In August, I wrote how a kitesurfing accident that left me in a coma triggered a deep curiosity on the topic of resilience: the ability to brush yourself off after getting knocked down. I wanted to find out what we can learn from people who don’t just get back on their feet, but actually come out stronger – and how to apply their skills in the sales profession. Because the reality is that in sales, we’re exposed to a steady stream of setbacks, which could lead to disappointment, stress or demotivation. Yet, we don’t really get trained on how to best handle these upsetting events. Some of us cope well, others don’t. Why is that? This is the third article to share what I’ve learned about resilience for the sales professional.
Picture this. You worked super hard to hit your target, but this year, the sheer number of unexpected ups and downs made it practically near-impossible. Your key sponsor at that mega deal you’ve been working on resigned, pushing it into next year. For opportunities that you did manage to close, prospects threw you so many last-minute curve balls, that your whole legal team unfriended you on Facebook. They even ignore your outreaches on LinkedIn messenger. Your best solution consultant went to the competition, and although the new guy has potential, that wasn’t exactly what you needed in the last quarter. To top it off, management introduced new pricing and discount approval processes that make you wonder what they exactly mean when they tell you to be customer-centric.
Still, somehow, at the end of the rollercoaster ride that we call Q4, you made it. You hit target! Like Tom Hanks’ incomprehensible dodging of bullets, grenades, shrapnel and rockets amidst the complete chaos on Omaha Beach, you made it and you’re still in one piece. Phew!
Then, in the first week of the new financial year, it slowly sinks in. That shitty inner-voice you’ve been suppressing during your well-deserved, but all-too short break, gets louder and louder. When the invite for Sales Kick Off lands in your inbox, there’s no way around it – you have to face it. You. Are. Back. To. Zero. Yep – your YTD bookings are exactly $0! Your new target looks Pretty Big and Improbable and you’re not sure where to start. Welcome to the new Financial Year.
I spent two weeks in the Intensive Care Unit after my kitesurfing accident, followed by six long rollercoaster weeks in hospital. Too many operations to count, and too little energy to fully grasp all the ups and downs. But finally, after 54 days and nights in hospital, I got discharged. On 17 January 2014, under the watchful eye of my lovely wife, and on crutches, I wobbled back into our home. I was over the moon to have her with me around the clock, and to sleep in my own bed again. To not have the constant noise around me from doctors and other patients, and to have proper food (no offence, Chef de Cuisine of Royal North Shore Hospital).
Still, that first week back home felt a bit like the first week of the new Financial Year. I had fought so hard through all the ups and downs, just to get to zero. Arriving home was just the start of the journey. Numerous operations still lay ahead, as well as several months of hospital check-ups, 13 teeth to repair, and at least a year of physiotherapy. What I really wanted, was to get to the end. I wanted My Old Life Back. I wanted what I had before the accident.That was my target.
However meaningful (see Part 2) the target of Having My Old Life Back was to me, it felt, well…, Pretty Big and Improbable. So, here’s what I did.
First, I defined success. “Having My Old Life Back” is not exactly a tangible goal that you can measure, so I broke it down into sub-goals. One of those sub-goals was kitesurfing. If I were able to kitesurf again, I would have that aspect of my life back. Other sub-goals were around going back to work, getting to my old body weight, being able to do the Govetts Leap hike in the Blue Mountains, being able to drive, and many more. All of them together represented my target of Having My Old Life Back.
However, these sub-goals, and particularly the kitesurfing one, still looked Pretty Big and Improbable. To make them more manageable, I broke them down further into S.M.A.R.T. (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Timely) goals to work on over the year I gave myself to recover. For instance, I wanted to kitesurf again on or before 31 December 2014. Working back from that date, I targeted doing that hike by 1 December latest. Working back from that, I had to be able to walk 10km by 1 October, and 5km by 1 August. A first (wave)surf session by 1 June. Swim 10 laps by 1 May, and 4 laps by 1 April. From my very rough calculations and assumptions, that sub-goal of kitesurfing by 31 December meant that by 1 March, I should make it to the roundabout. That roundabout is located just 40 meters from where we live, the first waypoint on the road to the beach, and my first S.M.A.R.T. goal.
Then, I determined what activities I needed to do to reach those S.M.A.R.T. goals. In the first week, that was 5 squats times 2 a day. Lifting 2 kilo weights, times 5. The exercise with the elastic resistance bands – 10 times 2. In the second week, 10 squats times 2 a day, lifting 3 kilo weights, and so on. That Pretty Big and Improbable goal of kitesurfing had become very specific and therefore, a lot more realistic.
I printed the 3 pages of the spreadsheet with S.M.A.R.T. goals, activities and their timelines and stuck it to the wall in the bedroom. For many months, this spreadsheet was the first thing I looked at in the morning, and the last thing I updated in the evening. I made it to the roundabout on the 24th of February, and ended up kitesurfing on 28th September! Sure, I had setbacks – surfing took a year longer because the wrist didn’t heal and the joint unfortunately fused together. Fixing the teeth took over 2 years. I unexpectedly developed gallstones and had an emergency operation to remove the gall bladder. Pain befriended me. But those setbacks were easier to digest because my spreadsheet kept me stubbornly focused on the short term activities for the next goal. And this focus gave me the confidence that it would eventually lead me to my end goal. And it did; I not only have my life back, I have a much better life now, nearly 5 years after the accident.
Back to your sales challenge. You just received your Pretty Big and Improbable target and weren’t sure where to start. Here’s what I suggest you do. Follow this same approach by breaking it down in to S.M.A.R.T. goals and start with the end. From historical data, calculate your Average Deal Size. With that, determine how many deals you need to win to get to target. Using your previous win rates, calculate how many qualified opportunities you therefore need. Knowing your average deal cycle, calculate how they roughly should be distributed over the quarters. Determine how many stage 1 opportunities you’ll need by what date. How many qualified leads, how many first meetings, how many unqualified leads. Finally, you’ll give yourself a target of how many email and phone reach outs you need to do this week to get those new unqualified leads.
Even if numbers are not going to be 100% correct, this approach enforces a mindset to break down a Pretty Big and Improbable task into a set of very specific activities. Sales still is a numbers game and activity creates opportunity. Thoroughly plan it all first, then focus on execution, and trust the process along the way. Lock in a monthly review to see if you’re on track, fine-tune the sub-goals, dates, and activities, and just keep going at it. Before you know it, you’ll reach your roundabout.
In August, I wrote how a kitesurf accident that left me in a coma triggered a deep curiosity about resilience: the ability to brush yourself off after getting knocked down. I wanted to find out what we can learn from people who don’t just get back on their feet, but actually come out stronger – and how to apply their skills in the sales profession. Because the reality is that in sales, we’re exposed to a steady stream of setbacks, which could lead to disappointment, stress or demotivation. Yet, we don’t normally get trained on how to best handle these upsetting events. Some of us cope well, others don’t. Why is that? This is the first follow-up article to share what I’ve learned about resilience for the sales professional.
Let’s debunk the first myth straight away. Resilience is not a trait. It is not a characteristic that you’re either born with, or not. Resilient sales people are not ‘just tough and determined individuals’ that shrug their shoulders when difficulties arise. The behaviours that make people resilient are in fact based on skills and practices that are teachable. Things that you as an individual, and organisation, can put in place to be better prepared when hard times hit. Sheryl Sandberg, who unexpectedly lost her husband and wrote a book to share her lessons learned on the harrowing journey that followed, says that resilience can be built. It is not about having a backbone. It’s about strengthening the muscles around our backbone, she writes. Although her experience is way more heart wrenching than mine, one commonality stood out for me. She needed to get her life back on track, just like me after my accident. We both had a ‘meaningful cause’, a higher purpose to reach for, that kept us focused during our recovery – a journey with its own number of setbacks along the way – and helped us pull through.
To appreciate how purpose builds resilience, Mandela’s plight is as impactful as it gets. The setbacks he experienced – including the 27 years he spent in jail – did not make him give up his fight against apartheid. Quite the opposite – he really came out stronger when he became the president of South Africa in 1994. Malala, the Pakistani schoolgirl who fought for gender equality in education and got shot in the face by the Taliban, showed a similar resilience. She not only survived her ordeal, but decided to bring her crusade to the global stage, becoming a UN Messenger of Peace, and the youngest ever Nobel Prize winner in 2014. She is also now doing speaking engagements across the world, and will be in Australia in December.
Us sales professionals tend to not have as idealistic a cause as Mandela or Malala, but if we want to be more resilient, we’d be wise to seek a higher cause than our quarterly commission cheque. The companies I worked for that had a clear and inspiring vision did much better in retaining talent when we hit some rough patches. Sales professionals who really bought into the positive change that the company was bringing to the world were the ones who were always more determined, while seemingly needing less energy! The reps who were there just for the money were the first ones to give up when times got tough. A vision creates meaning, which in turn, builds determination.
What if your company doesn’t have a meaningful purpose or vision? I suggest you don’t wait for HQ to inspire you – the strongest vision that made me power through hard times at work was the one where we as a local team agreed to build the best sales team in Australia (and I believe we did!). What if your team can’t agree on one? Create your own. Find a deeper meaning than your quarterly target. Asses the skills you’re building and determine how they support your overall career over the long run. Print them out, and hang them up to remind yourself of what you’re working towards when times get tough. In part 3, I’ll be sharing insights around how setting specific goals around my vision helped me built resilience during my recovery.
Even if you’ve only been in B2B sales for a short while, you already know this: Sales is exciting and fun, but also comes with disappointment. As sales professionals, we are exposed to many events that can cause stress, anger or frustration. We have prospects who don’t call us back, we miss out on RFPs, we don’t get shortlisted, we miss our target, we lose an existing customer, we get meetings cancelled on us without reason, and we are given territory restructures and targets we don’t always agree with. Most of all, we lose more deals than we win. I’m not asking for pity here, but a career in sales is also a career with enough, let’s say, opportunity for disappointment.
Good sales people brush themselves off after getting knocked down. Great sales people go further. They actually thrive in the face of stress, setbacks and adversity, and come out stronger. They are resilient sales professionals. After 20 years in sales, I like to think I am one of them. I’m still going strong, with the conviction that every year, I am getting better at it. But at a personal level, my resilience got the test of a life-time a couple of years ago. I am a very experienced kitesurfer, but got involved in a horrible accident; I somehow got entangled in another kitesurfer’s lines, got lifted up and fell 30 feet down onto the beach – face first. A trauma helicopter raced me to the hospital where X-rays revealed my face was shattered into 9 pieces, my pelvis broke off my spine, my wrist was beyond repair and vital organs had been damaged by bone splinters. I was in a coma for the first 10 days, and had dozens and dozens of hours of surgery in the weeks after. I left the hospital two months later, and although I lost 10 kilos in body weight, I gained a total of 47 screws, 11 titanium plates, and one brand spanking new titanium eye socket.
It took nearly two years to fully recover, with lots of setbacks along the way. Once I got my life back, I felt the way a race horse must feel after her blinkers are removed at the finish line of the Melbourne Cup Race. Exhausted, satisfied but not exactly sure what happened. From doctors, surgeons and physiotherapist, I kept hearing how lucky I had been and how my determination made it a very unusual recovery (did I mention I am kitesurfing again?). They told me that other people wouldn’t have made it to such a great outcome. To start with, a third of Intensive Care Unit survivors falls into depression. What Nietzsche said is wrong. What doesn’t kill you, doesn’t make you stronger. Not necessarily. Many people come out weaker, or barely get their old life back; physically or mentally.
In the corporate environment, people who experience serious setbacks don’t always come out stronger either. Instead, the continuous flow of setbacks slowly demoralises or burns them out. Which explains why we are all familiar with terms like Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), Anxiety, Stress at Work, Burnout, Depression and so on. Sure, there are inspirational stories of people who somehow scramble back up, but in popular media, not much attention is devoted to how these people exactly manage to come out stronger.
I became curious about that very topic. What is it they do, and what can we learn from them so we are better equipped when we face a great deal of adversity in sales? Because the reality is that in my career, I’ve had many, many sales trainings, but not one of them on resilience. Not even a few pointers. We’re just supposed to dust ourselves off and get back in the saddle. Clearly, more resilient sales people would bring higher productivity, create a more fun work environment, more stability and consistency, more happiness, and lead to more deals won.So I started reading. About resilience. About positive psychology. About the plasticity of the brain, and the working of hormones like cortisol, dopamine, and adrenaline. I read autobiographies from Mandela and Malala, to understand their incredible journeys of resilience. I read books from CEOs about how they guided their companies through turbulence and setback after setback. And I found a few common themes, or skills which resilient people apply. All of them are applicable in corporate sales. I am super excited to present these in a first workshop this week, and will be sharing my findings on my website and linkedin in the coming period. Stay tuned!
