In my second year of sales, my sales manager ran me through an exercise that took about three minutes and completely calmed me from my rejection anxiety. You know, the feeling you get when you can’t seem to buy a sale. Those few times each year when your confidence gets knocked a little, when you regret not going to law school … you know those times, right?
It was toward the end of 1995. I was working my tail off, but couldn’t get anyone to schedule a demo or move any of my opportunities through the pipeline. Of course, I was beating up myself and he sensed it. My sales manager, Steve, was a 6’ 3” former major league baseball player, unafraid of any sales situation, and looked like Mr. Clean (really, he looked just like him). He came over to my cubicle, threw a blank piece of paper in front of me, and told me to do this…
“Draw a line down the center. In the left header, write the word ‘Control’. In the right header, write the word ‘Can’t Control’. Now, I want to think of 20 things that lead to success or failure during this time of year.” I wrote down topics like “25 daily cold calls”, “being prepared for all demos”, “persistent follow-up”, and “having the guts to ask for the order”. All of these ended up in the left column. I also wrote down topics like “end of year / holiday craziness”, “budget already spent”, and “relationship with competitor”. These were in the right column.
I developed a pretty good list. Simply writing down these reasons for sales outcomes was helpful. However, what Steve did next took it to the next level. He picked up the piece of paper, folded it down the middle, and showed me the left column only. “Are you doing these things?” I looked it over and said “Yeah, pretty much.” In his own way that he knew he could talk to me, he then said: “Ok, then quit whining and get back to work. It’ll come … don’t worry … it’ll come.” He then walked off into the sunset.
Actually, that really happened, but he walked back to his office. I still use this technique. My sales activity slows down dramatically in January and February – that’s just how it is when calling on security companies. This will be my sixth January in business, and the experience doesn’t make it too much easier. However, running myself through this simple exercise will keep me focused on the things under my control and will snap me back to reality. The fact is that I’ll have several requests for project proposals by the time ISC West rolls around, and as long as I stay grounded by using this exercise, I’ll be fine. It’ll come… it’ll come.
