Why salespeople are jealous and how to make it powerful
“Jealousy is just love and hate at the same time”
“Maria just closed a deal. Why didn’t I close that deal? Why don’t I have a pipeline like hers? I’m a freaking good sales guy; maybe she just got lucky. Ask her to close deals in my territory? She has other skills..I’m still the best.”
Sounds familiar?
We all feel that way but don’t have the guts to share it.
Well, I was jealous and I’m jealous of my co workers who are kicking my trash, closing big deals and contributing to the team.
We all go through these situations daily as sales people. Unconsciously jealousy creeps in to our behaviour and all the self-talk and consolation doesn’t help.
Lets see how to overcome the feeling of jealousy to bring in mutual respect and a healthy dose of competitiveness within the team.
Sales professionals don’t like to admit it, but we’ve all felt jealous.
When one member of the team is killing it while we struggle to close, resentment creeps in; the kind of resentment that sabotages the team.
We have a tendency to compare ourselves against other people, and our managers do it to us as well.
Vice versa we can make others jealous of our performance as well.
1. Awareness of jealousy
The biggest sales struggle we face and do it often we keep comparing and measuring ourselves to everyone else and in the process we sabotage our performance, go into a downward spiral and slip into depression sometimes.
It has happened to me in numerous occasions and I always thought this team sucks or this company sucks. Escaping this rut will help. It doesn’t.
The same people, circumstances and also bosses would somehow manifest themselves again. I’m back feeling jealous and miserable.
Competition is good, jealousy is toxic.
Having this resentment kills us each day.
Imagine, everyone around you is celebrating.
I used to hate being put on a spot when managers praise your coworkers in that big meeting with coke and pizzas!
“Am I doing something wrong?
Am I even cut out for it?
Should I just take the next offer? “
I need to fix something and improve.
Swallow your pride and drop your losership.
2. Help is just one cubicle away
Walk upto the best rep, your colleague and ask for Help.
I needed the guidance and the extra pair of eyes to tell you what I wasn’t doing or should have done otherwise.
She was good in discovery calls and making great presentations, clearly this was my weak spot.
Sales is the most human all human endeavours in this planet. And so is jealousy. And so is praise.
The best form of flattery is seeking advice.
So if I reach out to the best rep in the team, she is going to definitely like it and hopefully help me out in the process.
Sometimes we just in run in circles, getting marinated in our mediocrity because we are too haughty and proud to ask someone for help.
The answer to our problem lies at 2 feet from our cubicle but we feel ashamed and awkward to ask for it.
Ego keeps us poor and jealousy makes us look ugly.
It’s same way I have observed in older reps who are late thirties and in forties, just won’t approach younger reps and learn something new from them.
They have a know it all attitude and hence suffer in silence.
3. Karma works
I was supposed to be better than everyone else. And how could women sellers come and snatch my place amongst the Titans.
It’s bad to be beaten by a male colleague but your macho-ness eats dust when a women seller is just crushing it.
I started learning from them. Good competition and because I walked up to her I got to learn her tricks and secrets and use them to close my deals and be better at my job.
Again human behaviour is at display. Since I walked up to her, complimented her and had the humility of learning from her, she started to learn more about me and the way I approach my deals.
She found that there were something’s that she wanted to learn from me and thought I was really good in that.
There we go! This is good and we are truly helping each other, strategizing on some ideas together and down 6 months we were equally successful.
In closing
We put this idea that people are beneath us and not good enough than us. That keeps us locked in a room of nothingness.
We were adding tremendous value to your organizations and hunt in pairs, literally.
Don’t get caught up in your ego.
Please remember you are never too old to learn and never too young to teach.
Author bio: Karmesh Ghosh, is Sales professional; has been hustling, and closing deals for the past 1.5 decades. Avid reader and loves foreign language movies. Writes on sales and marketing strategies for small and medium businesses. Currently, lives in Mumbai. Loves food and fast bikes.
