How Stress Management Leads to Better Sales
Working in sales requires a whole set of skills. Sales techniques, persistence and communication skills are all equally important and perfecting them will naturally lead to better results. But only till a certain point.
We need to factor in one more thing that is often overlooked but actually affects performance a lot. This thing is stress.
42% of people leave their jobs because they are too stressed, and 35% more are thinking about leaving.This is especially true for sales reps.
The average annual turnover in the sales industry is 28%
Which is really high. In the meantime you need 6 months to replace a sales rep. Do you know how much you are losing in the meantime?
The average cost of replacing a sales rep is $114,957
These numbers don’t look good, do they? They mean that you can provide your sales reps with the best tools, training programs and case studies, but if they are stressed at the workplace, they will most likely quit and sales volumes will inevitably suffer.
Sales are stressful
Sales jobs are for sure stressful: meeting targets, dealing with negativity and rejection, and having to always be available can drive anyone crazy.
Working hours are no picnic either. Successful sales reps spend 40% more time working outside normal hours and even average reps work at least 50 hours per week.
No wonder 68% of salespeople consider their life challenging.
So what, you might say? Working more leads to more sales and targets are a great incentive.
Not really.
Stress affects job performance
Research lists motivation, goal orientation, resilience and communication skills among most important traits of successful salespeople.
Did you know that stress impacts all of them?
For instance, stress has been negatively linked with motivation, which means that when sales reps are stressed they are less motivated to meet targets.
Goal orientation, another important characteristic of a successful rep, is also affected by stress. It lowers our ability for self-control which makes you less resilient and less likely to make a sale.
Moreover, stress negatively impacts communication skills, the most important instrument of a sales rep.
Only one conclusion can be made from all this:
If your sales reps are under stress you are losing money.
The self attitude to stress also matters. If we start thinking about it as of something manageable, performance and sales will actually grow. Introducing stress-management into your life will lead to a more balanced emotional state and consequently, better sales.
As a manager, you need stress management as well. When you are stressed you cannot provide your team with the level of support and motivation they need which will affect their performance.
Your team performs better when you are in control of stress.
How Welltory can help
So you might be interested in how you can track your sales reps stress level? Wouldn’t it require either getting inside their head and identifying why they are stressed or some complicated medical examinations?
No. It is actually pretty easy.
Welltory is a stress and energy management app that analyses body’s stress level and recovery potential by tracking heart rate variability. We use science-backed algorithm which has been tested against 2M measurements made by our users.
Measurements take just 1 minute and will provide users with personalized recommendations how to make the most out of every day and avoid stress and burnout.
Download Welltory and start measuring your stress and energy levels.
And keep in touch!
