Beating the Sales Burnout

Even the greatest sales reps know that selling can get tedious. Pitches become boring, call sheets become monotonous, and it’s easy to feel like you’re stagnating after a while. Burnout like this can cause your win rates to decline and fewer inbound clients to be in the pipeline, which is never a boost to confidence.

So how do you get your edge and energy back? How can you make B2B sales seem fresh again? Getting re-motivated can be a challenge, especially if you haven’t been thrilled with your recent performance, but overcoming your sales burnout is completely doable with the right steps and attitude.

Competition is A Good Thing

Competition isn’t just healthy, it’s essential for sales reps. Your drive to be the best and score as many wins as possible is what makes you effective, and it can also re-energize you when things feel stagnant. Jobs that have an aspect of gamification or leaderboards are really helpful here, allowing you to set benchmarks based on coworkers. Seeing your rank fall behind peers might be all you need to kick-start your system and get invigorated!

Look For Companies With a Stimulating Culture

In the same way that staying competitive with coworkers helps overcome burnout, the environment you choose to work in can play a big role. Companies that allow you to be flexible in how you operate make a huge difference, especially if they have a culture that understands and prioritizes your need to decompress. It’s hard to consistently give 100% if you’re sitting at the phone all day with nothing to switch it up. Take a minute to get some air, listen to music, or play a game or two — it can be the difference between a low energy morning and an amazing afternoon. Obviously not every rep can control their work environment, but finding ways and times to prioritize fun in your daily routine can help things feel fresh.

Play Around With Your Pitch

After you’ve run through your pitch a while, it’s inevitably going to start feeling less effective. You’re doing the same thing over and over, you aren’t reaching quotas as easily, and general anxiety about the job can start to make you feel burnt out. At the same time, you’re also going to start recognizing the parts of your pitch that are most effective. A great way to avoid burnout here is to focus on pitch optimization. Take note of how certain audiences react to certain phrases, then start to tailor your pitches for specific customers. In general, you want to hone in on the parts of your pitch that are most essential and highlight them concisely. Try shortening up your pitches and making them as direct as possible, or take a look at how frequently you’re using certain words. Listening to a recording of yourself can be greatly beneficial, allowing you to consistently optimize your sales technique to keep things from getting stale.

Shift Your Perspective

Some of the worst burnout for SDRs comes from the tedium of daily routines. Even if your first few pitches of the day are killer, a few hours (and a few dozen call sheets) later, staying energized isn’t easy. One of the best methods of combating this is a simple change in perspective. Try to approach sales from the angle of solving a problem. Rather than focusing on the act of selling or tasks like getting through a call sheet, try seeing what you’re doing as providing a solution to someone. Shifting your perspective this way can help sales feel more rewarding and allows you to better assist potential customers.

Remain Customer Centric

Continuing with the previous thought, a great way to re-ignite your passion for sales is to make it less about you and more about service. As much as overcoming the burnout is about managing yourself, learning more about your customers on an individual level can turn sales into a different experience. Taking the time to understand your customers can change otherwise identical pitches into a more targeted and personalized endeavor. If you focus on the needs and personality of each customer versus attempting to sell your product to anyone and everyone, your job is always new and interesting. That way you’re always learning about a new company, how their operation works, and solving real problems for people.