Sales Burnout: What is it & how to recover from one

Often there comes the point in sales when you feel emotionally drained and stuck at a single place with no hopes to move ahead. 

You feel engulfed with negativity. Even simple sales tasks feel like a dramatic undertaking.  

You aren’t able to focus.

You don’t have enough energy to be consistently productive. 

Suddenly the sales quota that you were able to achieve earlier now seems like an albatross around the neck.

Well, these are all the classic signs of “Sales Burnout”. 

What is sales burnout? 

Sales burnout is the conglomeration of mental, physical, and emotional reactions in response to prolonged stress. It happens over a slow period. You might experience it when there is a disconnect between what you are currently doing and what you truly want to do or when things change for the worse. 

Sales burnout hurts: It can take a serious toll on your performance as well as your health. 

Chronic stress, insomnia, unhappiness, anger, exasperation, restlessness, high blood pressure, vulnerability to illness, poor sales results, etc. are some of the consequences of sales burnout. 

Salesburnout can happen to the best of us. If you are aware and take action in real-time, you can also recover. 

Beating the sales burnout – Steps to recover 

In sales burnout, you feel you have little or no control over your work. Suddenly everything starts piling up, and you keep losing interest. You become irritable and impatient. You are not able to manage your sales activities, deals, prospects, and clients. You withdraw from new responsibilities. Your routine work is affected, which has a grievous impact on your sales goals.

Instead of hitting the pause button and hoping you could escape from a sales burnout, it is better to do something to change it actively. 

Here are a few things you can do to recover from a sales burnout.

1. Plan out your each workday 

During a sales burnout, you lose track of time. You just work for the sake of working, and so most of the tasks aren’t completed. You even end up losing deals due to constant delays. 

Lack of direction, not lack of time, is the problem. We all have twenty-four hour days.

The first thing you need to do is systematically gain control over your time and plan each day. 

Invest a little time in structuring your day. Make a list of things that you need to do in a day. Prioritize your tasks.

Remove tasks that are not important or can be handled differently. For instance, instead of drafting the same email repeatedly, create and reuse email templates. 

Start with the tasks that are difficult and time-consuming. Allot time for each task. Track them and ensure you are completing them on-time. Be true to yourself; you will remain stuck in the vicious circle of disappointment. 

2. Actively seek mentorship 

When in trouble, do not hesitate to approach your senior or manager. Their knowledge and experience can save you from drowning. However, you need to be open to constructive criticism. 

When seeking sales mentorship, ask for feedback. As you are already stressed, you might not be able to see the gap in your performance. So take help and ask them to evaluate your performance. Work sincerely on improvement areas. You, seniors, can show you the path to success, but it is you who have to travel to reach there. 

There has to be a willingness to constantly accept critical feedback and rapidly iterate to make things better. – Sam Yagan 

Keep communicating with your seniors. They might give you some valuable advice to get through the rough patch. They can save you from getting trapped in negativity.  

3. Take help from some sales tools to reduce your workload 

During a sales burnout, you feel you are overloaded with work. Well, the reality is you just need to streamline your work, get things organized, and take the smart route to get things done quickly. 

You’ll find many sales tools in the market that can help you with it. For instance, with a smart tool like Salesmate CRM, you can easily manage your sales contacts, activities, and deals as well as automate most of the time-consuming tasks. 

Or 

With a tool like Proposify, create professional-looking proposals in minutes. You can easily store all the important content, photo, and logos in their content library and use them whenever required. 

Such sales tools help you in managing your work efficiently and even increases your productive hours. 

To find more such helpful tools you can refer to the blog “50 Best Marketing  And Sales Tools To Look In 2024”

4. Pay close attention to your mental and emotional needs 

Your body is your best buddy; it sends all kinds of signals when you are getting close to a burnout. You just need to be aware of it and address the burnout before it is too late. You start feeling restless and fatigue. You get tired as well as irritated quickly. You just want to stop and rest. 

Well, don’t neglect these signs. Give attention to this stressful state. Try to meditate and calm yourself. Do yoga early in the morning to rejuvenate your mind and body. Try to fit stress-reducing activities in your daily routine. Practice breathing exercises when you feel too anxious, exasperated, or discouraged. 

5. Finally, be self-motivated 

Well, in sales, you need to move ahead and achieve your sales quota. You cannot use sales burnout as an excuse when you are questioned for the poor sales results during your performance review. 

So push yourself ahead. Do not give up during a sales burnout. Every maze has a way out. All you need to do is search for it. Change your approach a bit. Set new goals and create a plan to achieve them. Keep analyzing your performance regularly. Create a sales report, and see where you are spending your precious time. Do all that it takes to improve and achieve your sales goals. 

Concluding thoughts 

How long will a sales burnout last? Well, that depends on you. If you act at the right time, you can save your sales career and perform well. Try to keep yourself positive during a burnout. Yes, it is difficult but not impossible. Take a deep breath and try to change your sales approach. Experiment and try everything. Take the help of modern sales tools.

A smart tool like Salemsate CRM can be of great help to manage and streamline your sales process. You can evaluate your sales performance with its insightful report and save time with its automation feature. It is one of the best CRM software to manage, nurture, and close deals quickly.