Psychologists tell us that when we are under stress we tend to go back to dysfunctional behaviors and attitudes that appeared to work for us in the past. We do this even when we know that doing so will probably produce poor results. We can’t help ourselves.

A Great Non-Sales Example We All Can Relate To
Eating. We know we can’t eat everything within reach or we’ll gain weight. We’ll feel bad about ourselves and our clothes won’t fit. We just know better, so we watch what we eat.

But uh-oh. You discover your kid is flunking two subjects in high school and may not be able to graduate. If that’s not bad enough, your second floor hot water heater sprang a leak and flooded one end of your house. Is the home insurance paid up?

And what do we frequently do in response to personal stress like this? We start eating every cheeseburger, french fry and chocolate bar in sight. Do we think this will help us with our problems? No. Do we know this is not a productive response to our stress? Of course. Does it make us feel better? Well…yes.

Companies Do Exactly The Same Thing
That’s right. Slowing economy. Sales are down. The stockholders are beating on the Chairperson, who is beating on the President, who is beating on the VP of Sales, who is beating on the Sales Directors, who are beating on the Sales Managers, who are beating on… you. If your company is like most organizations right now, everyone is under stress.

And what do we do when we’re under stress? We go back to behaviors and attitudes that don’t necessarily work well, but they make us feel good. Entire corporations are in the midst of this same dysfunctional behavior right now.

Examples Of Corporate Sales Directives During Times Of Stress

1. Throw the Yellow Pages at every sales professional in the joint and have them make as many prospecting calls as possible. We’re going for quantity here folks. More. More. More.
2. Round up the two tons of old marketing collateral materials gathering dust in that storage closet and mail them to every address we’ve ever sold to, could sell to, might sell to, have dreamed about selling to… This is a war we’re fighting here in case no one has noticed.
3. Send out a marketing email every hour on the hour to every known customer or prospect we’ve ever touched. In addition, buy half a dozen ginormous prospect mailing lists from several of those list services and email away. Who cares if the contact names are outdated and useless? At least we’re doing something. We’ve got to be busy!
4. Take all the customary sales professional activity goals and double them, maybe triple them. Those lazy sales types got us in this condition in the first place.

Okay, maybe some of the above is exaggerated, but sadly, in some organizations it’s not that far from what’s actually happening.

Everyone Take A Deep Breath And Work Smart
This is not the time for individual sales professionals or entire corporations to stress out, panic, appear desperate and waste time on sales tactics that don’t work.

Now, more than ever, is the time to stick with the basics we know are effective. It’s also a time to keep selling and not succumb to a bunch of silly and useless activities just because they make us feel like we’re doing something. Unguided activity alone is not how you and your employer will outlast this storm.

Further reading:

• Good Sales-Good Economy, Bad Sales-Bad Salesperson

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Related posts:

1. Sales Managers and Dysfunctional Work Environments
2. Dysfunctional Work Environments
3. Value Propositions, Corporate and Personal
4. What The Coast Guard Can Teach Us About Recession Selling Versus Boom Time Selling
5. Report Card Sales Management

Tags: dysfunctional, manager, performance, Prospecting, prospects

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