There are only 2 things you have complete control over as a salesperson: your attitude and effort.
You could be the SDR who lets a bad cold call ruin the rest of their day. Or you can be the SDR that uses a bad cold call to evaluate what they could've done better.
1. Your Attitude
Attitude is more important than circumstances.
You can make any situation worse by losing control of your emotions and letting adversity get you down.
However, you can also make any situation better by framing adversity as a learningexperience that makes you tougher.
You're eyeing that final deal in the month, and on the last day, it becomes clear that this deal is going to slip.
- Break it down: Chronologically map out the key events that happened over the course of the deal.
- Figure out what went wrong: You find that the slip happened because Legal took 2-3 weeks longer than expected to review your redlines.
- Next time: Set a redline deadline the moment you get the contract in their hands and ask them for the first cuts back a week from receiving the redlines.
Instead of letting this deal ruin the rest of your week, you can always remember this deal as the one that taught you how to manage Legal for the rest of your career.
2. Your Effort
The best sellers focus on inputs, not on results.
You cannot directly control results, but you can control the things that influence the results. Focusing on things you cannot control is a recipe for anxiety about the future.
Say you're finding that a ton of prospects have been ghosting you.
Again, break down your sales cycle step by step, and see if you can identify the moment where you got ghosted:
- Beginning: You didn’t set the expectation that the first call was going to be you asking them questions — maybe they were expecting a demo. Because of the misalignment, they don’t want to take a second call with you.
- Middle: Sometimes you sense hesitations from the prospect. Instead of letting it float away, did you pin it down and call it out?
- End: Did you walk them through next-next steps so they had a reason to take another meeting with you, because they see where the sales cycle is going?
Figure out how you can improve your discovery so you never get ghosted again.
