New Sales Job? Don’t Give Up Too Soon
Jeb Blount offers advice on how to stick with your new sales job.
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New Sales Job? Don’t Give Up Too Soon
My company, SalesGravy.com is the most visited sales career site on the planet. For this reason, my phone never stops ringing from hiring managers, employers, and recruiters who ask the same question again and again, “Why can’t I find good salespeople?”
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I spoke to a recruiter for one of the largest, most prestigious telecom companies. She said, “I’m desperate to find good salespeople.”
Then I took a call from an executive for an advertising company who said “We get salespeople in the door it is getting them to work that is the problem.”
Another executive at a major business services company lamented about the high rate of turnover with the new salespeople he hires.
I’ve been engaged in so many of these conversations lately it has my head spinning. We make our living helping companies from Fortune 500s to start-ups find and hire better salespeople. I wanted to answer this question. I wanted a solution I could bring to the table to help solve our clients’ problems. That answer, the magic pill for sales hiring, would be gold.
Then yesterday, in a conversation with a principle at a major insurance firm, my client said, “Most of our new sales recruits don’t stick around long enough to reap the benefits of their efforts. They give up to soon.”
That’s when I realized that as always, there is no magic pill. The complaints about finding good salespeople had nothing at all to do with hiring practices. Despite all of the effort and resources sales organizations devote to hiring assessments, compensation, training, mentoring, and retention, the long-term success of the individual salesperson is a character trait carried by that salesperson – persistence.
Last year we hired a sales rep to sell advertising for Sales Gravy. We gave her training, guidance, support, and leads. When she started I had a heart to heart conversation with her in which I told her that the first 60 days would the hardest days she would face. I said there was no getting around this. She would have to prospect daily to build her pipeline. She would hear a lot of nos, there would be mistakes made and embarrassment as she learned to present a new, unfamiliar product.
Our new rep worked hard for exactly 29 days. Then I got the call. She was quitting. There were lots of excuses: the job was overwhelming; she didn’t feel like she was having success; maybe advertising sales wasn’t the best fit. I explained again that these feelings were to be expected. This was something new and if she just stuck with it for a little while longer her efforts would pay off. But her mind was already made up. She quit.
We got on the phone and followed up with all of the prospects she had put into her pipeline. She had done a great job in her first 29 days of getting qualified prospects into the sales funnel. So good, in fact that we closed 100% of the opportunities she had developed. Her commission on these sales would have been $7000. Instead she received zero.
Why is this important to you?
Most people when faced with challenges quit too soon; most often right as they are on the cusp of success. This is especially true with salespeople in new sales jobs. Starting a new sales job and taking on new challenges is frustratingly hard. There are many dark days when you feel like all you do is fail and there is no hope. As you get closer to success things actually seem bleaker. You are tired, beat-up and worn down. It is at this point that faith and persistence have to take you the last mile.
Faith is crucial – faith that by doing the right things every day the cumulative impact of these actions will pay-off. In sales this means consistently prospecting, qualifying, presenting and following up. Faith is an internal belief system that you create that helps you remain focused on working towards your goal when no tangible evidence exists that the hard work you are doing will get you there.
Persistence is the fuel of winners. Persistence is determination to win in spite of self-doubt, roadblocks, failure, embarrassment, and setbacks. Persistence picks you up off the ground, dusts you off, and sends you back into the game. Persistence is the last, final push that sends you across the finish line.
If you have just started a new sales job I promise that the first few months will be miserable. It won’t be easy to learn new behaviors. Each day you will be given a dozen reasons to quit. Don’t do it. Don’t quit! Instead get up every day, reflect on your past success, and consistently do the sales activities that build your funnel. I guarantee that if you do the right things, have faith that your efforts will pay off and persevere when you are ready to quit, you will be rewarded.
This is Jeb Blount, the Sales Guy. If you have a sales question please send it to salesguy@quickanddirtytips.comcreate new email.
Salesperson image courtesy of Shutterstock