It has been said that hope is the oxygen successful salespeople breathe. Hope is what gets them up in the morning, what helps them recover from a disappointment and persevere to the close. In fact it is not hope but rather optimism that carries them to the finish line.
Research bears this out.
A 2005 study by Andrea Dixon and Susan Shertzer examined nearly 300 salespeople in the insurance industry. The survey asked the salespeople to “recall their most unsuccessful sales experience and to write a brief description of that situation.” Without delving too deeply into that research, they found that salespeople with a higher level of optimism (and a better self-concept) were more likely to attribute the sale’s failure on their own, internal actions and choices than on factors outside of their control.
In other words, salespeople with a natural optimism are more likely to own their failure, learn from it and course correct than salespeople with lower levels of optimism. These are the AEs that grow from their experience, learn from their failures and in turn grow your revenue.
So, how do the pessimists among you manage their way through the day without running their cars off of bridges? They live in hope, or as I call it, false hope. False hope is a saccharine series of thoughts where the salesperson sells themself on why this deal is going to close and works really hard on selling you, too.
In some cases their activity levels appear to be astronomical when in reality they are simply professional guests. You hired them because of their Rolodex of contacts. But if you studied their resume you’d come to find they have about 13 months of meetings in their Outlook contacts and then they’re off to the next gig having sold nothing but a few booths at your career fair.
In most cases they have only a handful of sales pending and they spend an inordinate amount of time editing the logos on the presentation, meeting internally about the promotion and worrying in your office about the ratings. And once the presentation is given they return, raving that “the client LOVED the presentation.”
And then: crickets.
Hope and optimism look the same at first glance. But where optimism leads to growth and maturity, hope only leads to budget cavities.