In this quick video, Sarah Hicks, SDR Manager at Predictable Revenue, shares how she deals with sales job burnout and how leaders should help their reps avoid getting overwhelmed.
Check out this quick video, or read the full transcript below.
How do you combat burnout in a sales job?
It’s a really tough one. Any sales role is taxing because you’re dealing with rejection.
Even if you do all of these things, right – even if you organize your schedule in blocks, including some time for yourself – you may have a series of really hard calls. And it’s going to knock you down.
And so, having a good strategy to take a second to acknowledge that you’re feeling burnt out. Whether it’s fatigue, whether it’s stress, whether it’s just dealing with a bit of constant rejection, and needing a break from that. It’s important to kind of recognize that you feel that way, take a second to let yourself feel that way.
Don’t just kind of try to push through, power through, and keep going. Because I think you’ll just kind of compound your burnout and end up absolutely crashing at the other end.
So take that second to recognize how you feel.
How can sales leaders and peers help combat SDR burnout?
In an ideal world, you’ll have leadership and colleagues who are supportive and who you can reach out to and be like “I’m exhausted. I need to take a day.” Or “All of these tasks are piling up on me and I don’t know how to get through them. I don’t know how to finish them. Can you help me?”
And so I would say that’s something that’s more kind of on the leadership side.
It’s your job as an SDR leader to create the environment where your people feel safe, comfortable, and confident to bring that up with you.
But for the SDRs who don’t have that leader that they feel comfortable going to with it, talk to your colleagues, talk to your peers because absolutely somebody else has been through that.
Go on to places like LinkedIn and find these people who share these types of stories. People who are kind of in the same position as you. Not necessarily these like upper echelon sales leaders and VPs and whatever. But the people in the same position as you, reach out to one of them and ask them how they dealt with it.
But just take that time to acknowledge how you feel and to take a bit of a break, and then come back at it from a new angle.
Absolutely, the worst thing you can do is pretend it’s not happening and try to power through.
Want to learn more tips for combating burnout as a sales rep? Check out the full webinar.
Check out more Quick Answers.
