Recently, BDU’s CEO Lisa Peskin was out taking a walk when two show tunes came on that she hadn’t heard in a while. The first was “Heart” from Damn Yankees. You probably know the one: “You gotta have heart…” Then came “Put on a Happy Face” from Bye Bye Birdie. Two old songs from two classic musicals.
As Lisa listened, she realized that they have a lot to do with sales motivation.
Both songs offer relevant lessons about attitude, motivation and how people respond when things aren’t going exactly the way they want them to go.
No matter how great someone is at sales, they are still going to face difficult days where deals are lost, prospects won’t return calls and the numbers aren’t where they need to be.
However, what happens next has to do with something they have more control over than they think: attitude and motivation.
When Sales Gets Tough, You Gotta Have Heart
In Damn Yankees, the baseball team is struggling. They don’t have the best pitcher or players, and things aren’t looking great for them. However, there’s one thing they do have: heart.
That’s what makes the song such a great lesson for sales.
There are going to be times when your numbers don’t reflect your effort, your pipeline isn’t as full as it should be, a big opportunity that seemed like a sure thing fell through or you’ve been prospecting all week with no response.
When you’re in a sales slump, it can be very tempting to get discouraged. It’s easy to start thinking that nothing is working, and as a result you slow your activity level down because you can’t bear to face another rejection.
However, there’s one thing you can always bring to the table: your heart.
You can still control your effort, your preparation and whether you pick up the phone one more time or follow up with the prospect you’ve been meaning to contact.
While you may not be able to control the outcome of every conversation, you can absolutely control how you show up for it. That’s a huge part of staying motivated in sales.
Turning Sales Motivation into Action
Having heart doesn’t mean sitting at a desk, thinking positive thoughts and hoping a new client just magically appears. You need to turn your motivation into action.
At BDU, there’s a simple principle we talk about over and over again:
Make sure you’re doing the right number of the right activities the right way.
First, salespeople need to determine how much activity it takes to produce the desired results. For example, if you know how many prospecting calls it typically takes to generate one new appointment, you can work backward from your goal to determine how many calls you need to make. Once you know that number, commit to consistently meeting or exceeding it.
Then, they need to do the right activities. Being busy isn’t necessarily the same as being productive. It’s possible to spend an entire day answering emails, reorganizing a CRM and handling tasks that feel productive without actually doing anything that moves opportunities forward. Every activity you perform needs a corresponding result goal.
Finally, those activities need to be done the right way. If someone is making plenty of calls but isn’t asking good questions, listening carefully or communicating value, simply increasing the number of calls is not going to solve the problem.
When your sales aren’t where they need to be, the question shouldn’t just be, “Am I working hard?”
The better question to ask yourself is, “Am I doing the right number of the right activities the right way?”
This is where heart and strategy come together.
Put On a Happy Face: Choose a Positive Attitude
The second song Lisa heard on her walk, “Put On a Happy Face,” made her think of her mom. Lisa’s mom always used to say that in life, you can laugh or you can cry but it’s always better to laugh.
And she had plenty of reasons to cry. She faced adversity throughout her life and lost her mom when she was only 15 years old. Yet through it all, she taught Lisa and those around her the power of putting on a happy face.
That doesn’t mean pretending difficult things aren’t difficult, and it doesn’t mean ignoring problems or walking around with a fake smile when something genuinely needs attention. Instead, it’s about the lens through which you choose to view your situation.
Every morning presents a choice about the attitude you bring into the day and that choice can make a big impact in sales.
Why Is a Positive Attitude Important in Sales?
In sales, it’s easy to turn negative. A prospect may not return your call or, when they do, it’s just to decline the proposal. A deal everyone was counting on gets pushed into next quarter, then doesn’t close at all.
You can’t always choose what happens to you, but you can choose what you do next.
Will you:
- Let one bad call affect the next five you make?
- Spend the rest of the afternoon thinking about the sale you lost?
- Decide that nobody wants to talk today and stop prospecting?
Or do you learn what you can from the situation, put it in perspective and move on to the next opportunity? The choice is entirely yours.
A positive attitude in sales isn’t about believing every deal is going to close because they won’t. It’s about refusing to let one setback determine what happens next.
How Do You Stay Positive After Sales Rejection?
While it’s not fun, rejection is a big part of sales so it’s important to figure out a way to deal with it without allowing every “NO” to drain your motivation.
The first step is separating the result from the next opportunity. A lost sale can provide valuable information, so ask yourself:
- Was the opportunity properly qualified?
- Were the right questions asked?
- Was value communicated clearly?
- Was there something that could have been handled differently?
Take the lesson from the loss, then move on. Dwelling on rejection doesn’t change the outcome, but learning from it can change the next one.
That’s an important distinction when developing a healthier sales mindset.
(And remember, every “NO” just gets you that much closer to your next “YES!”)
Put Sales Setbacks in Perspective: the Rocking Chair Test
When a setback still feels much bigger than it probably is, Lisa has another tool that can help. One of her favorite ways to put things in perspective is something she calls the Rocking Chair Test.
When something happens that feels like a really big deal in the moment, she asks herself one simple question:
“When I’m old and sitting in my rocking chair, am I going to remember this?”
Think about a sale you recently lost. Will you really be sitting in your rocking chair years from now thinking, “I still can’t believe I didn’t close that deal”?
Probably not.
You probably also won’t be thinking about the prospect who didn’t return your call, the presentation where you didn’t get the answer you wanted or a selling day where nothing seemed to go as planned.
So why give them so much power today?
That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t care about your performance. However:
- If a sale is lost, figure out why
- If a mistake was made, learn from it
- If an activity isn’t producing results, determine what needs to change
There’s a big difference between learning from something and living in it. Learn the lesson, make the adjustment and keep moving forward.
Three Sales Motivation Lessons to Remember
It’s funny how two songs written decades ago can still deliver such relevant lessons.
- Have heart. Keep giving the best possible effort even when things don’t look the way you’d like.
- Choose your attitude. You can’t control everything that happens but you do have a choice in how you respond.
- Take action. Motivation alone won’t fill your pipeline. Focus on doing the right number of the right activities the right way.
Put those lessons together and there’s a pretty good formula for sales: have heart, choose your attitude, take the right actions and keep going!
The next time you lose a sale or have a difficult day, take a moment to learn from it and then try Lisa’s Rocking Chair Test.
Will this matter when you’re old and sitting in your rocking chair? If the answer is no, put it in perspective, put on a happy face and get right back to work.
Ready to Strengthen Your Sales Skills?
Sales motivation matters but lasting improvement also comes from having the right skills, tools and processes in place for success.
At BDU, we help sales professionals and sales leaders turn potential into performance through practical, real-world sales training, coaching and consulting.
Whether the goal is building a stronger pipeline, improving prospecting, increasing close ratios or developing better sales habits, BDU will help you focus on what you can control and take the right actions to move forward.
Ready to find out what’s possible? Fill out the form below to schedule a free, no-obligation call. We’ll talk about where you are today, where you’d like to be and how BDU can help you get there.