How to Get Out of a Sales Slump

“I’m in a sales slump and don’t know what to do to get out of it. What action steps can I take to change my situation?”

Being in a sales slump is never fun. And a bad one can shake your foundations to the core, to the point where you fear your lifestyle is in danger as the bills pile up with every missed sales quota.

Here’s the good news: Every top sales rep has had a sales slump at some time in their career.

Which means you CAN overcome this.

Your biggest challenge will be to take accountability and to have the commitment to overcome your situation. If the painful feeling of a sales slump outweighs your resistance to change and accountability, do these three things to help pull yourself out of the sales slump:

How to Get Out of a Sales Slump #1: Take Inventory

Take an honest look at your current pipeline.

Are you calling the same old leads over and over again? 

You know the kind I’m talking about… the leads that will take your call because you have a “good rapport” with them, yet they never seem to buy?

I’ve seen inside sales reps dig themselves into the ground because their fear of rejection was so high they refused to prospect for fresh new opportunities and instead kept calling the same old leads that were willing to chat with them but never buy.

Top inside sales reps know that priority number one is always having a fresh stream of leads coming in. It’s your responsibility to make sure that is happening regardless of what your company is doing.

Sure, I feel marketing should provide sales reps with a constant flow of leads; however, with today’s prospecting tools, a salesperson should never have to sit and wait for the marketing department to do their job.

Top salespeople don’t sit and wait. They MAKE. THINGS. HAPPEN.

How to Get Out of a Sales Slump #2: Role-play

The only thing salespeople hate more than cold calling is role-playing, yet it is the fastest way for a salesperson to see what they are doing wrong on the phone and fix it.

Of course, you will need someone with experience who can correct your mistakes (having two struggling salespeople critique each other in a role-playing session is pointless). 

So make sure you have a top sales rep or even the owner of your company, if possible, sit in and give you advice. It will be uncomfortable initially, but you will see the payoff in short order.

How to Get Out of a Sales Slump #3: Effort!

Skills + Output = Sales Results.

If you have a fresh stream of leads and have sharpened your sales skills, your effort is the last remaining part of the sales equation.

Time management plays a huge part in whether or not a salesperson succeeds or fails. Are you spending your mornings “prospecting” and looking for who to call? If so, you’re doing it wrong! Why would you spend time doing non-sales call activities only when you have to make sales calls? Before you walk in the door, you should already have your first 20 to 40 sales calls lined up and ready to go.

Once you fix your sales techniques, your “output” (effort) needs to be kicked up a notch to get out of that slump. Chances are, bad sales techniques and/or poor effort got you in a slump. So you’ll have to push yourself to get out of it. But you can do this!

One final thing… Remember those times when everything you touched seemed to close? Suddenly, deals seemed to come in from everywhere with little effort. Almost always, that resulted from all the hard work you were doing 3 or 4 months ago.

You made all those calls while trying to get out of that sales slump. If you don’t want to go back to slumpville, make sure you continue to work just as hard when you’re on top as you did to dig yourself out from the bottom, and you won’t have to worry about ever falling into a sales slump ever again.

– Michael Pedone

Michael Pedone teaches inside sales teams how to pick up the phone and close business. He is the CEO/FOUNDER of SalesBuzz.com – An online sales training company.