Stress Less, Sell More E-Book

Jeff Riseley

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 361

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Beschreibung

Improve your sales performance and avoid burnout with Mental Health, resilience, and stress-management strategies. In Stress Less, Sell More: 220 Strategies to Prevent Sales Burnout and Maximize Mental Performance, celebrated sales leader and founder of the Sales Health Alliance, Jeff Riseley, delivers a practical and impactful handbook that makes it easy for sales teams to perform better and build mental health conversations consistently into their busy selling days. In the book, you'll explore ways to navigate the pressures and stressors faced by every sales professional. Its pages can be read day-by-day or all at once, and a companion website supplements the material found in the book with free articles, , and videos. You'll also discover: * How to build an individual Mental Health and stress-management toolkit to improve mental resilience and sales performance. * Ways to overcome stressors in sales like lost deals, missed targets and buyers ghosting. * Helpful team-based changes that dramatically improve salesperson mental health--like quota relief during vacations An essential guide to improving salesperson wellbeing and sales performance, Stress Less, Sell More will prove to be an invaluable resource for sales leaders, team leaders, salespeople, and sales teams looking for ways to make daily work life less stressful and more productive.

Leseprobe

JEFF RISELEY

FOUNDER OF THE SALES HEALTH ALLIANCE

STRESS LESS, SELL MORE

220 WAYS TO Prioritize Your Well-Being, Prevent Burnout, and Hit Your Sales Target

Copyright © 2023 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey.Published simultaneously in Canada.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, Inc., 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, [phone], fax [phone], or on the web at www.copyright.com. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, [phone], fax [phone], or online at http://www.wiley.com/go/permission.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Riseley, Jeff, author.

Title: Stress less, sell more : 220 ways to prioritize your well-being, prevent burnout, and hit your sales target / Jeff Riseley.

Description: Hoboken, New Jersey : John Wiley & Sons, Inc., [2023] | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2022047801 (print) | LCCN 2022047802 (ebook) | ISBN 9781394153398 (cloth) | ISBN 9781394153411 (adobe pdf) | ISBN 9781394153404 (epub)

Subjects: LCSH: Stress (Psychology) | Well-being. | Selling. | Stress management. | Success in business.

Classification: LCC BF575.S75 R57 2023 (print) | LCC BF575.S75 (ebook) | DDC 155.9/042—dc23/eng/20221116

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022047801

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022047802

Cover Design: WileyCover Image: © bubaone/DigitalVision Vectors/Getty Images

Dedicated to Taylor, my parents, and my close group of friends who continue to support and challenge me to grow every single day.

How to Use This Book

WORKING IN SALES can be extremely stressful, and most salespeople I've worked with over the years have agreed with this statement: When salespeople stress less, they sell more.

When sales teams and sales reps become anxious, depressed, or experience burnout, their sales performance and mental health suffers. If you factor in weekends, holidays, vacations, wellness days, sick days, and unforeseen events that take you away from your sales role, there are roughly 220 “selling” days a year.

This book was created to help you better navigate the pressure and stressors you face during those 220 days in a mentally healthy way. Each page or two will tackle a different aspect of mental health in sales. Some will be informative and draw on learnings from the latest workplace research, some may simply challenge you to think about mental health in a different way, while other pages will be more tactical and equip you with mindset, resilience, and stress-management strategies you can start using right away.

You, as the reader, have the choice to read it day by day or all at once. If you're part of a sales team, I'd recommend going through this book together. Try reading each page separately and then discussing as a group during your daily sales stand-ups.

In addition to the information contained in these pages, Sales Health Alliance was created to be a resource first and business second. This means the links found in this book will direct you back to the 100 free articles and videos living on the website, in addition to some paid services we offer.

Change happens when small, consistent actions are taken daily to form habits. My hope is this book leads to the creation of some good habits that help you maximize your sales performance and mental health each day.

Jeff Riseley

Founder

Sales Health Alliance

JANUARY

JANUARY, Day 01: Quota Relief

I recently learned that companies like HubSpot offer their salespeople quota relief when they take vacations. Can we just agree that this should 100% be the norm for all salespeople everywhere?

At their core, quotas and sales targets should be nothing more than a challenging yet achievable goal that helps provide an individual sales rep with direction in their role. We encounter problems with them when the intention behind them changes, and they are viewed by leadership as a tool to control human behavior and impose obedience. Sadly, the latter is often the case and can be seen with vacation policies.

Any company touting “unlimited PTO” without offering quota relief is operating from a belief (whether they know it or not) that quota will keep salespeople obedient and “keep the policy in check.” Salespeople aren't naïve—we know this. Actions speak louder than words, and offering your salespeople quota relief when they take vacations is one of the best ways to show your team that you trust them to be responsible adults.

In addition to building more trusting relationships, teams can also expect a boost in mental health and sales performance. As Kevin Bailey from Dreamfuel taught me, feeling guilty is a very powerful emotion that makes it incredibly difficult to recover from stress and use our time off to effectively recharge. That's why I believe we can remove this feeling of guilt by offering quota relief so our salespeople can actually come back feeling their best and perform their best.

JANUARY, Day 02: Compounding Health

LeBron James spends an estimated $1.5 million a year on his mind and body. That's about 4% of his salary this year. How would you spend 4% of your salary to do the same?

LeBron has been the greatest for the longest with no signs of slowing down at age 36. A lot of this has to do with how well he treats his body—something salespeople are notoriously bad at during stressful months.

Here are some investments and routines I've made to help improve my physical and mental health to ensure I'm showing up in my peak state every day.

New mattress and pillows:

For better sleep.

Standing desk:

For better energy.

Ergonomic desk chair:

For better posture.

WHOOP tracker:

For better training and recovery.

Brita filter:

For better water.

Dyson air purifier:

For better air.

Peloton bike:

For better cardio.

Bodylastics:

For better strength.

Regular chiropractic treatments:

For better stress management.

Cold showers:

For a better immune system.

Read at least 10 pages per day:

For better knowledge.

Daily gratitude and meditation:

For a better mindset.

Meal plan:

For daily salads, nutrients, and vitamins.

If you improve the inputs going into your body by just 1%, these inputs are going to compound over time into a much happier, healthier, and successful sales career.

JANUARY, Day 03: PIP 2.0

The PIP, aka the “Performance Improvement Plan,” has to be one of the dumbest things the sales industry has ever created, and this is why:

Humans have a highly evolved “social protection system,” which helped our ancestors survive and reproduce effectively by being part of a tribe. When we feel pushed to the edge of our “tribe,” like when we're handed a PIP, we perceive this as danger and an extremely vulnerable position to be in. Fear kicks our body into fight-or-flight, and the overflow of stress hormones that get released shuts down our ability to sell effectively.

To make things worse, there is a lot we cannot control within sales that can affect the outcome. It's like a coach saying to a basketball player: “I don't care what happens—go score 25 points in the game tomorrow or you're going to be traded to a new team.”

What should we do instead?

Enter PIP 2.0—the “PRACTICE Improvement Plan”

The best athletes and salespeople know that when their performance has declined, the best thing they can do is practice. They can get more shots up, they can make more calls, they can practice their pitch, and they ask new questions.

Ultimately, they can invest more effort into the things they can control that will lead to better performance outcomes over time. Framing this effort as practice also helps keep the focus on learning and growth as the motivator rather than fear and threatening outcomes or consequences.

JANUARY, Day 04: Sales Sabbaticals

Sales sabbaticals were extremely common for salespeople who could afford them during and after COVID. Top salespeople who had disposable income quit companies and left high-paying roles to put their career on hold. Many sales organizations were caught off guard by this trend and still don't understand why sabbaticals became popular, so here is what happened.

During COVID, salespeople were working under extremely high levels of stress without having access to popular stress management activities such as exercise, social events, or travel to help release the buildup of tension. As a result, employees were heavily relying on willpower to force themselves to push through their work tasks, without the ability to rest and recover effectively.

Willpower works a lot like an elastic band, and the more we rely on it, the more tension builds up until it breaks or is released. When this happens it snaps back past the point where it started and creates an overcorrection (The Great Resignation). This is why if a dieter who is attempting to make big changes to eating habits using willpower doesn't cheat a little, they cheat a lot when willpower finally runs out.

One- and two-week vacations were no longer enough to cope with the pressure of life during the pandemic. The Great Resignation occurred, and companies were left scrambling as top performers walked out and didn't come back. Unfortunately, this pattern of sabbaticals and extended time off is likely to continue in a cyclical pattern because life-changing stressors created by events associated with political turmoil, recessions, climate change, and overpopulation are only going to become more frequent in the future. Collectively we have to move away from our overreliance on willpower at work, and sales organizations need to realize their salespeople need additional support in coping with these external stressors.

JANUARY, Day 05: Intrinsic Motivation

I have met very few salespeople who would describe themselves as intrinsically motivated by the work they do in sales. This has led me to ask the question, Is working in sales actually that boring, or is something else going on?

To answer this question we need to understand the difference between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. Salespeople who are extrinsically motivated sell because of what they will get, such as the promotions, commission checks, and vacations. Salespeople who are intrinsically motivated sell because they simply enjoy selling, which they perceive as interesting and meaningful for its own sake.

Boatloads of research from Alfie Kohn in his book Punished by Rewards,1 has shown that the QUALITY of performance, creativity, and learning tends to decline significantly when people are extrinsically motivated, which means sales leaders should be striving to have teams that are intrinsically motivated.

This is challenging because the average sales environment is set up to kill intrinsic motivation. Research has shown that intrinsic motivation declines in people when they feel:

Threatened;

Watched;

Forced to work under a deadline;

Ordered around;

Made to compete against other people.

Sound familiar to working in sales?

Decades of creating the wrong sales environments has conditioned an entire industry focused on “performance” to actually underperform. Time to break the pattern and build an environment where people thrive.

JANUARY, Day 06: Work Hard, Play Hard

If you're interviewing for a sales role, and they describe their company culture as “Work hard, play hard,” be careful. In my experience this simple statement usually means you'll be working in an environment with the following:

Profits over people;

Machine-like metrics;

Selfishness;

Company politics;

No boundaries;

No rest and recovery;

Carrot holding and chasing;

Weak leadership;

Weak mentorship;

Low personal development;

Low trust;

Heavy party culture;

High burnout and attrition rate;

Mental health stigma.

There is also usually the potential to make big $$$ in organizations like this, but is it worth it? It's easy to get stuck wearing “golden handcuffs” and feel trapped in an environment that stunts your growth because it can be hard to replace the large salary and high commission somewhere else. My two recommendations for situations like this are:

If you take the job, then have a plan.

Get in, make your money, and get out. Mitigate your lifestyle to avoid expensive habits so you feel less trapped. Last thing you want to do is find yourself in a situation where you're working in a toxic environment but can't leave because you're paying off a Mercedes you shouldn't have purchased in the first place.

Look for companies that describe their sales culture differently:

“People achieve their goals inside and outside of work.”

“Work hard, recover hard.”

“Practice openness, candor, and vulnerability.”

“Embrace and learn from failure.”

Before going for your next job interview ask yourself this question and answer it honestly so you know what to look for: How would you want a future employer to describe their culture that would match your needs and core values?

JANUARY, Day 07: Kobe

In an interview with Lewis Howes, Kobe Bryant shared a story about a time when he was 10 years old and played basketball for an entire summer.2 During this summer he didn't score a single point. When he was crying about it, his dad came over to him and gave him a hug and said, “I don't care if you score zero points or you score 60 points; I'm going to love you no matter what.” Kobe said that gave him all of the confidence in the world to fail.

From there he went to work and adopted a long-term view. He wasn't going to catch the kids ahead of him in a day, in a week, or even in a year. He put more thought and effort into learning and practicing the fundamentals of his craft. Over time he caught those who relied primarily on their athletic gifts and evolved into a legend through effort and practice.

This is what happens when we put less emphasis on outcomes and give people a safe environment to learn from failure. We allow them to fall in love with the process and enjoy developing their craft even in the face of adversity.

Over time they become legends.

Are you a sales leader with enough courage and trust to tell a new rep today, “I don't care if you make zero sales this month or you make 20 sales this month; I'm going to support you no matter what”? Who knows, you might have a mini Kobe Bryant on your team who just needs a little support and a different environment for them to flourish into a superstar.

JANUARY, Day 08: The Problem with Slack

Unpopular question: Is it time to delete Slack?

Much like Facebook, I think it started with the right intentions, but most teams are no longer using it for the right reasons. Lately I've heard it being described as an “interruption tool” and “gossip tool” while operating under the guise of a way to boost productivity and team collaboration.

Here Are Some Numbers for You:

Gloria Mark, a professor at the University of California, Irvine, found workers only spend 10 and a half minutes on a task before being interrupted.

3

When the average worker is interrupted it takes them about 23 minutes to return to the original task, and this delay in completing tasks increases stress and burnout. Even more shocking, 56% of interruptions are from external sources and 44% are created by ourselves.

According to the American Psychological Association, shifting between tasks can cost as much as 40% of someone's productivity time.

4

Not to mention the “Slack culture” that demands immediate responses and actively erodes boundaries between work and home with the inability to disconnect.

As more and more new hires onboard remotely, I see too many organizations defaulting to relationship building through Slack, because it's easier than having a phone call. This makes interruptions feel unrelenting and makes it difficult for new hires to integrate into a team’s culture quickly.

Today, combat this and if someone is new to your team, schedule time to get to know them outside of Slack. Improving relationships offline will always lead to better communication online.

JANUARY, Day 09: Slack Hygiene

When I asked my network if it's time to delete Slack, several people commented on the LinkedIn post. Here is a summary of the main learnings from everyone that shared their thoughts on the topic:

Slack is extremely helpful when used the right way.

Misuse negatively affects deep work, deep focus, and mental health.

Individuals need to build strong boundaries and use self-control.

Use the “snooze” and “away” buttons frequently.

The phone app is totally unnecessary while working from home.

Leadership should not assume people use Slack in a healthy way. Run Slack “hygiene” and communication training.

Leadership needs to set clear expectations with the team from day 1.

Leadership needs to stop using it to micromanage and check who is “on.”

Remote onboarding is creating bad habits without training.

Use it to replace short phone calls, not important meetings.

Bullying, abuse, and shaming happens on Slack. Don't “like” these comments.

It's easy for new hires to misperceive and be offended by comments without a prior working relationship.

If something is urgent,

use

the phone; expect delays with Slack.

What would you add to the list of Slack best practices and practice with your team?

JANUARY, Day 10: Eight Rules to Live By

Recently, it was my four-year anniversary of being cancer free. This sparked a lot of self-reflection of what has happened in my life since the diagnosis. I've put together my eight rules for life inside and outside of sales that I've learned over the past few years.

#1 – Seek Discomfort

Accelerated growth and the most meaningful life experiences happen outside our comfort zone. When we seek discomfort on a regular basis, we can rewire our anxiety from a “threat” detector to a “growth” detector. This is an important skill to develop because both sales and life in general can feel uncomfortable at times. Over time, learning to seek discomfort gets easier and leads to greater levels of personal growth and fulfillment. Having a helpful set of stress management tools and self-care strategies can help you push through the self-doubt, fear, and anxiety you face on the edge of your comfort zone.

#2 – Try to Inspire Instead of Impress

Too many of us spend every waking hour trying to impress our friends, partners, colleagues, bosses, and buyers. This traps us into thinking who we “should be” versus who we actually are. Instead, focus on inspiring others through your quirks, journey, authenticity, generosity, empathy, compassion, discipline, and hard work. These qualities and actions are firmly in your hands to control every single day.

#3 – The 8-Hour Workday Makes No Sense

Any company or leader that is operating under the expectation that a human being can focus and complete high-quality work for seven to eight hours (or more) per day is living in a fantasy. According to research and productivity experts, on the best days, we'll have four, maybe five hours of deep focus time.5 This means companies and leaders need to stop focusing and rewarding those on their team who are working the longest. Instead their focus should be on removing distractions and maximizing recovery periods to generate the highest performance possible during these four to five hours each day.

 You can continue reading rules #4 through #8 by scanning here and sharing the full list with someone on your team who could benefit from them.

JANUARY, Day 11: Take Your Breaks

Feeling that Zoom fatigue today? Microsoft did some research recently to prove that your brain needs breaks.6

The researchers conducted brain scans on 14 people during four half-hour back-to-back meetings, one without breaks and one with 10-minute breaks in-between each meeting. What they uncovered was that those working without breaks experienced higher stress levels; in particular, stress levels spiked while participants transitioned between meetings when there was no break and experienced lower levels of engagement in the next meeting. Long story short, performance suffered when recovery periods were neglected.

Between demos with clients and internal meetings, it's very easy for a salesperson to have a calendar that is filled with back-to-back calls. If you want to perform your best, then you need to protect your calendar and schedule breaks. Learn to tell your manager and clients:

“No—that time doesn't work. Can we move it back by 10 minutes?”

To the sales leaders reading this book, try shortening your meetings to 20 or 40 minutes to ensure your team has time to reset before their next meeting. This will make everyone more productive and help keep stress levels under control throughout the day.

JANUARY, Day 12: The Problem with Process

Did you know the keyboard we're all typing on right now was intentionally designed to be inefficient? That's right. The QWERTY keyboard had two primary purposes when it was first designed:

It was designed to slow down typing speed, because if you typed too fast on the original typewriter it would jam.

It was designed so salespeople could quickly type the word “Typewriter” only using the top line of keys to demonstrate how efficient it was.

Ozan Varol cleverly uses this example in his book Think Like a Rocket Scientist to highlight how “process” is by definition backward looking and developed in response to yesterday's troubles.7 If we don't challenge it, we'll never progress.

Enter the five-day work week—created during the industrial revolution in 1908, when work was primarily blue collar. This “process” is dated, inefficient, and taking a toll on mental health. Our work has now become increasingly remote, white collar, and computers/technology have us working at breakneck speeds that have drastically reduced our ability to rest and recover.

Research is piling up that we're getting this work process wrong. For example, when Microsoft Japan experimented with a four-day work week, productivity rose by nearly 40%.8

Today, start thinking about what “processes” you're still following that are no longer relevant and affecting your overall mental health. A good way to do this is to evaluate your daily habits or routines that have been on autopilot for a few years and update them for present-day you. How can you create a work week or make changes that help you thrive today, instead of yesterday?

JANUARY, Day 13: VP Sales Enablement

I'm curious to see which company is going to be first to hire a VP Sales Enablement of Well-Being. For those interested, here is a job description to help you get started:

The VP Sales Enablement of Well-Being position was created to help optimize sales team performance at X company through better mental health and well-being. Your main mission is to ensure each member of our sales team is showing up well rested, managing stress effectively, and feeling their best so they can optimally perform for our customers.

Key responsibilities include:

Design, lead, and provide training that improves sales team resilience, EQ, and mental health.

Be a confidant for frontline managers and individual contributors.

Implement well-being KPIs to manage burnout.

Relay sales team well-being reporting and analysis to upper management.

Work with CRO to set balanced sales targets.

Develop processes that promote “active recovery” of the sales team.

Build mental health and resilience processes into new hire onboarding.

Work with HR to evaluate and provide mental health service providers.

Design processes to improve openness, inclusivity, and vulnerability within sales.

How would you finish this job description and what type of qualifications do you think this person should have?

 If you're curious to learn more about what the Sales Enablement of Well-Being is and how it applies to sales, scan here to read why it will help sales teams exponentially improve performance.

JANUARY, Day 14: Interview Questions

If you're a salesperson looking for a job who wants to avoid a toxic environment and find one that supports better mental health, I've created a list of questions you can ask during the interview process:

What did you do to support your team's mental health during COVID?

What type of mental health training or services has the company invested into?

How important do you think mental health and team well-being is to sales performance?

How would you react if a sales rep requested a mental health day and they were behind target?

At the end of a challenging month, how do you encourage teams to rest and recover?

Even the best salespeople miss target sometimes; how is a sales rep treated when they miss their target?

If asking these questions makes you uncomfortable, then that's a good sign. You're stepping outside your comfort zone and learning to put your needs first. If asking these questions disqualifies you from the interview process, then you can feel good about that too. You saved yourself from a bad situation. If asking these questions are met with a blank stare, hums and haws, or an attempt to deflect the question …

Run.

Finally, if you're a sales leader or hiring manager reading this right now and not proud of how you would answer these questions, then it's time to change.

 Check out some bonus questions in this article and share them with a fellow salesperson who is currently in the interview process, by scanning here.

JANUARY, Day 15: LeBron James

If sales leaders coached LeBron James like most manage their salespeople, their interaction might look something like this:

Sales leader:

“We're on a six-game winning streak

(consecutive quarters hit)

; we need to keep crushing our opponents.”

LeBron:

“Sure, coach.”

Sales leader:

“LeBron, instead of getting 30 points and 10 rebounds like the last game, I need you to get 40 points and 15 rebounds this game.” (Metrics)

LeBron:

“Why, coach?”

Sales leader:

“We need more fans. Our sold-out stadiums aren't enough to make us happy.” (Rat Race)

LeBron:

“Coach … I can try, but I'm feeling a little burnt out from that road trip and back-to-back games.” (Hard previous quarters)

Sales leader:

“Burnt out? Really? Here are some new basketball shoes—they'll make you run faster

(sales technology).

And let me teach you a better way to shoot so it's easier to score.”

(Sales training)

LeBron:

“Coach … I think I just need some rest. Maybe manage my minutes

(lower my metrics)

in the next game so I can rest and not get hurt?”

Sales leader:

“No, we need to win this game.”

(Hit sales target)

“Didn't you hear me? We need to crush it, or the world will end.”

LeBron plays the next game, tears his ACL, and changes teams in free agency

.

Sales leader:

“Man, LeBron was a bad culture fit and not cut out for basketball.”

JANUARY, Day 16: Daily Vitamins

Most people treat self-care like an aspirin when they should be treating it like a daily multivitamin. In order for self-care to be effective in supporting our mental health, it requires consistent daily practice.

Think about it, when we have a headache, we take some aspirin and within a few hours we start to feel better. Whereas, in order for vitamins to be effective in keeping us healthy and ward off diseases we have to take them daily. We encounter problems when we try to apply this “aspirin” self-care strategy to our mental health and well-being:

We go to the gym when we feel out of shape, work out for a week until we feel a little better, and then stop. We try meditating when we're overwhelmed, it works a bit, enough to feel better, and then stop.

Self-Care Is Like a Multivitamin for Your Brain

It helps build resilience and protect our mental health, but only if it's practiced and used daily. The best way to do this is to bookend your workday with a start-up and wind-down routine that includes self-care.

This is my process:

Start-up routine:

Personal development reading;

Workout;

Cold shower;

Wim Hof breathing method;

Visualization.

Wind-down routine:

Reflect on progress made;

Make a plan for the next day;

Gratitude;

Journal;

Meditation.

By bookending your day with a self-care routine, you make sure you take your brain vitamins daily, and the routine trains your body to easily move from work mode to relax mode. This is especially important to do while working from home.

If you try to change too many things about your routine and habits all at once, it won't be sustainable. Start by adding one additional self-care routine to the beginning or end of every day. Complete it every day for a week, and see how you feel. Then plan to add another one.

JANUARY, Day 17: Advice from a Friend