10 Suggestions to Overcome Sales Burnout

If you’ve been in any kind of position (sales or otherwise), a business owner, and/or manager for any length of time you know what I’m talking about. I always know I’m “in a bad place” when after winning a deal it’s a pain to fill out the contract. One of my sales people tell me about a deal they won and while I show excitement I’m not. These should always be good things, right? What happened to the passion? The “I can’t wait to go to work” attitude?

Then it can actually get worse… As the weekend winds down… Sunday night becomes an anxiety attack as you know Monday you need to hit it hard again. You have an early morning flight, customer heat to fade, responsibility, accountability, endless training, endless meetings, reports to fill out, contracts to get re-signed, mind numbing sales – customer chat, long days, stress, stress, stress.

“Burnout is nature’s way of telling you, you’ve been going through the motions your soul has departed; you’re a zombie, a member of the walking dead, a sleepwalker. False optimism is like administrating stimulants to an exhausted nervous system.” -Sam Keen

I know… I know… sales performance has to be met regardless of your “state”. So how do you keep successful performance going year after year, month after month, day after day? Here are 10 ideas that have helped me throughout my career as a sales professional to overcome burnout.

10 Suggestions to Overcome Burnout

1.) Pace yourself. Stop getting pulled into 20 different directions. Prioritize your time and efforts. Get rid of “excess baggage” projects. DO NOT join anything new. Stop preparing Sunday for the work week at the expense of the time you need to re-charge.

2.) Call it a night a little earlier than usual. Getting more sleep is a sure fire way to help the ol’ noodle.

3.) Exercise and eat healthier. Don’t make this a new project… you can do that later. Just walk or run a couple of times a week and stop eating out as much. Keep the caffeine to a small roar.

4.) Slow your intake of alcoholic beverages down. Alcohol of any kind is a depressant. Depression can be a huge factor in sales burnout.

5.) Start listening to and/or read good motivational books. If you’re religious… scriptures can help here as well.

6.) Surround yourself with positive people and activities. Helping, serving others is also a great way to “lose yourself” and keep the burnouts under control. Again, I’m not talking about a large project but maybe something simple. Look around there are always opportunities to help others in small ways.

7.) Buy some new business clothes… shoes, shirt/blouse whatever. Feeling good about your appearance really does help getting yourself out of the fog. Also getting a haircut, style, color change can help.

8.) Spend time with your family and friends – get back to your “roots” so to speak. Nothing like family to help you feel more “grounded”.

9.) Get some sunshine in your life. Get outside where there’s sun and fresh air. You will be amazed at how this can help get rid of blues and burnouts.

10.) Work on your resume and/or linkedin profile. You will find this can be a mental uplift as you’re going over career accomplishments.

What if none of this is working?
Assuming there’s nothing clinically wrong… If you’re still having issues then maybe it’s time for a new position possibly a new company. Life is simply too short to go through with a position – career path – that you dislike and are tired of doing. As much as I hate to say it… sometimes the grass is greener somewhere else.

These suggestions, of course, are just a few of the items that could help. Everyone will have different activities that work for them. What is important is you take some sort of action in an effort to resolve the sales burnouts. My experience has been that they don’t resolve on their own. Make some minor changes in your lifestyle and you’ll find you can be successful and a consistent producer for years to come.

© 2011, Chris Lott and SalesBlog!. All rights reserved.