Mental health in sales: Is this a problem?

There are few jobs in the world with as many red flags as sales.

A constant stream of rejection can impact salespeople in so many ways

- low self esteem,

- mental health issues,

- burnout,

- inability to forge relationships,

- even drug abuse in some cases

So is there a cure?

We discuss our findings and experiences in this area and would love to know whether you have seen or felt the same way.

We strive to make The Digital Download an interactive experience. Audience participation is highly encouraged!

This week we were joined by -

• Adam Gray, Co-founder of DLA Ignite

• Tim Hughes, CEO and co-founder of DLA Ignite

• Tracy Borreson, Founder and CEO of TLB Coaching & Events, a partner of DLA Ignite

• Alex Abbott, Founder of Supero, a DLA Ignite partner, and

• Jordan Abbott, B2B social influence and interaction advisor at Supero and partner of DLA Ignite

• Jensen Abbott, B2B social influence and interaction advisor at Supero and partner of DLA Ignite

Transcript of The Digital Download 2023-05-05
Mental health in sales: Is this a problem?

(00:00) screams to all of the family that are are gathered in front of him he screams no it's not me hello everybody and uh welcome to another exciting edition of the digital download uh the digital download is the longest running weekly talk show on LinkedIn live the longest running business weekly talk probably the longest running talk show on level probably the only long run anyway this week um we are talking about mental health in sales uh sales is a tough industry a tough job for people to do uh there's no secret in

(00:48) that it's fraught with rejections um your longevity in a role is based on what you do today not what you did yesterday so a successful Q3 doesn't necessarily mean that you will have a job after Q4 this is a tough way to live your life isn't it um you know constantly a string of of can I just have a couple of minutes of your time no you can't oh this countless countless stonewalling nose feeling that people don't want to talk to you no wonder breakdowns addiction burn out uh depression low self-esteem or life amongst salespeople

(01:27) uh so against this background how is it possible that anyone is able to maintain a decent life balance in in sales and is there anything that we can do to to change that so that's going to be the topic of of discussion today but before we do any of that let's go around and introduce ourselves so first of all to you James Heil I'm Jensen Abbott I work at superhero um and I'm a proud happy um associate Alex hello all uh Alex Abba founder at sapiro and uh happy and healthy dla partner William uh hello all yeah William shorten uh I'm

(02:17) an associate with dla Ignite and I also run my old home consultancy William shorten learning Solutions Jordan hello I am Jordan Albert B2B social influence and interaction advisor at Superior that's a mouthful and I'm I'm also a happy and healthy uh dla ignite partner Tim hi I'm Tim Hughes I'm the CEO and co-founder of dlake Knight and I'm I'm feeling very good today very happy yeah thank you and as always saving the best to last Tracy because they always squeak in because this is only 7am for me

(02:59) um founder of tlb coaching and event and I am a super duper enthusiastic dealing partner I prepped that one it's really interesting isn't it I mean obviously uh we I I gave an intro about how the sales was a tough job in everyone's uh everyone's understandably quite miserable when they're in sales and uh and stressed and and suffering from all of these kind of anxieties and things but what's really interesting because we all have kind of either completely or partially sales roles what's really

(03:36) interesting is that everybody began by saying I'm a happy and fulfilled and delighted uh DNA ignite proud uh partner so so you guys are not the norm from this perspective so uh before we get into why you're not the norm tell me about your experiences of being unhappy in sales who would like to share something and why were you unhappy in sales I had to bloody cold call no I'm kidding um I'm actually not really kidding um so as uh as many might know we acted as an outsourced sales agency um at one point and you know we were

(04:29) juggling many clients um and was sort of you know it was a case if the client said jump and we said how I um and there was a real lack of job fulfillment I think um because we weren't we were brought in as much as we we possibly could be um but there was a sort of lack of I want to say belief um potentially I know having a strong belief system is something that Alex and I have spoken about at length um and I think that was was lacking for me um during that period so yeah I was I was vastly unhappy foreign did you did you see that as being

(05:13) unhappiness when you were in that role or did you just think it just comes with the territory did you believe that there were greener pastures just over the next Hill um that's a great question I don't know I felt like I was very much caught in the hamster wheel um so to to be able to lift my head and actually see um greener pastures was was tough um so yeah I don't I don't know whether I did believe there were great clusters but what's what's changed because you're talking about your unhappiness in the

(05:50) past tense yeah um I think it's I think it's just um heart being able to have joy within the work and being able to honor my passions of creativity I think it was it was very monotonous previously um whereas now you know every day is different and I've got the control to make every day different um which is exciting so so just checking uh Jordan you're not cold calling anymore nope so so you have you moved out sales or what's that still in sales um I just uh I I just talk with people um in a in a very solicited manner you

(06:36) know okay um building Mutual relationships rather than uh hammering the door down okay you know handling your phone down [Music] you're not too miserable with your lot in life yeah yeah so so what what has how how were things for you and how are they now um how are things for me um okay being totally transparent I would say uh I thought I I thought things were awful um I thought the job was awful I didn't I didn't think I was the right person for the job um through rejection um through doing the activities that

(07:21) that needed to be done but seeing no no return on that no one wanting to speak to me um you start to kind of question yourself and like Jordan said kind of your belief goes downhill so then it's like trying to say win a football match when you already know you know you're going to lose it it's it's it's um disheartening yeah so I mean what's changed really is like Jordan said I've I'm I'm not forced into a box and being told to just call or email I'm allowed the space to

(07:52) be creative and let my creative juices come through and create content that other people enjoy but also what that I enjoy um I'm not being pushy with anyone so I'm not trying to to force people to to to to read my content or anything like that um like Jordan said I'm completely just open to to having a conversation finding more about finding out more about the other person um and just building those relationships and and I've felt that I've been able to be myself a lot more I'm I'm happier

(08:26) when I'm talking to to potential prospects or anyone really on LinkedIn it's it's it's more enjoyable for me and I'm sure it's more enjoyable for them so so but what does that look like in terms of success because it's one thing to to spend your time doing stuff you love and it's something else entirely to spend your time doing something you love and being successful so previously you were doing something you hated the payback must have been that you were getting massive results for that otherwise

(09:01) surely yep that's a grim Grim existence isn't it yeah I mean I mean look I'm I'm able to have a lot more conversations with with a lot more people and and people that are higher up within organizations and that's that's something that I was never able to do at the start of my my sales career kind of having me Reach Out them knowing that I'm trying to sell them something I don't get given the time of day or maybe because I'm very young and I don't have the experience or expect expertise where

(09:30) changing my mindset and um which does take time it's not easy changing my mindset and the activities that I do within the day um to then be able to to have these types of conversations with these people and not just that them reaching out to me to ask questions about the content I post that's where kind of the real um sense of purpose comes from because now I know that people want to absorbing my content to it it resonates with them because they're asking me questions around that so that's where I'm then

(10:01) happy as I have those people that that are now talking to me and willing to give me time to have a conversation yeah I think that's I think that's fantastic but but obviously we've got a you guys that have spoken are young and relatively new to sales we've got two people that are old and have been in sales for donkeys years so kind of what have your experience what have your experience what is donkey's ears a long time long time so so uh yeah so so Alex what what how has this changed for you because you

(10:46) know you you both cut your teeth selling the old way and maybe when you started your careers in sales um that was the de facto way to sell the only way to sell and it was effective because clearly you know you don't build a whole industry on doing something if that thing doesn't work but but both of you have have probably seen a big shift haven't you yeah who wants to go first do you want me to answer Tim what do you wanna sorry I identify myself as old so um okay I'll go then I think um so there's a there's a few thoughts in

(11:32) my mind because uh you know you you started off Adam asking the question about you know kind of what what was it like before what were the worst times and I've had some pretty pretty awful experiences in sales um you know from from you know from a CEO Company saying you know uh uh you know what what are you doing um after giving me like a scolding because I there was a pause in the conversation to which I reply when I'm thinking about whether or not I want to be here and you know losing my job in 2005 um hitting kind of a depressed state

(12:19) around 2006 seven not knowing what it was just my body shutting down um as a result I think of just the pressure of of sales you know the anxiety build up and what have you so so so what what what form did that pressure take because obviously you've got you've got your organization which is setting you targets which are going to stretch you will be unrealistic but is that the only pressure that you had yeah well a lot of it was the pressure I put on myself uh wanting to to do well but a lot of the pressure was from you

(13:00) know the people around me that you know my my manager and my manager's manager um and so you know I think if I you know hindsight's a wonderful thing right so if I look back now what I didn't have was a clearly defined uh you know pathway you know a clearly defined set of activities or behaviors that I could do on a daily basis knowing that I was making progress even if it was just one small step after the other um and it was it was more about well here's your number you need to hit your target why aren't you hitting the phones

(13:35) why aren't you sending messages um now now I was able to find a system under that pressure myself but it wasn't fun getting to that point but once I did I realized well okay now I know what to do it doesn't matter who my manager is I know what I need to do to be to be successful um and and I have to say even back in those days in 2007 I didn't believe in cold calling 2007 so what's that you know 15 years ago um and Linkedin was the tool for me linked in an email back then um yeah I think you know nowadays you know

(14:24) um you know for many years I was a big believer again in kind of defining what those behaviors are and as a sales leader making sure that my team had Clarity on on what those things were so they had that Guiding Light so you know they felt a sense of well I know what I need to do you know I'm part of a I'm part of a you know a team with a with a winning mentality and we were all kind of working together but not every team or company has that I don't think um and I'd say you know uh in the last few years in the last you know 15 18

(15:04) months since you know myself Jordan and Jensen started the journey with dla Ignite um having gone through the pain of of you know being an outsourced agency thinking we needed to do cold Outreach the traditional way to help make our clients successful even though you know I didn't believe in it myself many years ago we went through that pain again we all felt it together despite how good we thought we could we could be and so sort of 15 months ago when we started the social selling Journey it was you know I kind of felt it was the right

(15:42) thing to do I knew it was the right thing to do because I you know LinkedIn has been a powerful tool for me for many years anyway but B you and I work together briefly Adam what seven eight years ago Oracle and you gave me some tips then that never never left me so I kind of knew it was the right thing to do and then as we started on that Journey we just we just developed continued to develop month on month for month together and the three of us felt a real uh sense of belonging that we were doing something that was not only

(16:20) great for us but great for for our business um and we started to see great results uh from it I I was having a conversation with Jordan the other day and I'll paraphrase he basically said um he hated his job because it was full of rejection he would spend all of his time having people effectively put the phone down on him and now he spends over half of his time having calls with people that are actually prepared to talk to him and he said he said to me something we should quite profound which was uh how could you not like that you know you're

(16:57) spending all of your time talking to people that you've not spoken to before and having a conversation with them and and I think that that sales can be a very solitary job can't it yeah you have a team here you have a sales manager but actually your day-to-day working is not a team effort it's a solo effort you know you're doing this cold Outreach and uh I've never been entirely A salesperson there's always been an element of sales in what I've done but I've never been entirely A

(17:25) salesperson and uh and that must be heartbreaking when you're really good at doing stuff but nobody wants to have a conversation with you you've got the best product the best service you know it can help the client but nobody wants to talk to you you haven't got anything which will facilitate the start of a conversation with somebody because everything you say is something that I've heard before I've got something which will absolutely help you with this prop yeah yeah I don't believe you

(17:53) goodbye uh and and to to be able to turn that narrative on its head um must be a healthier way to to exist no just just to um going from what you were saying then Alex um one of the things that we spoke about a lot in the early days was lag measures versus League measures and I understood the concept at the time I didn't really believe in it because as you said it was just constant rejection so I was like well you know we're putting these lead measures in place but it's it's not working and you know since making that transition

(18:33) um sort of uh reporting religiously um we've now I I now fully believe in in lead measures and um the their ability to move us forward and while ensuring that you know you're not just focusing on that that inflated Target it's okay breaking it down into steps this is how I'm gonna get there yeah yeah and I often use the football analogy when you know when describing the lead measures to to you boys which is you know because obviously you both play football um it's not just how many shots on goal

(19:13) you can have it's how many times you can pass the ball forward to the Midfield uh and and keep and keep doing it keep doing it it's the right thing to do that behavior will result in the striker getting the ball and having a shot on goal and it's it's it's exactly the same but it but a lot of a lot of sales people don't know what those things are you know passing the ball forward um or they've done it so many times and it's not work they've lost belief in doing it and so I think you know having

(19:45) having those lead makers along with the reporting and it's measuring the right things not the wrong things so measuring the lead measures not just the lag the lag matches um that gives us the insight to then have more uh effective uh conversations coaching conversations about how to how to improve you know how you can be more accurate with that with that pass to Midfield or to the striker [Music] what Andrew shared in the comments about we can be shown how to do the work but then when it doesn't work out

(20:26) are we just so I think this really plays into the mental health piece right are we just supposed to assume we're bad at this right like I'm bad at sales and anybody who thinks that going into a day whether you're like I'm an entrepreneur so I have a different perspective on sales as well because if you don't sell you don't make money um you don't get a base salary um but how what how does that play into our thoughts right all those times when we're like man I just can't get the ball

(20:55) forward I can't get the ball forward I can't get the ball forward and after X amount of days this kind of ties into uh Jackie had a question too about how do you detach from the stresses when you're at home like that mindset goes with you when you go home right so unless there's I mean it's it's one thing to have the practices in place that can help you maintain that good state of mental health but I think it's important to realize what's happening right like what are my narratives about my job that are

(21:30) creating a mental health crisis in sales and where can I get the help right I was actually talking to a sales rep yesterday and she was like I love sales I love the competition of it right and I see the board and this is like a group sales team right I see the board and I see I lost her I see I won and I'm like it's kind of good but at the same time like how does that play on your mental health right like you're constantly competing against your team and I always compare it to like I used to play

(22:04) competitive basketball if I play against the members of my team we don't win right that's not how you win the game you win the game by as a team having a goal and us going there together and I play my role and you play your role and you play your role which I actually think is one of the coolest things about the dla team because like all of us show up differently right we're not trying to do the same thing don't have the same script we're just like out there doing it the way we would do it and

(22:35) therefore we speak to different people and therefore as a whole more people get to receive the message so I think there's this like sales team component that's kind of been I get I get gamification right like in our brain but at the same time like what does that do on the mental health side so so I I learned I I started selling about a thousand years ago um years ago yeah it was a world now you may not believe it but the internet didn't exist um we actually email didn't exist we sent letters to people

(23:17) and um sorry was the fax machine invented or was it before that it was before then emails come on he used to carve messages my first selling job it was the other companies who were a bit behind with the technology and I actually had to write letters out on a pad and take them to the typing pool but cold calling was brilliant and the reason for that was that the only way that you got information as a buyer was by people ringing you up so actually people the when we call called people people saw you as a as a as a person that was going to give you

(24:13) what's going on in the marketplace what are the things you know what and and and the same with events events was a place where you went to find out what was going on um and then of course the the internet brought that all to a a halt now the thing about me that I found and which is a small piece about mental health was burnout because in my 20s what I wanted to do was I I was building a career I still wasn't sure whether sales was right for me but I basically was working 800 hours a week and I remember going with my

(24:47) partner at the time into a shoe shop in um in Birmingham we were living in solihull and you know when you go into a shoe shop when women buy shoes there's always the seats for the men to sit on and I sat down and I first fell asleep uh and and I would do that and I actually did a podcast this week and I got the figures that 52 of Workforce experience burnout and 53 of managers experience by now but my point being um we live in a world where I may be an example of someone who is a leader so I grew up in a world where cold calling

(25:24) was easy whereas Euro saying cold calling is difficult so we may actually have this imbalance where leadership thing actually it's easy just ring people up they want to hear from you well actually that's not actually the the what will happen because things have actually moved on um that's that's kind of my point I I mean I know that things have moved on I mean I'm world famous for something um and um I just think that that we sometimes we you know there was a point was that Sean said um um this is linked to leadership with the

(25:56) business and with writing support and network and robust mentorship available 100 absolutely wonderful Point Sean you know leadership have to to show support and if your team are being rejected just to turn around and say suck it up this is sales I I don't think that's I and I see a lot of that in the States you don't so so so so Tracy you know the leaderboard in in you were talking about you can't do that in in Europe because of employee um regulations you'll basically get taken to Tribunal

(26:30) um so um there's certain things that that support you um but I still don't think people are a realizing that this is happening it's all sucking up you know it's cold calling get on with it and that's partly because people are not looking around there's alternatives um and they're not providing the support I mean you you go to any SDR on on LinkedIn and look and they'll be somewhere for nine months never six months then for nine months and then for and I bet it's not because it's because

(27:00) they're not set up on sale it's because they're not getting support and I think I think it brings a broader point in sales I mean I worked in sales for for eight years and then went to purchasing and I certainly found purchasing easier than being in sales but I think it depends as well what type of sales you're in I I was in uh a really small Market very bespoke Market it was all about relationships anyway so there wasn't any cold calling there were only probably globally I don't know 30

(27:33) um you know uh possible buyers worldwide so it was a very small Market very specialized so it was all around kind of relationships and and the product but I mean I felt I found when I suffered stress in that it was due to conflict um and I have a challenge with or had a challenge with how I handled kind of conflict and I think there's something because you know sales is a very people-focused area and actually you know I think probably quite a strong driver in a lot of sales people is they like to be liked you know

(28:08) they want that relationship they want to be bought and therefore if you do get rejected rejected or you do get into conflict then that's what's going to kind of heighten anxiety um because it's a very people-focused area and there's a lot of people there and when you work with people then you know there is a tendency that there is going to be conflict because you're not going to agree all of the time but you said about being a uh it's Celsius of people-focused industry and sales people are people people and they

(28:40) want to be liked the challenge with the old methodology is that they don't ever get any of that so I get all of the team stuff you know it's really important that you have good teammates it's really important that you're part of a a family but actually when you get on with doing your job the selling bit what you don't get is any of those people interactions you know what you constantly get is that rebuttal that uh I'd like to just have a quick conversation I've got time not interested no thank you we're not

(29:10) interested we're not buying whatever it is that and you get that told that again and again and again and again and again and again and again a pattern doesn't it that that's the point that that the fact that you've got a supportive boss and not what Tim was saying if you've got a supportive boss that says okay let's try to find another way to tackle this problem because that isn't working but if you've got supportive boss that just puts their arm around you and says never mind tomorrow

(29:34) will be better well tomorrow won't be better because actually this is not about the four interactions you had today this is about every interaction that you're ever going to have through that methodology for for selling stuff and I've seen even successful sales people that were really miserable were fighting addiction or depression or have whatever mental health issues that they were suffering from under the weight of stress not the stress of achieving their number because they were outperforming a

(30:02) lot of the time the stress of the fact that the Daily Grind of what they had to do was something that was so horrific that they couldn't bear it hmm and I think there's something that I'm thinking about here when we talk about like support supporting people right because I don't think just putting your arm around someone and being like it's okay it'll be better tomorrow it's helpful right like that that doesn't help me do anything differently tomorrow that would tell me tomorrow is going to

(30:28) feel different than today I think that there is a growth mindset that is required in sales to say like you might work in an industry where cold calling works right I don't know which industry that is but like go to town right if it's working for you and you have fun doing it you have a product you love to sell right like go with it but I think a lot of those like daily doldrums come from things like I don't feel connected to what I'm selling right well that's something a leader can help you to do

(31:04) find your voice in the product right why did you come to work here what do you like about this how do you think you can help people instead of giving someone a script that's like oh this worked for me so it'll work for you and like just keep doing it you'll get it right like no the sum of the behind the scenes processes are broken people need to feel that connection to what they're doing they need to get excited about going to work and I had when I was talking to that sales rep yesterday we were talking about wins and

(31:36) losses right and I was like at this point and I have a unique relationship with sales because I started in sales in client success so we already had clients and my job was just to upsell them right so to me sales has always been like look for a problem fix the problem and then charge your phone um like this is what it costs let's get this part fixed for you and people are always like oh yeah great because we have that relationship already so I already knew this was about relationships so coming into my own

(32:08) business I was like they got to build the relationships right people don't know me for this they got to build the relationships and every single conversation I have with a person is a win to me I don't feel like this is a loss because I had a chat with you and you're not gonna buy something today right like I never feel that I don't feel like there's losses but when we're like measuring wins and losses then you could even get this fake belief that now there's losses well if I'm building a

(32:41) relationship with a person that's not a loss right like that might go into a different category it might go into a longer nurturing process but like it's not a loss um and I feel like even if they're like yeah no this isn't something I need right now like the effort I put into building a relationship with that person isn't a loss so I think these are some of the things too that if people are experiencing a lot of no's right like I would I'm sure all of us get a lot of people who are like I actually mostly

(33:12) get people who ignore me right so like I'll ask them to have a call on their say nothing right and that's fine right um but like you could Define that as a loss right like I asked 25 people to have calls this week and 10 people said yes so that means 15 people said no and like more people said no than said yes right but I had 10 people who said yes and I also had 10 conversations that were really meaningful right like I think it's just maybe not necessarily switching the numbers but reframing the

(33:45) numbers so that people can get excited about what they've done to that point and be instead of being like Oh all that work was for nothing quality as well as quantity yeah so how can this help a salesperson that is unhappy in what they're doing because you know it's it's a job in an industry that is Riven with people problems you know people are unhappy people are stressed people are suffering from burnout you know we've all had that to a greater or lesser extent just sit there yeah go on Alex you've been trying to

(34:25) jump in for about 20 minutes probably because there's lots of really good stuff being said and um on the run-up to the show today I was doing a bit of research and I came across this really interesting report called the state of mental health in sales for 2022. it was created in November so it's kind of like you know for the period of 2022 and they compared how sales people felt from 21 to 22.

(34:57) and it's it's quite you know it's getting worse so 63 of sales people are struggling with their mental health which is up five percent from two-thirds of people in sales are struggling with mental health issues yeah yeah and um and and that is typically sdr's account execs Business Development sales sales uh salesman sales managers um leadership that's that's jumped from something like 43 to 60 percent of sales leadership struggling with mental health in 2022 and the biggest reasons the top two

(35:40) reasons uh so so in second place it's missing Target so if everybody surveyed I think it was like 700 people surveyed 40.6 percent um so the missing Target and I think and and the number one is micromanagement so I think cold calling is one two three four five six on the list but the point I'm the point I'm about to make now which I think is the is the most important point is the reason sales people are missing Target there's a number of reasons but one of the biggest for me is the traditional traditional techniques don't work

(36:26) anymore biobehavior has changed significantly yet managers try and solve the problem by micromanaging which is the number one cause of mental health issues as opposed to being more supportive shining the light on the pathway to being successful as individuals and empowering empowering them to do to do things that actually do deliver uh results um like what I think you were getting to Adam in terms of the journey that we've that we've made recently from that you know that switch from traditional technique sales techniques that no

(37:07) longer work to Modern social selling strategies and I think you know if companies you know wake up to that and start doing that they're more likely to hit their number there's less need to micromanage I mean and then there's a leadership uh sales leadership challenge in it in itself there well you you said that there's a good sales leader their job is to shine a light on the path to success and Tim made the point earlier where he said you know if I were a typical sales leader when I when I began my sales career cold

(37:45) calling not only did it work it was positively enjoyable because I was getting to talk to people it's a good fight yeah so so given that that that's if you had uh become a a normal sales leader that would be your view of the world cold calling works it worked for me it's great fun there's no reason for you to be miserable if you're cold calling people because actually I found a great deal of joy in it and I'm no different to you so that's the basis on which sales leaders are handing out in

(38:15) quotes advice to their sales teams about how they can be more effective and more fulfilled and more successful I I think I think a leadership position can quite often say that the cold calling their mental their mental view on the world is that it's a it's it's fun though I the other day I saw a sales leader share a post that was along the lines of if you haven't pissed three people off by lunchtime you're not cold calling enough so then it's like well so now they're wearing that annoying

(38:51) Prospect is a badge of honor which yeah yeah absolutely I think Tudors does what this comes back to the growth mindset for me right because because it worked and it was fun for a person doesn't mean it's going to work and be fun for all people right so if you are really looking at your target again this is the thing that always boggles my mind if the target is the most important thing then wouldn't you do whatever you can to reach the Target right like micromanaging tasks that don't work does it's not doing

(39:29) everything you can to reach the Target right there's something that's not working here how curious are we getting about that as sales leaders and as entrepreneurs too in our own processes right I'm doing all of this it isn't working just keeping doing it is making me feel like this you know it's like it every time you've lost something in your house and you look for it so it was in the last place you look and the reason it's in the last place you look is because you don't keep looking when you know when you found it

(40:02) and that's that's the issue here isn't it that sales sales leaders know what the answer is they know what the answer is because they have personal experience of the answer and the problem with that is that they are handing out advice based on the fact that they don't know what the correct solution to this is you know clearly the reason that you Tracy are not selling enough stuff is because you're not phoning enough people so hit the phones harder it's predicated on the basis of what brought them success in the past

(40:32) so they're only giving that advice because they're trying to be helpful and they're trying to say well this worked for me so it's going to work for you now in a different era in a different context yeah yeah um yes absolutely will and I think that um um so going back to the thing what some of them people are saying I was on a podcast with Eric Stein from skillsoft last week and his view was that from a leadership position um you know if you go out to the marketplace and you find a salesperson and you take them on then it is your

(41:09) responsibility as a leader if they're not being successful to actually say to the salesperson what is it that myself that is doing wrong not you um because we we as a as a leader should have brought we you know we saw you as the best person we there is a there's going to be a structure there's going to be what whatever it is to to support you it's not you that's at fault it's us that's at fault but how many you need to say that you know that shows incredible open-mindedness and bravery to say that

(41:40) and that's actually not generally the way corporate structure works is it what normally happens is you're not achieved you know it's about pointing the finger for who's at fault rather than saying actually I own this because I'm the leader I need to make this better how often have you ever experienced that either in your work or now when we engage with hundreds of companies I mean it's it's a rarity yeah exactly you know you can literally count on the fingers of one hand the number of times

(42:07) that you've you've met somebody and they've said this thing that we're doing that I've been employed to do this whole different it's not working you know literally the number of fingers on one hand I spoke to someone it's hard for those people right because that was me right like I came in as like a temporary VP of sales and I looked at the results in the kpis and what people were tracking all these things and the mental health like seriously severe anxiety in some of these sales people and I'm like this

(42:42) doesn't work I don't know what part of it doesn't work but like it clearly doesn't work as a group right so like let's explore what we could do differently but it I guess that's just it right like how many people are saying let's explore what we could do differently because quite honestly we were at the point where we could do literally anything else probably we could do nothing in a week and have the same results right so like it doesn't hurt us to do try something different for a week or

(43:13) for two weeks right and I think something that's like coming up for me here too is like how much of this is a leader like how much do we have to look at from a leadership perspective and then also how can we assuming we don't have leadership support do something to maintain our own mental health in a state of mindset pressure versus helpfulness yeah and I think they just Additionally you you touched on growth mindset um a little while ago Tracy I think there's a really fine balance um so obviously sales people should take

(43:54) us should be accountable for their actions to an extent right um and self-awareness is a crucial skill for life right generally um to to grow and become better but I think there's a really fine line between self-awareness and self-consciousness right but one that has huge impact so for me being self-aware it allows me to be creative to test things out to optimize the approach whereas when I'm feeling self-conscious not only do I not get those creative thoughts but when I do I'm too scared to execute on them

(44:29) because of you know the the negative consequences that may take place that my mind has sort of built out you know so I think um yeah it's it's a it's a struggle for sales people that are wanting to be as accountable as possible Right on on that point I wanted to share a quote that that helped me kind of get through uh my journey as a sales I wanted to kind of give um a little story first um so Tim you you um wrote a post uh yesterday I believe saying the average attempts in Cadence to reach a buyer for cold calling is

(45:06) 11.3 and for social selling it's three um now that got me that got me thinking right because if um if the if you've got to contact someone more it's of course it's going to be frustrating because you keep reaching out and then there was Adam's your comment of okay I'll just keep calling them now it was quite interesting that yesterday I I saw a statistic um that was 50 of sales people say they avoid being pushy but 84 of buyers have had a negative experience due to pushy sales people now if you're

(45:39) not hitting your numbers or your targets um and you're trying to run around a bit like a rat trying to get kind of meetings booked in and and opportunities you're going to be more pushy I think that that's a fact I I was for sure last year I was more pushy more direct odd in the content I thought would be relevant to them but actually it wasn't it pushed them further away so a quote that I quite liked was you can't see a reflection in boiling water when the water comes when the water calms Clarity

(46:08) comes now the reason that was so important for me was because when I'd get wound up I would send tend to send more messages more direct messages trying to get those meetings when actually if you relax and you calm down and you think about how you would like to try and get in front of this person in a more creative way less direct there's so many options to do that it's liking and engaging content it's it's trying to find a topic on their profile that they enjoy so that when I contact them they're more likely to respond so

(46:38) so I think I think it's it's also to John's point of also being self-wear knowing that okay if I'm if I'm being stressed let me just take some time to relax a little bit more and think about these creative ways I can get in front of these people instead of letting that pressure kind of seeping and then you are being more direct and actually you're you're pushing yourself further away from your goal yeah yeah I think you inspired Tim then I saw the blog stance it's the prince yeah no I mean I think that's incredibly

(47:14) um incredibly and so I've learned I think actually everybody can see elements of that in themselves you know when when the pressure is turned up your work rate is turned up and you you have a panicked sort of behavior don't you yeah and and you know we see it in our own posts you know the posts that you do that get the most engagement and the most attraction are posts that don't have a call to action at the end they're posts that are just simply gifting something to your network is a little bit of advice that I can give you and

(47:49) the more that we we try to follow that kind of um yeah absolutely um the more that we try to uh to adopt that stance and kind of relax into it um because I think one of the the mistakes that every organization makes with sales is that they assume that that the buyer journey is the same as the seller Journey you know so the seller journey is I want to close this quarter and the buyer journey is I want to close at some point and actually it's the the distance between these and the failure for the seller to acknowledge so you know I've

(48:28) often kind of joke about this that uh the the uh the company at which some of us on this call worked was famous for doing Journey mapping you know but it was it was dressed up as customer Journey mapping and it was never customer Journey mapping it is always seller selling mapping you know here's the time we need to give you this bit of information to push you down this leg of the decision tree to arrive you at the place where we need you to be in order to spend money with us it was never about helping Empower and educate

(49:02) the the buyer and I think so often that's the case with sellers isn't it yeah yeah all too often you know forecasting a deal that uh that is nowhere near ready to be forecast because they've had a couple of interesting conversations with someone or because your sales manager has told you that you need to be forecasting more stuff yeah yeah oh yeah exactly or the pipeline multiple needs to be 3x or 4x4 pipeline multiple yes yes you had something interesting to say on that today didn't you Tim I did yeah

(49:41) we I've been talking about it uh last week yeah um yeah it's an interesting one yeah and and is it a valuable thing does it help sellers having having a pipeline multiple that you're trying to achieve does it help Sellers and and help them achieve and be more relaxed about things or does it apply additional pressure I always thought it applied additional pressure and made the salesperson focus on the pipeline multiple and not closing deals yeah I I I agree and I think um unless unless there is that clearly defined you

(50:18) know path to success and the sales rep understands exactly what needs to be done to get the buyer or to help navigate help the buyer navigate the buying process to the purchase then it is a distraction because only once you know that then you know uh the probability of where you're going to end up that quarter that year because it's a more accurate truthful view of the world and if you have that then for me pipeline multiple becomes more important especially if you're qualifying uh you know your qualification is

(50:58) accurate but I think like I just have every client Prospect potential lead whatever we want to call them is actually different right so like the person who's doing the buying or the buying team that's doing the buying they have a unique dynamic they have a unique culture that they're working internally so even though as a salesperson I might have a standard view of how people consume my information in order to make a purchasing decision that could actually be quite different with any given organization and so

(51:41) if we look at like I I'm come I come from software right It's Not Unusual to have a two-year selling cycle right so like from the time this company first becomes aware of you it takes them two years to know enough about you so that they can buy okay so it's one thing to know like what do people need to know about me so they can buy but at the same time can I squeeze that for a a small company that has a small decision making team that has budget available that has like it's like maybe the CEO just makes decisions

(52:16) and they have a problem they want to fix it now they could meet me today and buy tomorrow right so my process looks different than if like I know this company needs what I have I'm gonna nurture some leads at that company because I want people there to know who I am but I don't anticipate that to close but that I guess what I'm getting to is that like is the average of that really relevant or is it more a permission to like pay attention to what you're experiencing from a company and use your knowledge about how that can

(52:53) impact the funnel to project things because the company I was at was always like let's go for deer right deer are people who have the budget now want to move fast they're like agile they want to make quick decisions right and so what you end up doing is trying to profile companies instead of build relationships with people and then and like sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't sometimes the deer takes two years to buy right so then it just sits in the funnel with like a 30-day clothes expect Ed for two years

(53:26) two years yeah it wasn't a 30-day close expectation to be good I think I think you need to know whether or not there's a need or there isn't a need if if there's a need then it's likely there's a purchase process that's gonna follow and so it's a question of ensuring that the purchase criteria that's being defined for that purchase is aligned to your strengths and that can be quite a quick process even in software sales but if there isn't a need then I think it's a case of finding the person that's

(54:01) got enough influence within an organization to align on the on the problem that you've either helped them identify or they've got an inkling that that exists that they want to solve or better still the problem we've been able to cause for them which you can then address yeah it's called starting that's creating a compelling reason foreign ize the activity of building those relationships over time with influential people in an organization because they're not buyers today let's just like

(54:40) not even think about them let's hit the phones to even get like rabbits right who will buy tiny things really fast um like where's the trade and how does that impact the mental health right like because I feel like chasing rabbits is like boiling water right that doesn't feel like chill and strategic it um it feels different so and maybe that's like different things feel different for different people I don't know I like I'm kind of granola that way right like I think people come first and when you

(55:15) optimize the people then you can optimize the process and those things but without a focus on optimizing the people just I don't know one of the things that I see here in the UK the big change one of the big changes that took place in sales is that there used to be um a whole in effect you could do in the sales apprenticeship there was newspapers and you know we used to get this free newspaper that came through the door every week um the Yellow Pages and all these used to be places where you could go and you

(55:51) were taught a sales methodology basically a way of contacting people cold and you would go through a process in effect it was a black box in effect you were cranking a handle and all of that is gone so you you had this um pool of talent that you could call upon um who went through this in their early twenties and you'd say and you'd look at someone's CV and went oh they worked at Yellow Pages then we must have this person because they've clearly got a an understanding of sales as a process and

(56:23) now what we're doing generally is if you look at the average SDR we're taking them out of University throwing them into sales and saying get on with it um and and you know and basically telling them to do something which everybody knows is broken um uh even though some people won't admit it it and it's like it I I have so much I can I have sympathy um because I understand the process and I understand but but being thrown at that we're not being trained is just a terrible situation for people to be in

(56:59) and no wonder they're moving from job to job um I'm telling or telling them they're the hammer and everything that they look at is a nail it's a nail yeah and and there just isn't that that um um sales apprenticeship around anymore and and I and I think that you know until someone is successful um yeah what people are doing in sales is they're finding their way rather than being shown that it's actually a process can that be replaced by a mentor do you think that sort of apprenticeship can if

(57:36) you find the right Mentor I think there's there's certainly onboarding uh way of doing it that there is mentorship and of course now not exactly to to counter your point uh Tim but there's a you know the apprenticeship scheme now has been opened up uh in the UK uh as an alternative means of going off to University which is more of a learning on the job approach now I I don't know I haven't got details in terms of the sales apprenticeship um and whether there is a bespoke program specifically related to sales

(58:12) it probably is yeah really sponsored by the ISP oh there you go yeah and I think that and I think that you know people that people miss out on the the training um Mentor mentoring [ __ ] being different from from a training um and and I think what I see quite often with enablement is the name moment is about teaching you at all I'm surprised Rob Durant isn't jumping in about um enablement and onboarding and stuff but but it's it's still going back to this is the responsibility of your employer to make your use you know

(58:50) you've been successful in the past they've recruited you it's their responsibility to keep making you successful going forward yeah that that's a that's a seismic shift though isn't it in how in terms of how most uh organizations behave particularly in sales you know it seems from all of the sales people that I talk to uh it seems almost like it's contingent on them to manage their own development I think that still plays a part because I think as much as we like organizations to step up and do it you know and it

(59:25) goes for any field that you happen to be in I think if you want to be good in that field you have to take you we have to take response yeah absolutely yeah you can't just Farm it out to somebody else and it works even better if you've got an organization standing behind you going to support you through that process yeah so I know we're almost out of time but I wanted to go back quickly to Jackie's question about like what we could do as salespeople if we're not getting this support at work and we come

(59:53) home any advice from the crew on like how we can de-stress so if we can still be a human at home great if you've got some founding sounding board at home um you know friend family uh partner who you can kind of share stuff with um and get some of that offloaded um thinking about going out and doing other things um you know exercise uh other activities um so those would be my kind of quick fire things to to put into the pot yeah and if you need peeps to chat with it about you got a whole bunch of them right here I'm sure any of us would be

(1:00:35) happy to chat about it on LinkedIn absolutely so uh thank you to everybody Tim had to drop because he had a uh another session that he was running uh so uh thank you to everyone on the panel thank you to everyone in the audience um a very uh very interesting topic and one that definitely needs to be addressed I think um so uh have a great weekend for those of you in the UK have a great long weekend and uh we'll see you all next week on the digital download uh the longest running weekly talk show on LinkedIn live

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