Prize winning, methods the Jedi's use to avoid the SLUMP.
by Roger Williams 

Prevent, avoid, and escape from the dreaded sales slump.

There’s a 100% chance of meeting face to face with the dreaded slump at some point in your sales career. It’s highly likely you will face a slump many times over. A mini slump, a prolonged slump, any slump can have brutal implications in an environment where people notoriously earn above average incomes yet live check to check, week to week, month to month. Needing every penny to a mountain of bills, rent, mortgage, car payments, credit cards, or utilities. 

Here are 33 Jedi level slump busters, Jedi level techniques designed to avoid or jump start you out of the dreaded sales slump.

Are you a Jedi? If not learn, and if so here's your game plan!

1) Get back to the basics – The number one common denominator in sales slumps is drifting away from the basics. Skipping steps. Going from first base to home plate only counts when second and third bases are also touched. The thought “this just isn’t for me” goes hand in hand with abandoning the basics. Get reacquainted with the basics and you will like reacquaint your self with deals.

2) Attitude adjustment – It’s scary because when you have a poor attitude you are likely the last one to recognize it. Even great leaders say “I’m struggling to keep my positive attitude.” It takes work to keep your attitude positive, how often do you concentrate on your attitude? An attitude of gratitude, giving thanks for all you have rather than worrying about what you don’t. If selling from a servants heart is beneath you, leadership is beyond you!

3) Study your profession– The K-E-Y—Knowledge Empowers You!- Read or listen to motivational or sales related books, listen in meetings, study as if you were studying for the biggest finals exam of your life. Entrench yourself in knowledge is power that will propel you through the dreaded slump.

4) Balance – If you’re life is out of balance, you’re driving your career with a wheel out of balance. It’s a rough and bumpy ride that gets gradually worse. Are you scheduling your family and significant other time? What about “you” time, doing the hobbies you enjoy? How about your higher power? I know when I am right with God my life goes a lot smoother. Not making time for these things is a recipe for cooking up a prolonged slump. Make a schedule and stick to it. Working twice the hours is tempting to the competitive sales person, but it’s the road to nowhere.

5) Have fun – There’s no shortage of practical jokers in our industry and there’s no harm in good natured fun. Having fun with your prospect’s and your co workers is healthy. Laughing customers are buying customers. There is no need to go overboard with the fun, keep fun in it’s place, but eliminating fun in sales is inviting the dreaded slump.

6) Accept Responsibility – As soon as you fall into the blame game, it sticks to you making it difficult to move forward- “If we had more or different inventory, I’d make more money” – “If my managers would listen to me more, I’d make more money”- “At the store I worked at before we had better process” – “Our advertising sucks”- Do not worry with fixing the dealership, fix yourself. It’s not complicated, when you are on the research and development committee you are headed straight to the slumpville.

7) Questions are the answer – No one cares how much you know until they know how much you care. After we have been selling for a while we become experts and begin telling instead of selling. Telling is actually not selling, it’s actually the formula of anti selling. Don’t forget to ask your prospects the necessary fact finding questions then LISTEN. Ask more, and listen more. Answer questions with questions. Listen between the lines. Forgetting to ask questions and listen will result in a slump more often than not.

8) Can’t never could – Can’t is a word that is in the forefront of the vocabulary of most sales associates mired in a slump. You “can’t” get that price or that payment. You can’t do this or that. Telling customers what they can’t do is just plain poor salesmanship. There are only two “cant’s” in the sales business, if you can’t sell you can’t stay. Always tell the customers what you can do, then ask for the order. You will find this to be magic slump killing medicine. Let me see if I “can’t” do this or that will never beat let’s see if we “can” do it!

9) Get inspired – Did you choose this profession due to the need to make an income greater than that of an hourly or salaried position. What inspires you to be in sales? Is it a nice home, a lot of toys, or a lifestyle? Is it family security? Kids? What ever inspires you to sell, concentrate on your inspiration, it’s a natural repellant to slumps.

10) Overcome fear – False Events Appearing Real. Fear is not even real, but it is real powerful. Fear creates slumps out of thin air. Fear of asking closing questions, fear of failure, fear of rejection, fear is a slump creator. Boldly do what you have been taught to do, and do so with enthusiasm. 

11) Talk to your Mentor- All successful sales people have successful sales people who trained, inspired or coached them along the way. Use your support group of winners rather than huddling with losers making and excuses, get back on track from people at the top not the bottom. Eagles vs Turkeys.

12) Do not give up- More often than not the breakthrough is just around the corner, sales is like riding a bicycle, you have to keep moving. This business is full of extreme highs and extreme low’s, don’t live in either for prolonged periods and let neither define you. I read on a famous quote site, Einstein said “It’s not that I’m so smart, it’s just that I stay with problems longer.” If Einstein didn’t give up easily, neither should you!

13) Enthusiasm is a potion that creates emotion. For every deal you miss by being overly enthusiastic, you will lose 100 by not being enthusiastic enough. Video your presentation, how do you look? How does it sound, would you buy from you? Listen to yourself on the phone, how do you sound? Be a commercial, excitement sells. Sounding distracted, tired, depressed, angry, or uninspired are slump ingredients.

14) Make a list of your goals and read it aloud. This one seems nearly impossible to get sales people to do. It seems so simple that maybe the power of it escapes us. “I know my goals, why should I write them down everyday’?- For starters the level of success between people who do write down goals and the people who don’t is a country mile wide. The power of writing down your goals every morning is greater than I can describe. It’s slump vaccine on steroids. 

15) Get karma on your side. Focus on being inspirational rather than critical. Do more than your share to assist the team effort, rather than “what’s in it for me” help other people reach their goals. Be a person who would be missed if you were gone. Gossiping, criticizing, and selfishness are slump magnets.

 16) Don’t out run your resume What you used to do doesn’t matter, Like Lot’s wife, looking back will turn you into a pillar of salt. No one cares what you used to do, the question is what have you done for me lately. How many do have sold right now? Clinging on to how you “used” to do it or trying to relive the good ole days paralyzes your ability to move forward. Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, and today is the present. A gift, treat as such.

17) Keep your eye on the ball- Focus may sound so simple that it deserves no mention, but far from it, lack of focus is prevalent among slump suffering sales people. Wasted time, the companion of low production

18) Lose the negativity- If negativity is in your speech or body language you have a serious illness. Looking for what is “wrong” is moving backwards. Spending time thinking about what co workers, bosses, dealers, or customers do wrong is sales suicide. Learn both positive speech and body language. Spend time practicing them.

19) Go all in-  I guess I’ll do this until I get a real job. Looking around for other jobs instead of LEARNING this one. Giving a half hearted effort to this job is self inflicted mental abuse. If you want to be successful in sales and avoid the slumps you must sell out. Sell completely out. This is who I am, this is what I do, and I am going to be the very best at it. So many average sales people are trying to start their own business or jump to other jobs without ever actually studying the best practices of the job they have.

20) Avoid playing the victim-This is no business for the self pity crowd. Remember Winnie the Pooh? This business doesn’t fit well with the  Eeyore’s of the world. “Whoa is me” or “why me” will get you in a slump quicker than you can say lickedy split. The victim card is easy to play, and is bad habit to get into. Stay away from this deadly sales killer.

21) Gossip kills-Sales floor gossip is a real killer, it seems so harmless to listen to or even to join in, but the truth is gossipers always end up mired in drama. Drama weighs so much it becomes too heavy to carry. If your words are not inspiring or uplifting, they are likely grave digging, and all grave diggers eventually fall in. Gossip is like your shadow, you can’t run fast enough to get away from it, because it is actually your dark reflection. Slumps are best friends of gossip, you rarely see one without the other.

22) Have an outlet – Whether you express yourself through music, weight lifting, yoga, running, or a myriad of other things, you must do something in order to release all the negativity. Successful sales people are conduits, in taking negativity and out putting positivity. However, releasing this negativity is a must, when people ask me why so many older sales people are often too negative, the simple answer is they have retained too much negativity over the years. During your career, certain customers will display poor behavior, fib to you, treat you poorly, even say rude and unnecessary things to you. Face it, car salesmen are easy targets for haters and dead horse beating joksters. Embrace it. You must not take it personally, react to it or return the bad behavior. Pro’s specialize in returning poor behavior with positivity.

23) Preperation- From keeping your pipeline full to networking and arriving at work prepared for business, preparation is a many splendored blessing when you do it, and a curse when you don’t. “The will to win isn’t what matters most, everyone possesses that, it’s the will to prepare to win that matters most.” Vince Lombardi. My old coach used to tell us: Proper preparation prevents poor performance. We all know the salesperson always 10 minutes late, can’t find a pen, has wrinkled clothes, and has schizophrenic sales results. What are you doing to be well prepared? The well prepared seem to find deals through muddy water. Slumps hide from the well prepared like thieves hide from law enforcement.

24) Smile-If you see someone without a smile, give them yours. Turn that frown upside down, put a grin on your chin. There is no magic like the magic of a contagious smile. People will mirror their company and a sourpuss expression is NOT what you want from your customers.

25) Everyone deserves honesty-Especially you. The lies we tell ourselves are the most damaging. . If you grew up lying to your parents you likely are still a liar, the principle of path is often difficult to escape. Lying to customers and co workers leads to lack of credibility, production and then to job hopping.

26) Stop running for mayor-The classic example is the person consistently reading their verbal resume to their peers. Never missing an opportunity to verbalize their contributions. The habit of exaggerating their efforts and taking undeserved credit is the mark of the person running for mayor. Reciting and exaggerating past accomplishments like a broken record is another habit of mayor candidates. The mayor as I named these people years ago is quick to point out anything that goes wrong, “was not on my shift” or “That wasn’t my deal” or “That was before I started working here”

27) Walk around the building backwards-This is my personal favorite. In my career hundreds of sales associates have contacted me saying, “Roger, after a week with no sales, I can’t believe it, I walked around the building backwards and sold 4 cars in 2 days!” Walking around the building backwards is an old salesman’s slump killing remedy. Some will laugh or scoff at this, but this is the single most effective method I have ever tried. You must walk completely around the building backwards-BY YOURSELF- no one with you. This somehow changes the mojo and causes your ebb to become flow.

28) Networking-This is important because the more people who know who you are – talk to potential clients in as many ways as possible. Networking is powerful. Businesses, individuals, churches, sport teams, schools etc. NETWORK changes your NET WORTH.

29) Keep your pipeline full-The batter’s box, the on deck circle, and the dugout must be loaded with potential hitters! The salesperson skilled in keeping their pipeline full is very likely to avoid slumps! Those pipeline deals tend to all come together at once and leave a gap in the pipeline, so the pipeline must be consistently cared for!

30) Appointments- If you master the skill of appointment setting you will in turn guard yourself against slumps. Appointments are the best medicine for slumping sales. Typically, even a slumping salesperson cannot keep a consistent appointment flow from creating sales.

32) Market yourself-There are so many social sites and business sites these days, it is a wise decision to invest in marketing your self. The power of selfie marketing will bring you opportunities you will not receive through any other means. Converting opportunities you would not have had the chance to sell other wise are invaluable when avoiding the dreaded slump.

33) Fake it until you can make it-Do not feed the slump with any form of verbalization because doing so tends to enhance the slump’s foothold. You must pretend everything is fine, and act as if you have closed and delivered the last 100 prospects you spoke with. Do not spend any time focusing on a poor sales run, just focus on doing all the little things to insure yourself success.

Q) Who was the greatest number 33 in NFL history?  My pick - Tony Dorsett

Q) Who was the greatest number 33 in NBA history? My pick- Lew Alcindor/Kareem Abdul Jabbar

Sales slumps kill careers. These tips are specifically designed to avoid them. 33 Championship caliber Sales and life tips to not only make you more money but to better your life. 

If sales are broken, fix the salesman first, then success follows. 

Good Selling!


Roger Williams
The AutoMotiveCoach
Corporate Sales Manager
Fletcher Auto Group