Chris PierceWe’re back with another exciting round of mental toughness blogs, this time for managers! These tips will be applicable no matter your role in sales so check it out, share with your managers or peers, and start trying out the principles.
We all know that as a leader it is your responsibility to ensure that your reps have all the tools they need to succeed. This includes sales training, organizational skills, life skills and mental toughness. Mental toughness is something that can be taught and it is your responsibility to train your reps to be mentally tough.
“You need to be in control of yourself before you can control your performance.” -Ken Ravizza
Your success is limited to the amount of control you have over yourself. If you want your reps to be successful, you must train them to maintain self control. This is mental toughness.
So how do you build mentally tough reps?
If you want to build a mentally tough sales team, you must focus on actions over results. Results are only a byproduct of your actions. Yes results are important to track, but they don’t always lead to your reps taking action.
It is very likely that you’re contributing to either building or breaking down their mental toughness. It begins with you and the way you speak to your reps. What you say to your reps shows them what is most important to you.
3 Steps to create mentally tough sales reps
- Give insightful feedback
- Ask the right questions
- Encourage them to learn
#1 Give insightful feedback
The influence your feedback has on your reps has a much bigger impact than you know. Your feedback you give your reps is either putting them in a fixed or growth mindset.
To build mental toughness, your feedback must focus on:
- Specific strategies
- Skills to develop
- Having a good attitude
- Work ethic
- Amount of effort
This builds winning streaks, consistency, character and work ethic, which in turn yields results.
If your feedback is focused on results, outcomes, talents and abilities, you will break down your rep’s mental toughness and put them in a fixed mindset.
#2 Ask the right questions
As a leader it is your responsibility to give feedback to your reps that puts them in a growth mindset. Whenever giving criticism and praise to your reps, always include strategies, skills, attitude and effort. Avoid praising and criticizing outcomes, results, talents and abilities.
Instead, ask yourself:
- What will I continue to do?
- What will I do differently?
These questions help reps stop focusing so much on the results and outcomes and instead helps them shift focus to their actions. Asking these questions at the end of everyday will help them to increase their consistency and help them adapt to necessary changes.
#3 Encourage them to learn
Gaining knowledge is something that will help your sales reps in and out of the field. This is something you should always be encouraging them to do whether it’s reading books, listening to podcasts, or watching videos relating to mental toughness and control.
Here’s what we recommend if you don’t know where to start:
- Top 4 Sales Books to Help You Take Control
- 10 Sales AudioBooks You Should Listen To
- 15 Inspirational Podcasts to Follow
- Top 8 Books for Door-to-Door Sales
If your reps aren’t already looking into educational resources like this (that are usually free), try including it in their development or making it a fun part of the team culture!
Let’s keep in touch
This is the first blog in our Manager Series so there will be more to come (plus another webinar) so be looking out for that! If you like learning about mental toughness and want even more tips, let’s chat about it. Shoot me a DM on Instagram @chris_pierce and look out for the next exciting blog we’re releasing about mental toughness in sales to make you a better manager.
