“Almost 3 in 5 sales people struggle with their mental health and frontline sales managers/individual contributors struggle the most”
In reading the recent 2021 State of Mental Health in Sales Report, I found myself remembering the multiple sales positions I have had over the course of my career and being able to identify with many of the data points in the report. I also remember thinking that at some point, maybe 5 to 7 years ago, I wondered to myself why in the world someone with an anxiety disorder (me) would even attempt to have a career in sales. What was I thinking?
The truth was, I really wasn’t. At the age of 23, when I took my first sales job, I just needed a job. I had graduated the year before from the College of Liberal Arts at Mercer University with a degree/major in Communications and a minor in English. This was the year 2001 and, for some reason, I began to hear more and more about pharmaceutical sales and how lucrative the job could be. However, after some digging, it seemed it was difficult to get into this type of sales without some kind of prior sales experience. So, I began a job in Columbia, South Carolina, with a Xerox distributor selling office equipment. As you can imagine, it was miserable.
I took a brief hiatus from the thought of pharmaceutical sales and moved to Denver, Colorado in 2002, and I took a job in event planning for a financial services firm. A friend of mine from college worked for the firm and had started right after we graduated. She was instrumental in getting me to Denver and helping me get this job. And I loved it! I made very little money, though, and the job only lasted about a year and half as the company began to make cut-backs in 2003. Through this job, I made contacts with several people in the company and one of them happened to have a wife that worked in the pharmaceutical industry. Here was my connection, I had a bit of sales experience in selling office equipment, and I landed the job with a Denver territory.
Pharmaceutical sales was really where I cut my teeth in “sales” and developed much thicker skin. I spent about the first six months of this job crying in my company car as I realized what I was up against. Luckily, I did very well in Denver. Some of this was due to the area I was in and some of this was due to the insurance coverage of my products. This meant I was making my goals and getting company bonuses without a lot of trouble. When I transferred with the company in 2007 to Charlotte, North Carolina, my products changed and the position wasn’t so easy anymore. I left the company in early 2008.
After I left that company, I began in a completely different industry and held multiple sales and business development positions over the course of 11 years. A few of the positions were on the front lines and a few of them were more in the background- I began to appreciate the ones that were in the background. This usually meant there were no goals to meet, which was much less stressful for me than having a number over my head.
When I left this industry in 2019, I somewhat hesitantly took a position in business development but, again, in a different industry. Some of the sticking points for me with the position was that there were no goals, the expectations of developing relationships were realistic, and that I would not be penalized monetarily for not “bringing in work”. The position was going well until Covid hit in 2020.
I’m now at a transition point in my career and more so with my life, as family needs are more of a priority for me than they were 5 years ago. I am thankful for this. I understand that not everyone gets the chance to “transition” and that we are still in a time where people are sick, the economy and our infrastructure continues to suffer, and that there are many who have had to pivot towards work they may/may not enjoy.
Being in this period of transition has allowed me to reflect on my last 20 years of working and think more about what the next 20 years may look like. One of the primary reasons I worked towards this transition was for my mental health and overall wellbeing. I’ve been involved with UNCrushed for almost two years now and, due to this, have been so much more aware of, not only my own mental health, but the mental health of those around me.
The report notes that the sales industry is in a mental health “crisis”. This role can be one of the most lucrative and valuable to any organization. But along with that comes the chance for heightened pressure and anxiety, quick burnout rates, and possibly pretty low self-esteem. And while I believe that these can all exist in many different types of jobs- not just sales jobs- I do think it is critical to have a successful wellness program established in the working environment of sales employees.
There are a few different data points in the report that show that the employees who felt valued at work, had some autonomy with their jobs, and those who felt supported by their managers were much more satisfied with, not only their positions, but with their overall wellbeing. When a sales employee is able to be in this state and have access to the support he or she needs- guess what? Sales are probably going to go up. In contrast, when a sales employee does not have access to this type of support, not only is the company bottom line compromised, but more importantly, so is the overall health and wellbeing of the employee.
The report goes on to offer proof that there is a need for companies to invest in mental health initiatives for their sales employees. I would go further in saying that there is a need for companies to invest in these types of initiatives for any employee but that is not the focus for this report or this content piece. I can speak to the heightened pressure, anxiety, low self-worth, burnout, exhaustion and the almost constant roller coaster ride of emotions that exist in directly contributing to a company’s bottom line.
A contribution that you can see every day in numbers, tracking reports, status updates, CRM’s, or any other type of measurement that a company is using to basically determine your value. And then you have the opportunity to compare yourself to other top/bottom performers, other people see your performance, and you get to have that shared on a consistent basis across company platforms. You get to have the chance to work and re-work the numbers to see how a bonus or adjustment to a base salary might impact your monthly income and even more importantly, your family.
If I would have had the chance to engage in a program that helped with my mental health awareness, overall wellbeing and gave me an outlet for further support, my experience in sales may have been different. I probably could have been more successful, learned to deal better with adversity and rejection, and maintained a more positive outlook/mindset with my contribution to a company. My overall disposition may have been better with my customers, colleagues and even friends and family.
It is my hope that, if you are in any type of sales position, you assess if the toll it may be taking on your mental health is worth it. Again, I believe this can be said of most jobs, but I can understand it from a sales background. I spent a lot of time believing that I couldn’t do much else out there, that I wouldn’t be able to make as much money as I once did, or that I wouldn’t have the freedom that multiple sales positions have given me throughout the years. This simply is not true.
And even worse for me, I couldn’t stand behind a few of the products that I had to sell at one time. I couldn’t abide by what was required of me to market these products and get to the people that needed to hear my “message”. This really impacted my ethics, values and almost turned me into something I wasn’t. Thankfully, I knew to get out.
More and more, as a society, we are seeing heightened focus on prioritizing mental health. I would say this momentum gives a perfect opportunity for corporations and organizations to begin evaluating current wellness programs and offerings to their employees. I’ll conclude with the same question that the report offers at its conclusion:
“So, what are you going to do about the mental health of your sales team?”
DOWNLOAD THE REPORT HERE
