Have you experienced a period when you simply couldn’t sell?

If your answer is no, then you are either one of the world’s best salespeople or you haven’t been doing the job very long.

Here are the symptoms: it generally starts when a deal that you really need fails to materialise, that sets off a negative loop. You feel a bit down, so you don’t try very hard, consequentially, your sales performance drops. And this of course, repeats.

It seems to be part of the character of some sales people that they have a 'bi-polar’ type of behaviour. When things are going well, they are big-spenders, party animals. When the going is tough, they get depressed and enter the downward spiral.

Here’s what I have found to fix the problem. Do some energetic prospecting, even if you don’t feel like it. Taking action is the key. Sitting around feeling sorry for yourself doesn’t help and it seems to have no time-limit either. Doing something constructive changes your perspective and with sufficient energy input, you can be sure of getting a sale or two. Success breeds success. Even small orders make you feel better, then you can build from there.

I’ve found myself in a sales desert a number of times and been tempted to quit selling and try something else. My advice to you if you think the same way is don’t do it if making good money is important to you. Over a couple of decades, I have observed that people who have in sales jobs are likely to progress to higher levels in their organisation and make a great deal of money along the way. The problem with changing careers is that the knowledge and skills that you have accumulated in a prior occupation may give you little advantage in a different job.

To keep myself motivated to sell, I need only think of one day about 10 years ago. I’d taken 3 months off from my regular work to do some renovations to my elderly father’s house. It was great to be doing something different, but I was living on savings for the period. When I got back to my sales job, I had no money in the bank and all my old leads were either sold or had gone cold. Fortunately my wife had the right instinct, she told me to, ‘Get out there and knock on some doors’. And I did, literally.

A couple of miles from my home there is a science / business park. I began prospecting door-to-door. The first place I called on told me, ‘We tried sales-training, it doesn’t work’. The next company was full of white-coated lab technicians who looked at me as though I had just arrived from outer space. We certainly didn’t establish communication. On attempt three, the branch office of a major insurance company, the Sales-Manager said, I’m busy right now, come back in an hour. When I returned these were his exact words, ‘I’ve got thirty people and I want to give them two sessions starting in week’s time’.

I gave no presentation whatsoever. And amazingly, he went on to say, ‘Send me your invoice now. I need to pay it before our financial year ends’. So I sent in my bill, received a cheque, and then he postponed the job three times before I finally did it.

My stats for that day of prospecting: I called on 11 companies in about 4 hours of door-knocking. Three organisations had some interest and one of them gave me a series of work worth over $10,000. Including the insurance company, the total value of jobs obtained that day was $14,000.

A taste of success gave me back my motivation and this experience taught me a lesson about how to deal with sales slumps.

‘Energetic action’ worked for me and I think it will for you too.