A slump can happen to anyone. A period of few or no sales looms larger that life and saps the confidence out of the best of the best. As a sales manager, I used an accountability system that served many purposes not the least of which was early warning of an impending trouble area. I learned to tell when a salesman was having marital difficulties, money problems, illness, or depression. I could tell when they were job-shopping, losing interest, needing motivation, etc., all from the pattern of reporting on a daily form.
A slump can be caused by unrealistic quotas, the reasons above, or it might merely be a run of bad luck. The cure is always more productive activity, which may be more easily said than done. It is counter-intuitive to do unpleasant things when things are going badly. Lets face it, not all sales activity is fun. A bad time usually becomes a downward spiral.
So what can you do to wrest yourself out of the jaws of fearsome jaws of a sales slump. It depends somewhat on the experience humanity of your boss, but I suggest that you try to identify the distractions that are causing your dry spell. Your manager is more apt to cut you some slack and offer help if he knows that your life has taken a turn through something difficult, such as divorce, money problems, or other identifiable causes.
But for the most part, you are usually on your own to correct your performance problems. One thing that may help regain lost confidence is to spend one or more days per week calling on successful past clients as a courtesy call and perhaps to seek referrals. Familiarity and the positive feedback can't help but bolster your mood and confidence.
Another activity which can be useful is to "window-pane". This means to drive around your territory if it is a driving territory, and research or scout new places to call on, making notes about the type of business and the type of products that they might need. If it happens as it often does, that your interest is piqued further, you can play a game of incrementally luring yourself into investigating further. The ideal result of this activity is to make one call, then, with your blood flowing as a working salesman, may find yourself gaining a head of steam and making a gull contingent of calls. Making calls leads to sales. It is a given. So your slump may be over as quickly as it started. Ten good calls will generally uncover palpable leads which when followed up on will lead to sales. If not, you should probably seek another job.
Another helpful activity is to go to the library reference section and begin to build lists of places you'd do well to call on. Or you might use the computer available there to research probable prospects. The more you know about an account the better prepared you are to call on them. This type of preparation often excites your sales instincts to action. I don't recommend that you use your home computer for the above activity as managers generally frown on a salesman going home during work hours.
There is safety in numbers. Therefore it can often help to team up with another salesman making half the calls in each territory or alternating days. If you can do this with a seasoned or currently hot salesman, it may be that much more effective. Resist pairing up with other salesmen who may drag you down or who may be prone to gossip about the negatives of your jobs.
Make calls with the boss or with a trainer or with visiting higher managers.
Ride with service personnel or systems engineers if your organization uses them.
It sometimes helps to know that you are not alone in feeling reluctance to do the things that make salesmen successful, day in and day out. The truth is that a lot of the activities are not much fun. There are ways to make them more fun by playing games with yourself and competing with other salesmen. It is a good example of delayed gratification activities. There is even a name for the dread of getting down to work and making calls. Call reluctance. The best way to overcome call reluctance is jumping in with both feet and making a few calls. Once momentum is in your favor, things work much better.
You can reward yourself with a special indulgence of something enjoyable after making a self-agreed upon number of calls. Then there are times when you must just give yourself a break. It is not conducive to making your manager happy, but an occasional afternoon matinee is sometimes in order, or a round of gold if that's your thing. Watch out when going in to work the following day with sunburn that's inconvenient to explain.
Sales seminars, audio tapes for motivation and motivational trips and sales meetings are also helpful. You should know how to give yourself a pep-talk and pull out all stops and go to work. Work and reaching productivity benchmarks such as calls and demos are the best cure for most types of the sales blues.
Take your vacation when it is given. There is a reason workers are allotted vacations. Relaxation and rejuvenating oneself is crucial. But pick your time wisely. \
If a slump creeps on into months, your manager will be talking to you. It might be time for a new job, or a new career. It happens.
