8 Ways to Avoid Negativity in Sales
Contrary to what most people believe, the hardest part of working in sales isn’t selling. The hardest part is staying positive and pushing through rejection, obstacles, and negativity. Salespeople face more rejection in one day than most people do in their entire career. This rejection, coupled with intense pressure can lead many people to feeling a sense of negativity.
Negativity can be toxic to a salesperson. Negative feelings usually cause poor performance, which leads to more negativity and becomes a self-fulfilling downward spiral. This is why avoiding negativity is critical.
Here are eight tips that can help salespeople avoid negativity in sales and stay positive and productive:
1. Focus on what matters
Negative thinking usually causes us to focus on things that are outside of our control. Like other people’s attitudes, behaviors, or larger factors, such as the state of our industry or the company’s management structure. This is a complete waste of time because there’s nothing you can do about these things. Focus on what you can control: how hard you’re working, what you’re focusing on, and what you’re doing to become more successful. Take this one step further and use an AI-Powered CRM to do the grunt work for you, so you can stay focused on what you do best: selling.
2. Move around
A great way to counter negative feelings is by moving around. Exercising is obviously a great way to keep your spirits high as it releases endorphins and makes you feel better, physically and emotionally. But even if you don’t want to exercise, simply getting up from your desk and walking around can help improve your mood and energy levels. Leave the office to get a cup of coffee. The last thing you should be doing when negative thoughts creep in is stewing at your desk and thinking about how miserable you are.
3. Block out negative media
In this day and age, we’re constantly being bombarded by negative media. Whether it’s an endless news cycle of political arguments or crime and tragedies, or reality television where society’s worst people are pitted against each other. Consuming this content regularly will feed negativity and not really help you in any way. Turn off the cable, stop checking twitter, and you’re guaranteed to feel much better almost immediately.
4. Read, listen, and watch the right things
Since you’re going to be avoiding negative media, you should replace it with positive content. There are plenty of motivational sales books and videos, and no shortage of interesting and uplifting music and podcasts. It doesn’t even necessarily have to be sales related content. As long as it’s something that inspires you, makes you feel better or more creative, it’s worth your attention.
5. Understand that you have a choice
The way you choose to react to something is almost always your choice. Remember this the next time negative feelings start creeping in. When things are going well but something bad happens, we are easily able to shrug it off. You can teach yourself to do the same thing when things aren’t going well. Make the choice to brush off the negativity and stay positive, and it will also become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
6. Stay away from the wrong coworkers
This is such an important factor when it comes to avoiding negativity. There are few sales offices that don’t have at least a few people who are constantly in a state of negativity and love nothing more than dragging any of their coworkers into it with them. Stay away from these people like the plague. Negativity is contagious and there’s nothing good that will come out of your complaining sessions with these people. They don’t want you to succeed, they just want you to suffer with them.
7. Look at the big picture
It’s really difficult to not get bogged down in the day to day happenings of our professional and personal lives. But if you’re able to step back and see the big picture, it can help you defeat negativity. Think about your career and goals in terms of years or decades and the day to day will become part of a bigger picture and put your setbacks into context. Also, think about what or who you’re working hard for, and soon the frivolous things that drive us nuts every day start to seem insignificant and trivial.
8. Don’t take it personally
This is the key to avoiding the negativity that comes as a result of rejection and sales-related pressure and stress. Selling is a business activity, even if it’s one of the most personal aspects of business. Rejection and failure is almost never personal, so don’t take it as such. You have a job to do, and part of that job is pushing through setbacks. The best part is that you can learn how to not take things personally just by practicing. Keep your eye on the prize and ignore everything else.
