Sales is hard. Don’t let it weigh you down.

Good morning,

This week we’re talking about dealing with setbacks and a bruised ego that can come with a career in sales. That typo in last week’s newsletter? Totally intentional to, uh, represent that mistakes are inevitable and the best thing to do is learn and move on. Yep. Let’s dive in. 

In a future newsletter, I’ll discuss tactical steps to take after losing a deal. Today’s topic is on the psychological— and even philosophical— side of dealing with the toughest aspect of sales. Visualize the last time a client or a stakeholder told you “no,” especially when you’d already invested a lot of your time and effort. How’d you handle it?

Let’s start with a reality check: It’s impossible for everything you want to go your way, especially in business. You’ll make unconscious mistakes. You will lose deals. And when you do lose a deal, be humble enough to uncover what you could have done better. The loss becomes a skill building opportunity once you have something tangible to work toward. What ultimately separates you from everyone else is the rate you learn from your mistakes and how quickly you apply the learnings.

“Control the controllables” is a saying you may have heard before; it has a useful flavor of Stoic philosophy. To Stoics, the concept of acceptance distinguishes between things that we have no control over whatsoever and things over which we have some, but not complete control, and focusing our energy around the latter. If you want any chance of lasting success in sales, you need to truly internalize this. Find peace knowing you can show up to the best of your ability and still get stonewalled by a customer. Turns out mom was right when saying “all that matters is you try your best.”

A challenging moment is either a learning opportunity or something out of your control not worth stressing over. Work toward quickly parsing between the two.

Nearly 3 out of 5 salespeople struggle with their mental health (source). While some sellers definitely need professional help, everyone can benefit from taking a more Stoic approach to the “uncontrollables.”