3 Ways to Drive Sales Performance Through Seller Resilience

In sales, it pays to be resilient. According to Gartner research, organizations reporting that perseverance through customer rejection is among their sellers’ top customer-facing strengths are 2.3 times more likely to achieve improved revenue growth from their existing customers. Gartner research also shows a link between resilience and performance at the individual seller level: Sellers who strongly agree that they work relentlessly on solving problems are 50 percent more likely to meet their quota.

However, many sales leaders struggle to build up resilience in their sales teams. While resilience is closely tied to the attitudes of individual sellers, there is much that sales leaders can do to shape these attitudes by changing how sellers perceive their roles and everyday work.

Step 1: Drive Customer Problem Solving Through Empathy

Sellers are more resilient and achieve better results when they have the opportunity to solve interesting problems for customers. If sellers feel more invested in their customer’s problems, they may find it easier to persevere in solving them. One way to enable this is through empathy: Customer problems will feel inherently more interesting to sellers with a deep understanding of the buyer’s context, problems, and experience. Regular role playing from the perspective of the buyer helps sellers foster a better understanding of the customer point of view.

Another approach is to make empathy-provoking stories of customers benefiting from the product/service a part of onboarding new sales associates. These stories will help drive feelings of purpose and authentic interest in the problems being solved.

Step 2: Drive Critical Thinking Through Empowerment

Roles that require strict adherence to playbooks and process can leave many sellers feeling like cogs in a machine, with little room for creativity or independent thinking. Sellers are more resilient, more engaged and better able to meet their goals when they feel like their job requires critical thinking. One way to encourage an environment where sellers are leveraging their critical thinking skills is through seller empowerment. Sellers feel empowered when they have the opportunity to exercise agency and creativity to make a difference to their organization. Sellers generally perceive empowerment opportunities as meaningful if they impact key constituents (like customers or fellow sellers) and address an unsolved core business challenge. For example, sales leaders might work on improving opportunities for sellers to propose modifications to their product/service offerings to better suit unaddressed customer needs.

Sales leaders must focus on ensuring these empowerment opportunities are meaningful and have impact, as well as establishing the right guardrails to limit risks. Offering even small opportunities for empowerment can help prevent sellers from feeling like cogs in a machine, helping to foster engagement and resilience.

Step 3: Drive Purpose Through Career Development

Sellers are more resilient and perform better when they see sales as a career, not just a job. Sales leaders must cultivate this sense of purpose through an emphasis on career development opportunities and developing sales career paths for sellers. When sellers can see how the work they’re doing and the skills they’re developing can unlock longer-term career opportunities in sales, they might be more likely to persevere in the face of challenges in order to achieve their long-term goals.

Sellers often seek outside sources for career development, such as seminars and playbooks published by “sales influencers,” in many cases paying out of their own pocket to access those materials. Sales leaders should start by finding out what kinds of outside resources their top-performing sellers might already be seeking out on their own. Then they should consider offering reimbursement to the whole team to level-up performance and demonstrate authentic investment in their future.

Next, sales leaders should consider redesigning internal career pathing using a career lattice rather than a standard career ladder. Offerings besides a classic straightforward path to management can reinforce the notion of sales as a career, not merely a job. Offering clear lateral opportunities for individual contributors is more inclusive and realistic for sellers who may not envision themselves in a people-management role.

Overall, these steps will make the job feel more interesting and purposeful, driving performance through increased resilience.

Colleen Giblin is a principal, research, in the Gartner Sales Practice.

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