Sales burnout can be one of your biggest enemies when working in a sales capacity. Fear not, however, because just about every salesperson or sales manager has dealt with this problem on some level.

Sales burnout is primarily caused from an imbalance in your personal life. When you do nothing but work, your mind can become overloaded pretty quickly. When we don’t give attention to our physical and spiritual elements, it ends up draining our minds to the point where our productivity continually gets worse.

Of all of the problems that a salesperson can be confronted with, I actually struggle with this one personally more than any other. The path to overcome this problem is simple, however. Exercise regularly, eat healthier, take time off to have some fun, spend more time with your family or friends, and give some attention to your own spiritual growth – whatever that might be in your own life. What you will find is that by giving attention to the other important areas of your life, it will in the end actually increase your overall productivity. Sales burnout can be beaten, so when the warning signs begin to show themselves make sure to take action to prevent burnout from taking hold.

Popularity: 15% [?]

I would first of all state that at school I was diabolically bad at science. I hated it with a passion but as the years have progressed have found every now and again grains of knowledge hidden away that proved that at somepoint I learned at least the rudimentary basics.

Secondly the word ‘burnout’ for me, being someone who rides a motorbike, has completely different connotations. When my back tyre needs changing, my brother-in-law has a little tradition to get a few seconds more ‘wear and tear’ by applying the front brakes and throttling the engine causing the back wheel to spin very fast while the bike stays in one place. This usually results in a huge plume of smoke and a nasty burn mark on the floor. What does this have to do with sales..or even science?

Well, on a wheel burnout there are two things that are appropriate to sales. The resistance of the frictional forces between the surface of the road and the tyre is quite high, the force the engine applies to the wheel overcomes this forcing the two surfaces to slide against each other. Energy from the two surfaces is transferred into heat and the two surfaces burn causing the smoke and the deterioration of the less strong surface, namely the tyre.

According to wikipedia ‘sales burnout’ can be described as “a psychological term for the experience of long-term exhaustion and diminished interest.” In the same way that the friction of two surfaces on the wheel causes heat, the processes of a sales person can also be a process of friction that wears the working parts of individuals both mentally and physically. However, the point surely is that both processes that cause ‘burnout’ are forces actively working against the natural flow of motion.

For a sales person who suffers sales burnout, they are doing something that is causing friction between themselves and their sales objectives. Though sales burnout is a psychological malady the source of friction can be both internal and external eg. a sales person may not like making cold calls but repeatedly does so to get sales leads. The process of doing something he doesn’t like results in loss of positivity and burnout. Another sales person may be proactively engaged in activities but constantly get negative results or negative feedback externally from customers. An over exposure to negative emotions from customers will inevitably lead to loss of confidence.

It is also important to acknowledge that burnout may not be a result of negative emotions at all but an over allocation of resources leading to exhaustion. The first law of thermodynamics states that energy can be neither created or destroyed but can be transferred or change forms. As in the tyre burnout, the energy of the two surfaces is lost through heat. So too does the energy of the sales activity as time, mental agility, concentration transfers from the sales person into the project. No sales person has infinite resources and so the application of energy must be proportional to the sales objective otherwise you are expending energy needlessly for little return.

No one gets tired of succeeding and you will rarely see successful sales people suffering from sales burnout because they optimise their effort for the greatest gains and use their greatest strengths to achieve the results they need. Those who suffer from sales burnout must therefore look at the core reasoning why they are losing energy and enthusiasm. If a person doesn’t like cold calling then it must be explored how the problem can be improved by looking at warmer methods, other alternatives of lead generation etc. If a person is over exposed to negative feedback from customers then it must be explored why that is happening.

Too often negativity within sales is accepted as being part of the job and sales organisations and sales individuals need to get out of that mentality. Burnout is in essence an unnatural process where two forces are opposed to one another causing a reaction. Sales like normal motion is a natural process that can flow with very little friction at all.

PS. To all scientists who read this, I apologise for butchering Newtons laws of motion and oversimplifying the first law of thermodynamics.

Popularity: 13% [?]

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.

Popularity: 11% [?]

At the risk of sounding old and cynical, (not burnt out), I have to share with you one of my favourite things in presenting sales effectiveness programs to senior sales executives, and the thing that makes it even more fun, is that it happens regularly and therefore I am sure to be amused regularly.

The scenario usually unfolds when sitting with a VP or Director of sales, whether it is a formal sales call or just a discussion at an event; it happens more often where the organization is challenged in meeting, rather than exceeding objectives.  There comes a point when the other party in the conversation says something like:

“Well Tibor, the thing you have to understand is that our people know this industry, they are very experienced, most of them have 15 or years under their belts, and even when we hire, we only hire from the industry, you know, people who bring the same type of experience to the job and can hit the ground running.”

My response usually is something along the lines of:

“Well George, I certainly appreciate that, in fact many people do tell me the same.  I just curious if you don’t mind me asking, your average rep, say with 13 years, would you say that they have had 13 years of continuous growth and development, or the same year 13 times over?”

Then I just sit back.

Some people don’t get it, but the ones that do, we are able to move to the real issues quite quickly.  One of the recurring themes is what most would call sales burn out.  In general, a lot of sales professional do not maintain the consistency and pace they initially demonstrated when stepping into the role.  They either become victims of their own success or never fully realize success and slowly accept their fate and settle into acceptance of less than their full potential.

I argue that at either end of this spectrum, the root cause is the same: a lack of training and basic skill development, but to a much greater degree a lack of planning that prevents even those who may possess the skills to fully execute.  As a result, many end up completing task but rarely achieving objectives and results.

Let me say right here that the reason I started this piece by talking about my discussions with senior sales leaders or management, is that I believe that they are to a great degree responsible for this, and at the same time have the ability to reverse it should they choose (sadly they often don’t).

I say this because they are there when the young sales professional shows up malleable, pliable and full of energy, open to being shaped and focused.  This is the time that the basics of planning, time allocation and process should be stressed, but instead they are given minimal training, usually mostly around product not selling, and then sent out to conquer.

The young reps run fast and run hard, and quickly begin to gravitate into one of the two groups cited above.  In fact there are three groups, using the old 80/20 rule, it breaks down as follows: 20% get the need for planning, managing activity based on required time and metrics; they focus on executing the sales process.  These people are often held out as the anomalies, “it’d be great if everyone could sell like Charlie, but he is different.”  No new kid wants to be different.  The manager and the rep should be working to these differences, but they are usually distracted and over whelmed by the 80%.

The other 80%, the burn out group, fall into to the two groups, half flaming out under the weight of their success.  They run get prospects, write proposals, win clients, busy busy busy.  They spend less and less time selling and more time managing the base.  It’s good for a while but they get out of shape (not having run in some time), they never did have the form right, and as the base erodes and the competition (internal and external) grows, they realize they have to do something to change the tide.  It is then that they face a hard choice, do they learn the basics and practice them, some do; or do they put their old track suit on and try running hard again.  Out of shape out of practice: the burn out.

The other half of the 80% never really took off.  They worked the base they adopted as part of their territory, seeing “lower hanging fruit” as the big time.  They ran in to some new opportunities much like a blind squirrel runs into a nut sometimes.  But they hardly take off, usually just enough to gently crash; it takes slightly less effort to keep them than to replace them (I hope some people take issue with that statement, but this is what I hear managers say everyday); much like a log on a fire, they are just there, giving less light and less heat, eventually replaced by a new log, new rep.

The sad reality is sales burn out is unique among professions. In sports they would get traded.  In law, or aviation they would have to keep up or be replaced.  It is funny how sales is one of the only professions where one can make lots of money, have impact on the success of others and their own company,  but is not required to continuously educate and upgrade ones self.  If we did have to, we would be able to avoid sales burn out, both at the front line level and management level.

Popularity: 14% [?]

Although a “burning desire to sell more” is one of my “Twelve Qualities of Wildly Successful Salespeople,” it seems that these days some salespeople are more susceptible to sales burnout than they are to burning desires.

There are six reasons why salespeople experience burnout. Know what they are so you can avoid this malady of the sales industry.

1. Overworking.

Working hard is a good thing. But overworking for extended periods is a bad thing. Your work life is only one portion of your entire life, so keep everything balanced and synchronized. Extended overworking leads to bad stuff, and everybody’s definition of overworking is different. Know what overworking is for you in your life.

2. No Break.

Alright, Miss super salesperson, how long has it been since your last vacation? You say you went to Mexico in 2002? Good for you, but what about your fragile mental state in the current year? Everybody needs a break. If you’ve cheated yourself out of a vacation or at least a chance to sleep in with your cat Muffin for a week, get it on your calendar now.

3. Unresponsive Customers.

One of my coaching clients recently told me this: “Everything I touch seems to turn to ?&$%)!” A string of sales failures can not only be damaging to the sales ego, it can be damaging to the drive to keep moving forward. Let go of these sales failures and forge some new ground so you can start feeling whole again.

4. An Unappreciative Boss.

Years of non-appreciation can lead to sales burnout. Find someone who can pat you on the back. Ask your customers for testimonials. Ask your boss’s boss how you’re doing. Don’t let your boss get you down.

5. Too Much to Do.

Figure out what to get off your plate so you can breathe again. Delegate tasks to others when possible and practical. Put non-revenue-producing tasks on your backburner so you can focus on creating revenue now. Effective prioritization can reduce feelings of burnout.

6. Isolation.

Challenging business environments can lead to isolation, and isolation can lead to feelings of burnout or even depression. Connect with colleagues, friends, or even professionals if you need to. Your support network is waiting to help. Quit eating at your desk!

Popularity: 10% [?]

Unless you’re a construction worker or a coal miner or someone else that physically abuses his body to make a living, then burnout isn’t physical – it’s emotional or pyschological.  In other words, it’s in your head.

The questions we need to explore are:  1) How did it get there? and 2) What are you going to do about it?

Everyone who works for somebody else has to take on tasks that they deem unimportant, uninteresting or undesireable.  Most of the time, we tolerate these tasks and even tackle them with good humor and a good attitude.  We do this because A) we get to do enough other tasks that are engaging or B) we have a long-term view of the job and believe that better times are ahead.

Burnout occurs when we no longer enjoy enough engaging tasks or we believe that the scope of our work no longer aligns with our goals, ambitions or desires.  The mundane tasks that we tolerated before are now Sisyphean .  The long-term view of the job or the company is hopeless.

You might be experiencing burnout if you’ve never missed a day of work due to illness and you start having to talk yourself out of calling in sick when the alarm goes off on Monday morning.  Or, if you’ve always been an overachiever and now find yourself hanging around with the slackers and complaining about your boss or the economy or the commission plan or the snacks in the machine.

Burnout isn’t a bad attitude although you might get accused of having one.  Burnout is a symptom of a person who is no longer motivated to achieve the objectives of the company and can’t think of a way to achieve his own objections while continuing to work at the company.

Here are some action items you can take if burnout is charring the edges of your mind and threatening to engulf your entire brain:

1) Make a list of your professional goals – dividing them into short- and long-term

2) Prioritize the list.

a. In the short term, what is most important?  Having more responsibility? Doing more work that you enjoy?  Understanding how what you are doing is having an impact on the success of the company? Understanding how what you are doing is impacting the success of others?

b. Which goals are the most important long-term goals?  The amount of money you earn?  The title of your position?  Your work hours?  Responsibilities? With whom you work or to whom you report?

3) Sit down with your mentor and discuss how you’ve been feeling and share the work you’ve done on your priorities and goals.  Ask for some guidance in achieving the objectives.  Don’t have a mentor?  Talk to your spouse or your best friend outside of work.

4) Sit down with your boss or your bosses’ boss if more appropriate. Explain how you’ve been feeling and ask for some feedback about how you are viewed and valued.  Ask about the long-term viability of achieving your goals at the company.  Be sure to explain that you’ve come to her because you believe that your professional goals can be achieved while continuing to be employed at your current company.

5) Based on how that meeting goes you’ll know if you will soon be back on the right track at your current employer or if you’ll have the opportunity to achieve your goals somewhere else.

Don’t be afraid.  You will either get a renewal and a resurgeance at your current employer or you’ll experience it after being set free.  Being free from the emotional bondage of burnout will be worth it regardless of which outcome occurs.

Popularity: 14% [?]

While many talk about buying requiring emotion, our subject today is passion. See, a Sales Evangelist cannot effectively share the greatness of the new if they have lost their desire to promote the product. As long as they believe, the fire is their to fuel the hard road ahead. Without this passion, this desire, this fire, the Sales Evangelist must move on for they will not be able to achieve their goals.

Many may feel that this is a cop out. Sales leaders coach sales people to find ways to get excited about selling; that you can rebuild your drive and with focus renew your passion. In the world of sales in general this is possible. The desire must come from a love of success or a new way of doing things; a new product enhancement or a new territory focus. When you aer selling the new, you do not have time for this and while you may think you can press on, you are now a detriment to your company and your own success.

See, selling the new is hard enough without losing this critical edge. Rule number one of evangelism is a passionate belief in the news you are sharing. A traditional evangelist would never be able to preach the good news without an unshakeable faith. Customer evangelists are those that believe in products so much they are driven to share their beliefs. You would not find either promoting something they did not believe in and the Sales Evangelist is not able to either. If something has taken you off your belief in your offering and it causes you to burnout, it is time to pull up the online job boards and find the next new thing to promote.

For those of you that employ Sales Evangelists, be prepared to help them move on. You cannot renew their love of your game, you cannot get them to become stars without combustions. If the fire is gone, help them move on, before they become a black hole.

Popularity: 11% [?]