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Sales Blog - Personal Issues


By Steven J. Schmidt (6/25/09)

A few years ago, I was out in the field one day and I was dealing with some issues in my personal life. Regardless of that, I still needed to get some sales; your business is not going to stop even though you might be going through problems.

I was selling window cleaning jobs in a very up scale neighborhood. I knocked on about 15 doors or so and made a few contacts. With the contacts that I made, I barely got much of a response from the customers. I stopped after a little bit so that I could clear my head. Basically, I was trying to figure out what it was that I was doing wrong. I realized maybe I was just thinking to much about my personal problems while attempting to earn sales in the field. The only problem with that is, as I soon realized, there isn't enough brain power to concentrate on two different situations like that. It has to be one or the other.

If you're dealing with issues and you're going to concentrate on personal problems, you need to take a snack break or get lunch, and think about it when you're not working, Conversely, If you're out there in the field working, then you need to figure out a way to not concentrate on your problems and only focus on just selling.

I decided I needed to sell. The way I chose to do that was to think about only having a conversation with the people. I would introduce myself and tell them that I was there to sell them on getting their windows cleaned. However, I would then immediately ask them what they like to do in their spare time for fun, or what kind of movies they like. It may not have had anything to do with getting their windows cleaned, but it was something to spark up a conversation and then they would ask me what kind of movies I like to watch. Before I knew it, I ended up getting two solid estimates that day and both turned into sales.

After the day was over, I felt better about getting the two sales. But the kicker here was that I also felt better about my personal problems and realized that I could figure out how to resolve some personal problems. Therefore, I came to the conclusion that working was not only therapeutic; but also productive.

Sometimes you have to force yourself to remove yourself out of a situation that you are in, just as I was dealing with my own personal issues. By forcing myself to engage in conversation with the customers, I stepped out of myself, and instead of worrying about my problems, I put them on hold for just a bit. It ended up working, and I recommend that you try that technique out if you are ever dealing with personal issues.



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