If you’ve been in any kind of sales position, a business owner, and/or manager for any length of time you’ve most likely experienced sales burnout. I always know I’m “in a bad place” when after winning a deal it’s a pain to fill out the contract. One of my sales people tell me about a deal they won and while I show excitement I’m not. These should always be good things, right? What happened to the passion? The “I can’t wait to go to work” attitude?
I was involved in a fairly large opportunity where they had an eight member team that was to recommend the vendor. After a long process, where many times we thought we were in the lead, we lost the deal. Heart breaker. During the sales process Starbucks Coffee was offered. Not a bad thing right? Except my salesman did it almost every week, sometimes a couple of times a week, to the person heading up the decision. There were some serious politics between this team that we weren’t exactly privy to. Prior to one of the meetings this same salesman sent a message to all eight asking what they would like to drink. He said “I already know what Jill wants how about the rest?” At that point she went out of her way to not show us any favoritism. Prior to this she had been our advocate.
Your new opportunity is cruising along beautifully (at least you think so) and then all of the sudden nothing. The contact goes “dark” and can’t be reached. The deal stalls. Your experience tells you this is not good. Your manager is telling you this is not good. Panic sets in and desperation moves start to make sense. Blind discount offers, stalking calls and emails and/or a surprise visit will do the trick. Unfortunately, most of the time not effective. So what works?
The reality of working for a company with a 100% sales commission plan (non-salary) is that it can be lucrative. Seriously lucrative. It also can be extremely frustrating with the highs and lows of an unpredictable income. To succeed takes a certain type of personality and support system. This is not theory for me. I worked a 100% commission plan for over 10 years and raised a young family of 6 on it. Not only can I sympathize but empathize with those doing the same or similar. So how did my family and I survive with such an unpredictable income?
