by Don Sanders

Every person who has ever sold promotional products has experienced some form of burn out during their career. This feeling of utter hopelessness may appear anytime and is caused by the grind of daily calls and follow through, and is unavoidable because of the high rate of rejection associated with selling. Burn out is the price charged for the success most sales people enjoy who know how to overcome this feeling of total despair.

Failure is the name of the game

Failures in selling happen everyday. In most cases, some so severe that some sales people start to let their selling failures effect other parts of their life. The feeling of utter failure even takes a toll on the very best of sales people. Face it, when things don’t go the way we want we want to feel sorry for ourselves. So sorry sometimes that we simply do not know what to do with ourselves.


Motivation is the answer

The fact that it is necessary for sales people to make calls on people that they do not know scares the majority of them so much that their selling careers last only a few minutes. Even I, a supposed expert in the field with thirty eight years of experience, must confess that I have never made a call that did not cause me some form of discomfort. The only way that I and the thousands of other successful sales people have been able to overcome this fear of rejection is by staying motivated, even when it appears that times cannot get any worse.

Risk—reward--rejection.

It is just a part of human nature to get down at the first sign of rejection. Some people face a forms of rejection so severe that they reach depths so low that they are never able to pull themselves back up. The promotional products business is notorious for high rates of failure, and thousands of people have come and gone because they could simply not motivate themselves properly. In fact, most suffered burn out so quickly that they decided to get out of the sales profession completely. There is only one thing that keeps people going when times get tough, the aspiration of reaching goals that you must set for yourself. The decision to keep going when times are tough is what makes it possible to make good things out of bad situations.

Why rejection stares at us everyday.

All things that are unfamiliar are very uncomfortable at first. Look at yourself.

How did you feel the first time you rode a bike?
Think of how you felt the night before you went out on your first date?
How did you feel the day before you got married?
Aren’t those new shoes you just bought uncomfortable?

If you are like us, and I think you are, then you definitely felt uneasy in all these situations. The first step in remaining high when there is nothing to get you up, is to stay focused on what you want. Learning to self motivate yourself is what sets those apart from those who fail!

Make fear a positive!

Apprehension in manageable amounts is an excellent source of self motivation and gives you the chance to be better prepared in any selling situation. The feeling also puts you on edge just enough so that you do not take both new business and older customers for granted. By being slightly uneasy, you are making sure that you will be at your best during presentations. Your uneasiness forces you to preplan your actions in a way that confidence ignores. Just like you would prior to a college examination, it forces you to take the time to make sure all your ducks are in a row. If you find something amiss during preparation, you have time to make any of the changes which will make your presentation absolutely perfect. When directed properly, a manageable amount of fear ensures that you are at your best!

The most Useful Technique

The easiest way to avoid burn out and to stay motivated is to create a story that remains stored in your memory bank, then on every call made you repeat it to yourself over and over again. Please read this story that my father, Rex A. Sanders, told me when I was six years of age. During my sales career I have repeated it to myself thousands of times when things are both good and bad. To me, it is the most popular tale that I ever heard, and it has caused me to both make money and avoid burnout.

My own buried treasure

Once upon a time in a cozy American suburb there lived two young lads. Every afternoon they met after school to explore an imaginary world of intrigue and fantasy. Part of that intrigue was the result of a story they had always heard about the owner of an abandoned house on their street. As the story goes, a man lived in the house for many years prior to his unexpected death. He had kept a great fortune in cash buried in a metal chest in his yard. The source of the money was a mystery, but the rumor about the buried treasure had been circulated for many years.

The little boys often conjured up visions of pirates, thieves, and cowboys as they played. One afternoon they fell into a freshly dug hole left open by a contractor on the forbidden property. As they stood up, both boys realized that they seemed to be standing on a hard metal surface. Carefully brushing back the dirt, they discovered a metal chest just waiting to be opened! While both were wondering if the story of the buried treasure was really true, they saw the sun set behind the clouds and heard the distant call of a mother’s voice, “Jimmy, it’s time for dinner!” Perplexed, Jimmy looked at his friend Bobby and asked, “What do we do now?” Several thoughts went through their minds. Bobby wondered, “Do we come back tonight and dig up the box to see what is inside, or do we wait until tomorrow? If we wait to come back after school, the contractor might have filled up the hole and the treasure will be lost again; or even worse, he might cover the hole with concrete and we could never get to the box again.” They both thought about how grand their lives would be if they had found great riches.

What do you think they did? Did they return that night, or did they take the chance and wait until the next day?

Don’t wait to claim your treasure

Every time that you feel scared when opening a door on a sales call, or when you are feeling that things cannot get any worse, think about the buried treasure that you must be out looking for. You must convince yourself that in every selling situation that you find yourself in is that you refuse to let someone else take the sales treasure that is waiting for you behind every sales door that must be opened. Never let burn out stop you from earning the rewards that are necessary to fulfill your dreams and keep you motivated. In my own situation, I know that I have repeated my own story to myself at least 50,000 times. The most important thing about my own motivational story is that it has never become stale. In fact, that story has made me millions of dollars.

What would you like to have?

Which of these things do you have on your wish list?
Enough money for your children’s college funds
The chance to buy your first home
A year end bonus to spend as you choose
That dream vacation you have always thought about
To pay cash for a new car

If you have desires such as the ones listed above then staying motivated is the only way turn them from dreams into reality.

We all want something special

Some people keep themselves away from failure by keeping specific material goals in mind. In the following story, you will learn how one distributor turned to a promotional products career in order to make enough money to buy a car she had always dreamed of owning.
My name is Lacy Johnson and I wanted to purchase a new Corvette since I was a teenager. I fell in love with Corvettes when I attended drive-in restaurants during high school, and made a pledge to myself that someday I would put myself in the position to pay cash for one.

In 1978, when I started selling for a large distributor, I decided to put the profit from two orders a month in a fund that I hoped would one day grow large enough that I could make my dream come true. To make sure that I kept my dream on patch when times got tough, I attended a car show and took photographs of all the Corvettes being shown that day. From the day I got those pictures developed until 1995, I carried one of the Corvette pictures taken that day either in my purse or in my car on every sales call I made. When times got tough and it seemed that my selling career might go South, I would pull out one of my car photos and think about buying that new Corvette. The sight of one of that car pulled me back up and gave me the strength to go forward. I don’t know if I would have made it in sales or not if I had not made those car pictures part of my selling portfolio in 1978. I am happy to say that I did, and want you to know that I ended up with my Corvette in 1995, not a brand new one, but an even better one, a classic 1957 model which I purchased in 1995 from a collector. Since I now own my own distributorship, I have set a new goal that I am working toward, the purchase of a second 1957 Corvette to go along with my first.

Keep your dreams up front

How many times have you made your dreams come true? Everyone has something they would like to have even if it seems that they have already achieved everything that has been set out for them. Using both new and old dreams as motivators and to pull yourself up when times are tough is the only way to avoid burn out and to keep yourself ahead of your competitors. . Face it, selling is a brutal game, and the failure rate far exceeds the success rate. Anytime you are down and in times when you think that it might be best to end your selling career, pull out your best friend in sales-- your own personal dream. Pull it out of your memory bank, or in Lacy Johnson’s case, pull out the pictures of what you are working toward, and let them pull you toward the success you are looking for. Make the things you want be your motivators and keep you from facing burnout ever again!

Don’t ask others to approve of your dreams?

The desire to be successful and to fulfill your dreams should be the motivation needed to help overcome despair that comes along with the lows experienced in your selling career. Fulfilling the goals you have set for yourself should be what bring you back from pitfalls that appear in the normal course of your selling career. By visualizing and completing your dreams which are either kept in the back of your mind, or in photos on your desk, you will never have to worry about failure. Remember, all your competitors are pulling against your dreams, so you must work extra hard to make sure they all come to fruition.