When You've Had Enough of the 'Hustle'

The game of sales is shrouded by the constant ‘hustle’ mentality. Sleep less hustle more. Look online, people are in love with this scheme.

Meanwhile, bosses push the attitude of “more, work late, sell faster!”

As one manager told me, “Sales won’t wait until 8:00 am tomorrow.” I bought into this insanity.

One Christmas Day..yes..you read that right..I excused myself from the family Christmas dinner to take a call from a client.

“Christine, I know it’s Christmas Day, but it’s super important I get a quote from you tonight to present at a client meeting tomorrow at 9:00 am.”

I was a Senior Account Executive for a Corporate Insurance Company, which touted..’ work-life balance.’Yet, I knew claiming ‘work-life balance’ was only something that looked good to attract quality candidates but wasn't implemented.

Side note: This is the same company that refused to let me have three days off to be with my dying dad.

Sales can be a constant uphill battle. You are only as good as your last sale. And at the same time landing big sales can be exhilarating.

I’m a firm believer in building our sales life first, designing a journey, not a quick trip around the block. Building sales fast may please the boss but the fast and furious pace will likely cause a crash and burn.

Building a sales life shouldn’t look like a pit in the stomach on Sunday evening or doing quotes on a holiday because an ungrateful client is making his crisis our crisis.

A sales life shouldn’t revolve around only meeting sales goals, but helping prospects. Let me explain. Pushing sales to meet a quota will not only reflect badly on you but will push a good prospect away. 

A sales life should be balanced to enrich your life, not cause anxiety attacks.

Maybe it’s time to define a ‘sales life.’Because your existence isn’t a sales goal waiting to be increased mid-year.

Take it from me who worked in Corporate sales for 42+ years, I took control of my sales career and I intentionally designed my sales life to fill in the gaps of what I lacked as a sales rep. and learned to set professional boundaries.

And as Jordan Belfort says..” the beauty is” your sales life can be redesigned to fit your values without the constant drain of ‘hustle.’

Today’s Action Steps

Reflect on your values and dreams.

Take some time today alone, without distractions, and write out your values, dreams, and why you love selling. Maybe you don’t love selling because of the demands and stress it causes. What needs to change so you can learn to love selling again?

Identify your sales goals and what drives you to sell.

Reflect on the product/services you sell. Does it align with you? Sometimes sales reps discover they are more aligned to selling intangible products versus tangible products. To dive deeper into this, read my article here:

Evaluate your current situation and learning gaps.

Look at where in the selling process do you have a weak link or a learning gap. Maybe your weak link is follow-up or phone work. Do you need to learn to be more confident in asking for the sale or recognizing the right time to close? Whatever it is write down the areas of selling that need to improve and strive to fill in the learning gap.

Define your ‘need’ to scale to the next level.

Is your need to scale to the next level defined as making more money? Is it based on the ‘goal’ your boss gave you? What specific impact are you trying to make?

This will give you a good benchmark of when to stop pushing and start enjoying the labors of your hard work.