When there is a significant reduction in sales, it is enough to get any business owner’s attention. It has the potential to leave us gasping for air if they go completely. What transpired that led to this consequence? What steps can you take, and how quickly should they be taken, to stop this?! All of these questions come packaged with a lethal concoction of self-doubt that has the potential to render you immobile and unable to think straight. If that’s where you find yourself right now, grab a seat, make yourself at home, and get ready to take on this enormous obstacle with me. If something like this has already occurred to you, pay attention to what I have to say so that you can avoid such situations in the future.
Why do we see both increases and decreases in sales?
There is a phenomenon that occurs in sales that is referred to as the Sales Roller Coaster Cycle. It is a reference to the pattern of sales that increases, then decreases, and then increases once again. What ends up occurring is that when we are in a financial bind, we allow our obligations to inspire us from the outside in. After that, we put in a lot of effort and ultimately secure enough sales to alleviate the monetary strain. Once that occurs, we are free to coast, savoring the results of our effort while taking pleasure in the fact that our sales have reached their highest point. The next thing we know, we wake up one morning to the realization that our sales funnel is empty with nothing closing. Because it takes time to create sales, we will already be behind the competition by the time we understand this. This time to create is comparable to the gestation period required to manufacture a sale and may range anywhere from 90 days to 6 months in length. If you are not actively filling your prospect funnel, there will eventually be a gap, which will result in you having a small number of prospects. Then, when we have no money left over, we are forced to become motivated. We felt the pressure from the outside world to produce some sales in order to alleviate our financial predicament.
This pattern may continue for many years until…. Something is different now. After that, you observe a decline in sales, which sends you into a state of worry. It would appear that every potential customer you speak to abandons the conversation, and you are unable to put anything together that appears to have any promise.
Your experience in sales won’t be enough to prepare you for this…
There is no sales training that will adequately prepare you for the battle that you are now going through. The war you have to fight is the one you have to fight with yourself. Indeed, your mental attitude and ability to concentrate are the most important factors. It is all about you. You have, during the course of the Sales Roller Coaster Cycle, kept a sharp attention on the requirements of the prospects. Your customer will sense this when you are just focused on what you require from them. You give the customer the impression that obtaining the transaction is more important to you than looking out for their best interests. Because of this, they decide not to make the purchase. As the prolonged lack of economic growth persists, the signals that you are sending to the prospect become more powerful. You’re getting close to having what I like to term “commission breath.” That particular signal notifies the client that you are trying to ‘get’ them. They get the impression that all you care about is your commission, which destroys the faith they previously had in you and the service or product you provide.
“It is not your talent that decides your height; rather, it is your attitude that does so.”
– Zig Ziglar
Pitfalls associated with commission-based sales
After you have changed your emphasis away from serving your client and their requirements, you will finally be able to breathe easy about your commission!
STORY – An investigation was carried out on people who had survived conditions similar to those of a concentration camp in order to identify the qualities that were shared by those individuals. That question was answered by Victor Frankl, who lived and breathed every day. He had established himself as a respected psychiatrist when the Nazis sent him to one of their death camps. Following his release from captivity, Victor Frankl went throughout the world telling his tale. “The only reason I am here today is because of one particular circumstance. You kept me alive. Some people given up hope entirely. I dreamt. I used to have this fantasy that one day I would be able to tell you how I, Victor Frankl, had survived the concentration camps run by the Nazis. I have never gone to this location before, I have never met any of you before, and this is a speech that I have never delivered before. But in my dreams, oh my dreams, I have appeared before you a thousand times and spoken these things.”
Your mental concentration influences result. Victor Frankl made it through the ordeal because he maintained a positive outlook and kept his attention directed forward. Even though his circumstances were extremely precarious, he made it a point to concentrate about and center his thoughts on the day when he would be set free. Nothing could deter him from achieving his objective. The horrible circumstances in which he was forced to live served only to serve as a constant reminder of what he would eventually be able to escape. Because he made the conscious decision to “focus” his gaze on what was “good and right,” the morass of agony and suffering that he was forced to go through became the very cornerstone of his liberation that was destined to be achieved.
Follow these easy measures to get your sales back on track.
The greatest thing you can do to break out of a sales rut is to take a few deep breaths and calm yourself. It’s probable that you’ll want to run every aspect of the most recent prospect encounter through your head. You’ll want to check to see if there is anything that you skipped, but there’s no need to worry about it. You could also discover that you are underestimating the quality of the leads that you spoke to; if this is the case, you should avoid doing that as well. If you have lost more sales than usual, it is necessary to investigate the factor that is responsible for the most portion of the lost sales. Your mentality might be said to reside there. This is what we refer to as your mindset’s focus.
4 Steps to Changing your mentality and shifting your emphasis in sales
The majority of the time, when individuals do end up changing their opinions, it’s over rather unimportant aspects of our lives. You will need to shift your attention in order to change the way you think. Follow the instructions here:
• Recount your previous victories – make a list of them so you can look back on them and remind yourself of how far you’ve come.
• Take a step back and consider the big picture – instead of concentrating on making sales, give primary attention to the product you wish to develop. Concentrate on carrying out each stage of the sales process and determining how you will assist each individual in obtaining the assistance they want from you.
• Learn to control your feelings – Your feelings will make it much more difficult for you to shift the way that your mind is focusing on something. Because of this, fear has the potential to become deeply ingrained in our subconscious mind. Spend as much time as you need to in order to calm down, and if at all feasible, establish a pattern that will help you relax.
• Engage in self-talk that is constructive – To begin, engaging in constructive self-talk can help calm your emotional unconscious mind. The next step is to reaffirm what you intend to zero down on and what you intend to do in order to assist each potential customer throughout the sales process, notwithstanding the outcome of the previous step. Your inner self-talk will no longer be able to divert your attention as you go forward as a result of this.
Prepare yourself for peaks and valleys in sales.
One more component has to be discussed now that you have a clear knowledge of how to properly “alter your mind” to adopt a new and more optimistic perspective. This is the way to avoid falling into a sales rut before it even begins to manifest itself. The following are some essential components that need to be established:
• Finances – Arrange your finances in such a way that you won’t need to go into a state of panic even if there is some variation in your sales. The guideline that I want to emphasize to my customers is an easy one. You need to have a sufficient amount of money put away so that you can continue to run the business for the number of months that it will take to acquire customers. That implies that you’ll need three months’ worth of funds if you start doing any promotion today and then sales start coming in three months from then on. If you have a longer sales cycle, for example six months for some business-to-business (B2B) transactions, then you will need to put aside six months for this purpose. If you don’t already have the money for this, you can acquire financing from a bank or an operational loan while you wait to build up your capital.
• Sales Dashboard – Create a sales dashboard and evaluate its performance once each week. If you follow this procedure, you will be provided with a frequent evaluation of your sales funnel. You won’t have to worry about showing up to work just to realize that it’s been a while since you’ve made a sale if you choose this course of action. Now is the time to cash it in. Consider this to be your primary means of early warning. If you use a dashboard, you won’t have to worry about what could be occurring during the night or lose sleep over it, which means you’ll be able to get some rest.• Prepare your mentality each day by reviewing your goals and deciding what frame of mind you want to have at the forefront of your thoughts. Do this each day. You shouldn’t wait for a customer to arrive before you shift your mentality. If you wait, you won’t be able to psychologically prepare yourself, and you’ll find yourself struggling against your fear just like you did before.