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Sales Grit: How to Toughen Up and Sell More

SalesLegacy

You probably have heard lots sales advice over the years. Maybe you were told, “If you knock on enough doors, eventually someone will say yes.” That advice only works when you have the grit to keep knocking on doors and never give up.

What happens when you start to doubt yourself? That’s when you need sales grit. Sales grit can keep you selling and just might stop a downward slide.

Quickly Learn From Past Events

What if a sales call goes horribly wrong? When things go wrong, that’s usually when all you want to do is nothing. Your brain gets immobilized and thinking about what happened is the last thing you want to do.

Give yourself permission to take a break. Just limit your time for a break. You have to come back and figure out what you did wrong that either stopped you or prevented you from being successful.

Here’s what to do if you just can’t start the analysis. Ask yourself, when you are feeling the most pain, “Do I want to do this again?” I’ll bet for most people the answer is no. The realization that you don’t want to repeat the mistake is often enough to propel you forward.

Learning what went wrong is the first step to gaining sales grit. There is no way you can avoid repeating the disaster unless you learn the cause.

Get a Second Opinion

Who can you talk with to get another perspective? Think of the people you know who are good strategists or critical thinkers; it’s not necessary that the person you speak with is a sales professional.

You do need to speak with someone who is able to analyze a situation without being critical of you. The person should understand communication dynamics to determine what you did and how the prospect responded. These people are often excellent listeners.

Look around at the people you work with. Consider the people whom others turn to when they need to bounce off ideas.

What you want to avoid are people who are negative and only focus on the downside of situations. You need someone who will ask you questions that will diagnose the situation for you. You’re looking for possible answers, not criticism. Those answers will help develop your sales grit because you'll have an idea of what to do next.

Vince Lombardi said, “It does not matter how many times you get knocked down, but how many times you get up." That was great advice for football--and for sales.

Profile: Maura Schreier-Fleming

Maura Schreier-Fleming is president of Best@Selling, a sales training and sales consulting company. She works with business and sales professionals to increase sales and earn larger profits. She is the author of Real-World Selling for Out-of-this-World Results and Monday Morning Sales Tips. Maura focuses on sales strategies and tactics that lead to better sales results. Maura is a sales expert for WomenSalesPros. She is part of their group of top sales experts who inspire, educate, and develop salespeople and sales teams.She speaks internationally on influence, selling skills, and strategic selling at trade association and sales meetings, demonstrating how her principles can be applied to get results. She successfully worked for over 20 years in the male-dominated oil industry with two major corporations, beginning at Mobil Oil and ending at Chevron Corp. She was Mobil Oil’s first female lubrication engineer in the U.S. and was one of Chevron’s top five salespeople in the U.S. having sold over $9 million annually. Maura writes several columns to share her sales philosophies. She's been quoted in the New York Times, Selling Power, and Entrepreneur.