Control Issues
Like many salespeople, I'm a bit of a control enthusiast, but there comes a time when for everybody's benefit you just need to let it go.
Sales, like golf, is a results-oriented game. When you're held accountable for the results that you deliver, it's only natural that you're going to want to control as many of the factors in that game as humanly possible. The problem is that you will never be able to control as much as you want to, regardless of how badly you want to.
2014 was the most difficult year of my career. That's not something I would have expected, considering that in 2013 I was sales rep of the year for my company, but then things went sideways.
Conditions in the market changed, and revenue dipped across the board. I wasn't losing any business to my competitors, but my customers were using fewer products like mine.
You'll find that this happens in just about every industry- there are ebbs and flows in product cycles. More often than not, they're cyclical and you can even anticipate them coming and going. Good companies will have multiple products in multiple phases of their respective cycles in order to insulate the overall revenue from these relative shifts.
Some of the best reps are able to sell their way through these cycles- they find ways to use current products to solve new problems. Other reps land that big customer at just the right time, and their revenue numbers make it look like they didn't take the same hit.
Sometimes regardless of your skill, your process, your discipline, your work ethic, and even your sheer will, you just can't sell something that people believe they have a reason not to buy.
That was me, and it almost broke me.
You see, I was the guy you could always count on. I was the guy who always had a little extra left in the tank at the end of the month or the quarter to help get the team home.
In 2014 I was not that guy. In fact, I'd see the reports at the end of the month and notice that my manager would miss the region’s number but roughly the same amount I was missing mine. That did not sit well with me.
I did end up sitting in a therapist’s office though, where an outsider’s point of view made me see what I was missing all along. Expectations put on me both by my company and myself, were absolutely unreasonable, and it was not doing me any good to hold myself to such an unfair standard.
"But you don't understand..." I said.
“Please tell me what I'm not understanding...”
She had me. I didn't have an answer for her. It was then that the clouds in the sky parted and I started to see a little sunshine. Maybe she was right.
I was not an old dog that couldn't be taught new tricks. I was not a complacent veteran who refused to prospect. In fact, I was finding new opportunities and looking in all kinds of places for new business.
Most of these prospects were not going to be good fits though, and my manager concurred. They didn't see the value in what we had to offer, let alone willing to pay a premium for it. Even though the revenue would have been nice, there would have been more problems than the revenue would have been worth, and they certainly weren't going to help our brand. So we passed.
It's still felt like a kick in the teeth every time. The fact remains, it was the right thing to do.
There literally was nothing I could do to sell through this situation. There was a dip in the market, in my book of business was very mature. I did not have another significant product line that I could use as a hedge. I was stuck, and my ego took the biggest hit.
What I learned by sitting in that therapist's office, and what I've thought a lot about in the years since is that trying to control things that are out of your control is a fool’s errand. Being in a situation where you're asked to is downright unfair.
I was still the guy who could be counted on, but there weren't any opportunities that made sense. We needed something else a new product or at least a new story. While those were being worked on, we were kind of stuck.
We are taught that if you set the right goals, and take the right action steps to achieve them, then anything is possible. This optimism is uplifting in most cases. It shows people that they're usually is away. It reminds people that there is way more potential inside them than they usually give credit. Still, there are no suggestions in those axioms that forces bigger than you could still have a say in things.
What is to be gained by pressing? What kind of position do you put yourself in by being desperate? In those situations, it is almost impossible to do anything remotely close to your best work.
Part of the PARE process is an assessment of how you arrived at your current state. A vital piece of that assessment is whether or not those events were in or out of your control.
Most times, you're in a slump or a deficit because you've missed a few fundamental steps along the way. Other times, the market shifts out of your favor, and you just aren't equipped to battle back.
In those cases, the next best steps are to identify the things that are still in your control that will get you moving forward again, and re-evaluating those initial expectations.
As usual, when you focus on what you can do, you end up getting a lot more done. I'm happy to argue that that's the only way you can reasonably expect success.
There's a lot going on right now in the world that is much bigger than you, and could be getting in your way, Regardless of how much you wish it isn't. Reset your expectations, revisit your processes, and focus on moving forward- even in small steps. You'll find that you'll cover the most ground that way.
The events of 2014 led me to make a big change. In 2015 I started my coaching and consulting business. Incidentally, when I left, I was on a pace to be my best year ever. The industry rebounded a bit, and some of the seeds that I had sewn during that dry spell were starting to bear fruit.
Process is something you can control, but results and timing? Not so much...
When you focus on a process, you get results. When you focus on results, you get frustrated (and occasionally you get therapy bills).
If you're stuck right now, do an assessment. It's one of the biggest reasons I wrote When It Goes Sideways because we all need the reminder from time to time that we're not above it all, and when you can see clearly, you can do your best work.
What do you think? Does any of this sound familiar? Hit reply or join in the conversation in my free community.
Jeff Bajorek
Real. Authentic. Experience.
There’s a big difference between knowing how to sell and being able to. Jeff Bajorek spent over a decade in the field as a top performer. He’s been in your shoes. He knows what it will take. He can help you succeed.
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