Nurturing Grit

I am so excited for our webinar next week - 5 Essential Things Sales Leaders Can Do to Help Their Team Succeed with Mike McDonough, RVP of Mid Market Sales at Chorus.

Let’s face it - Sales is a hard job.

Just do the math - the average close rate across all industries is just 19%. That means sales reps hear “no” 81% of the time. 81%!

Does that mean that reps are failing?

No. It means that, in the words of Ted Lasso, reps, like elite athletes, need to have a memory like goldfish.

"You know what the happiest animal on earth is? It's a goldfish. You know why? Got a ten second memory." --Ted Lasso

A quarterback or soccer player shouldn’t dwell on an interception, missed goal, or even a loss. They need to adopt a winning mindset. Failure is not a permanent condition - as long as you have the grit to learn and keep going.

These important lessons are explored by Angela Duckworth in her book, Grit. I found her takeaways, based on years of research, to be incredibly interesting.

Through research with students, military cadets, teachers, and others, she uncovered that the people who are most successful, and predictably successful are not necessarily the ones with the highest IQ or the most talent. Instead, they are the ones who have the passion AND perseverance to succeed. They understand that life is a marathon, not a sprint, and that sustained work is essential to make their goals a reality.

There’s an important lesson here for sales reps too.

How many times have you reached out to a lead once and then given up?

How many times have you had a meeting with a customer, followed up with next steps, and then given up when they didn’t respond?

This is a recipe for failure.

Perseverance is a proven ingredient of success. Harvard Business Review found that your chance of making contact with a prospect after the 6th attempt is 90%! But the problem is, only 3% of reps actually try six times (most give up after just four attempts).

Going that extra 30% could be the difference between success and failure, and leaders need to help their reps maintain their stamina and a winning mindset.

Mike is going to talk about this and more - don’t miss your chance to register here!