My Candle burns at both ends
it will not last the night.
But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends
It gives a lovely light.

Edna St. Vincent Millay, “First Fig”

Burnout – the experience of exhaustion and disinterest – is a debilitating condition in any role, but it’s particularly damaging for those in sales roles. In other professions it’s possible to soldier on at 70% and just about get the job done. But selling is very much a “confidence game” – and a salesman lacking in energy and enthusiasm wil get 0% results.

Worse still – perhaps the most powerful mechanism to help employees recover from stress and burnout, a supportive work environment and social system – is often unavailable to salespeople. Many salespeople rarely interact with peers or others in their organisation. They’re out on the road or meeting prospects. With the exception of occasional meetings with their sales manager, they just don’t have the kind of work environment conducive to providing social support to mitigate the effects of burnout.

Burnout can often be a vicious circle. Lower energy and enthusiasm leads to poor results. Pretty quickly, self-defense mechanisms can set it – with the salesman beginning to blame luck, a poor product, bad marketing, anything but themselves. Soon, results get worse and cynicism sets in. If only the salesperson had better leads or a better product….but they don’t. The salesperson feels more out of control, more stressed – and sales drop again.

Now I’m no psychiatrist or therapist – and I wouldn’t presume to hold the answer for anyone in the painful throes of burnout except to say that if you’re suffering – get help.

But what I can do is offer some thoughts on how I’ve got myself out of bad patches where I’ve begun to drift into burnout mode.

There have always been two things that have helped restore my energy levels and my enthusiasm – no matter how bleak things are looking.

The first is learning. I’ve always been motivated by learning new skills and gaining new understanding. Reading a high quality sales or marketing book or listening to an audio will often inspire me – or at the very least interest me to try the techniques or ideas from the book. Often this little trigger is enough to set me on a positive spiral.

The second is to help others. I find that when mentoring or simply giving advice my cynicism drops and I often rediscover my motivation for selling. Motivating others seems to work to raise my own motivation levels – it’s as if I’m secretly listening to myself and taking everything onboard in a more powerful way than if someone else had been saying the same things to me.

Of course, different things will work for diferent people. You might find these methods work for you if you’re beginning to feel burned out. Or you might find that you can discover something in your history that works better for you. Either way – try something.