Down, not out

When I get calls from readers, they generally fall into one of two categories:

1. They have a pitch for me.
2. They have a comment about a recent story.

But a call I received recently was unlike any other I’ve answered here. It was from an advisor who’s logged 35 years in the business and could sell ice cream during a blizzard, but he was having a tough time. In those 35 years, he’s ridden the wave of various business cycles. He’s seen it all. The bad news in the economy didn’t catch him off guard as much as it took the wind out of his sails.

We talked for a long time. About the economy, sales, marketing. You name it, we covered it. Every few minutes or so, as he was relaying his current sales situation, he’d catch himself, chuckle about how he’d gone on, and say, “Oh, I’m just crying in my beer” or “I’m just feeling sorry for myself.”

We’d laugh about that for a moment, then get back to the heart of the problem — what’s going on, what’s got him worried?

He narrowed the list of worries down to prospecting, and, while that certainly seemed to be an issue, and a major one, it wasn’t the real problem.

The gist of it was, he’d lost his mojo, that special something he had that made him a super salesman in the first place.

He hadn’t forgotten how to sell; he’d forgotten that he could do it.