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Right here’s a query that’ll mess along with your head: What do you do while you’re making seven figures in gross sales, crushing each objective, and instantly… you simply don’t really feel the identical motivation anymore?
That’s the query Matthew Feit from Toms River, New Jersey posed on a current Ask Jeb episode. Matthew’s dwelling the dream most salespeople chase their complete careers. He’s on the prime of his sport financially. He’s confirmed every part he got down to show. And now he’s caught on this bizarre limbo the place the fireplace that acquired him there has gone chilly.
For those who’re shaking your head proper now pondering it is a champagne drawback, you’re lacking the purpose. This is among the most harmful positions a excessive achiever can discover themselves in, and it’s costing prime performers their edge each single day.
The Jim Story: When Achievement Turns into Your Enemy
Let me let you know about Jim. Years in the past once I was dwelling in Florida, I had this gross sales rep who was an absolute monster. High of the rating report. Presidents Membership. Rolex on his wrist from profitable. Then someday, his director of gross sales wished to place him on a efficiency enchancment plan. In gross sales, a PIP means you’re a useless man strolling.
I drove as much as Jacksonville pondering there needed to be some mistake. Once I sat down with Jim, I noticed the issue wasn’t his skill. The man was nonetheless extremely proficient. The issue was he’d gained every part there was to win, and he simply didn’t have the following objective driving him anymore.
Right here’s what I discovered: The issues we do in gross sales are laborious. They’re repetitive. We take care of troublesome folks. It takes large self-discipline, which is solely sacrificing what you need now for what you need most. However while you don’t know what you need most anymore, that self-discipline evaporates.
Jim’s reply stunned me. He wished a Harley Davidson, however his spouse wouldn’t let him purchase it. So I labored out a solution to construction his commissions so he might get his Harley whereas nonetheless bringing house the cash his spouse anticipated. Abruptly, his gross sales went by way of the roof once more. He had one thing driving him.
The Cognitive Dissonance of Excessive Achievement
Right here’s what’s taking place with guys like Matthew and what occurred with Jim: You’ve acquired this stage of cognitive dissonance. A part of you is a stone chilly excessive achiever who wants to be attaining. The opposite half is saying, “I don’t really feel it anymore. I don’t have that juice.”
Once you’re youthful or earlier in your profession, you’re sketching out objectives continually. I bear in mind having a objective ebook the place I wrote down every part I wished. Certainly one of my objectives was a home on the inter-coastal waterway in South Florida. I achieved that objective. Then someday I’m sitting there going, “Effectively, what do I do now?”
It’s straightforward to get comfy while you don’t know the place to go subsequent. However comfy is the enemy of excellence in high-performance gross sales cultures.
What Do You Actually Need?
I hit the identical wall this yr. Twenty years constructing this enterprise, ebook quantity 17 popping out, and I’m asking myself the identical query Matthew requested: What now?
Right here’s what I found out: My desires aren’t issues anymore. Perhaps in my 20s and 30s it was about what I used to be going to personal. In the present day it’s totally different. It’s about what I wish to accomplish and who I wish to work with.
I noticed I wish to work with folks and firms I do know I can assist. Which can be a problem for me. The place I can watch them develop and luxuriate in seeing them develop. Who actually wish to work with me and see me as a part of their group, not as a vendor.
In consequence, I’ve been rearranging my world so I could be very choosy about what I’m going to do, who I’m going to work with, and who I’m going to talk to. I wish to do issues that give me pleasure and fulfill my goal, which is to assist folks promote extra. That’s why I consider God put me right here.
The Twenty Yr Imaginative and prescient
Once I was a bit older than Matthew, I checked out my life and requested: What are the following 20 years going to be like?
I had gained each award you could possibly win in gross sales. I used to be working on the prime stage of a Fortune 200 firm. I had the accolades, the cash, all of it. So I requested that straightforward query: What am I going to do over the following 20 years?
What occurred over these 20 years utterly modified my life. All the pieces shifted. I wrote my first ebook once I was 38. It wasn’t nice. However it was my story, and it was the start. I made a objective to write down 5 books in 5 years. This LinkedIn ebook is quantity 17.
Right here’s the factor: Once I was 38, I didn’t know precisely the place I’d be at 58. I simply knew I used to be going to make a large influence over the following 20 years as I pursued my goal. It was merely about serving to folks.
Cease Considering, Begin Doing
Matthew talked about wanting to write down a ebook about his journey and serving to different folks. That’s an ideal path for somebody at his stage.
Right here’s my recommendation: Sit down and look forward. For those who had been your self 20 years from now, what would you need that individual to appear to be? It’s not a lot about what you wish to obtain. It’s about who you wish to be.
Don’t look forward to the right imaginative and prescient. I didn’t have some crystal clear image of the place I’d be right this moment. I simply knew I wanted to alter and make an influence. The journey will get you there, however you need to begin transferring.
For Matthew and for anybody else who’s climbed each mountain of their present world: You’ve got every part it takes to do no matter you need. You recognize that already. However in the event you get extra time to simply sit in your trip house, you’re going to exit of your thoughts very quickly since you’ll know you’re not dwelling as much as your potential.
The query isn’t whether or not it is best to maintain pushing. The query is: What are you pushing towards? Reply that, and the fireplace comes again. Ignore it, and also you’ll maintain questioning why success doesn’t really feel prefer it used to.
The perfect half? When you reconnect along with your goal and set new objectives that truly matter, you’ll uncover that every one these abilities that acquired you to seven figures develop into even sharper. You’re not beginning over. You’re leveling up.
Jeb Blount is the creator of 17 books together with the groundbreaking classics Fanatical Prospecting, Gross sales EQ, Objections, and Inked. In The LinkedIn Edge, co-authored with Brynne Tillman, Jeb teaches gross sales professionals learn how to leverage LinkedIn to construct their private model and fill their pipeline with certified prospects.
