Day
Live within your means. If you’ve got a comfortable base salary and your average monthly commission is predictable, you live within those means for your monthly expenses. Even if you have a great month, reward yourself a little bit. But don’t blow the bank. Invest some of that money. Save it for a rainy day.
Establish A Referral Network
You need to start building your network of possible referrals who can send business your way as soon as possible, even when you’re not in a slump. You see what happens quite often: sales reps are in a slump. They’re in a downturn. They’re having problems. They’re not closing deals or, even worse, maybe not even finding prospects or leads to meet with, and they struggle. They panic. They start looking through their database, phone, and contact lists and reaching out to people. Hey, who do you know who might need our product or service? By then, it’s too late.
Keep Existing Customers Happy
We are so busy moving on to that next deal. Sometimes, we neglect our customers, even our best customers, even though it’s a lot easier to get repeat business from customers than it is to go out there and try to close new ones. It’s much easier to get more money from existing customers than people who don’t even know or trust us. So, if we know that to be true, why don’t we spend enough time with our existing customers?
During A Slump | How to get out of a sales slump
Things you should do during a slump:
Find Out The Reason For The Slump
What you need to do as soon as you’re in a sales slump is to recognize that you’re in a slump. You need to realize it. So, how do you know? Maybe you notice your productivity level has gone down, you’re not making as many calls as you used to, you’re not getting as many meetings as you did before, or you’re just not closing as many deals at the same dollar amount that you were before. So, whatever your telltale signs are, you must first recognize when you’re in a slump. Then, ask a real honest question: what is the reason for the slump, whether it’s internal or external?
If It’s External
If your slump is due to a recession, refresh your marketing collaterals, sales deck, sales approach, elevator speech, presentation style, and things you have control over to reflect the changing market conditions better and stand out from the competition. Maybe your marketing collaterals, sales deck, sales approach, elevator pitch, presentation style, and things you control are outdated, and competitors have a better version of that.
If It’s Internal
Get excited and chase that commission. You can do that by learning something new. There’s probably been some innovation and some changes, so refresh, learn more, and ensure you’ve got all the product knowledge possible. Go on a plant tour or a site inspection or walk through the factory, walk through the office, see how your product is made, see the different departments, talk to different people, get a different perspective, a fresh look on an old product that can motivate you. Maybe there’s a course you want to take, a book you want to read, a website you want to look at, a video you want to watch or a podcast you want to listen to. There are so many different things you can do internally to motivate yourself and fire yourself up.
Get Back to Basic
When they’re in a slump, salespeople often decide to change everything. They change everything and they start from scratch and they try to reinvent the wheel, they take on a whole bunch of new complicated things. Get back to basics. There are probably some fundamentals of sales that are being neglected, causing the slump.
The One Thing That Makes The Biggest Difference – Try Harder
It’s not talent. It’s not upbringing or education or resources. It’s none of that stuff that’s going to make the difference between winning and losing. It’s none of that that’s gonna separate you guys from your competitors. It’s not that at all, it’s “Will you try harder?”
Whether you believe you will fail or succeed – you’re right.
The secret to success in sales starts with having the right mindset.
You need to learn how to stay motivated when the economy slows down, when customers say no and when things aren’t going their way.
It’s often a strong sense of internal motivation that separates the top performers from the underachievers, which is why we consider mindset to be the foundation of sales excellence.
In this course, Mindset For Sales Success, we cover everything from common pitfalls to avoid when managing remote teams to effective communication and remote teams and methods of keeping staff motivated while working from home.