How to Deal With Disappointment in Sales Job

Sales is not always fair

Being taken advantage was depressing. What happened next? She made the strategic decision to move on. She gave herself permission to not accept fault for causing the awful problem. She congratulated herself for handling a bad situation and not backing away from it.

There will be a time when you fail in a sales situation that you didn’t cause. I’ve lost business to a brother-in-law whose products and services were inferior to mine. I’ve had competitors misrepresent their products in competitive bids and lost the business. I’ve had a distributor’s salesperson switch out my product with a competitor’s because he made more money. He did that without telling me so I lost sales. No, it’s not fair. It happens.

Anger doesn’t work

You might think that getting angry is a choice. It’s not. You risk irreparable harm to the relationship when you get angry with someone you still have to work with. I’m not saying you shouldn’t discuss the issue. I am saying having a heated argument is counterproductive. You risk hurting feelings and those take a long, long time to heal if they ever do.

The other choice is acceptance. That is the only choice that a successful salesperson makes. You can express disappointment that it happened. Then move on. Getting angry doesn’t work.

You are ready to be successful in sales when you know how to handle disappointment in selling. It’s not a question of if but when you will be disappointed. When you fail, be ready with your strategy to move on and not get immobilized from the failure. It’s the only way to be successful in sales.