How do we stop the impact of stress in the world of sales?

Sales can be a stressful job! The idea of your livelihood being linked not only to your performance but also in the hands of the client and their sometimes unpredictable actions is enough to cause even the most level headed person to feel the strain.

According to a Perkbox 2018 UK Workplace Stress Survey, and the Institute of Sales Management research, sales is the largest business sector to experience high levels of work-related stress. Along with the feast or famine nature of a life in sales, stress can come from working long hours, pressure to perform at critical moments, dealing with setbacks (or nos) or from taking risks. More than 20% of sales professionals surveyed responded that stress often had caused a hindrance in their job performance in the past. Of that 20%, more than half responded that they “frequently think about a change in career.” According to Statista, there were nearly a million sales professionals in the UK alone in 2018. If you do that math, you’ll find that at some point in the past year, an overload of workplace stress has caused almost 200,000 individuals to contemplate a career change in order to alleviate their anxiety. I strongly believe that we should be trying to encouraging people to stay in the industry - not drive them away!

Leadership style was the third highest answer with 32% when asked the main causes of stress in sales and 23% felt that their company should look at improvements to leadership and management to prevent stress!

Stress doesn’t just cause professionals to leave their jobs, it’s having an effect on how we work while we’re on the clock. According to a Health and Safety Executive Labour Force Survey, in 2017-018, 15.4 million work days were lost in Great Britain due to work-related stress, depression or anxiety. That’s over 100 million hours of lost productivity due to the mental overload of workplace stress, totalling to more than £34 billion in costs to UK employers each year.

It’s a bit of a double-edged sword. A level of stress or anxiety can be a catalyst that helps create a high-performing salesperson. There is a rush of adrenaline and endorphins that happens when a major deal comes through that creates a sense of elation or even invincibility. That feeling can drive the salesperson to chase it endlessly. It can certainly be addictive. But constantly elevated stress level quickly become a personal hindrance when it is not correctly managed.

Of the people surveyed, nearly a quarter responded that stress management could be more effective coming from the top of the organisation chart, citing a desire for improvements in leadership and management. 16% saw a need for more and better resources to deal with their workplace-related anxiety. It seems that while mental health issues are finally getting treated with more of the seriousness they deserve, we still have a long way to go in creating a culture in which we feel comfortable confronting issues like stress and anxiety. More than three-quarters of sales professionals who participated in the 2018 Perkbox survey responded that they would feel negatively about themselves if they needed to take time off work for stress-related illnesses, when we typically don’t think twice about staying home with the flu.

From the management perspective, 66% believe they would recognise the signs of mental health and stress on their teams, but only 25% responded that they’d received mental health and stress training. Still, more than half reported noticing higher than normal stress levels on a monthly basis. It seems we’re getting better about recognising the problem, but the ability to address it hasn’t quite caught up.

As for what can be done, suggestions vary from management being more engaged with their teams to mental health training and officially recognised open door policies. What’s clear is that a more rigorous effort to train management on ways to help alleviate stress caused by a high-octane sales career is needed. Mental Health First Aid training program is available from MHFA England and is accredited by the Royal Society for Public Health.

Personally, I have learned a lot from the people around me and also from Steve Bull, the sports Psychologist that has worked a lot with the England Cricket team and corporations. If you haven’t read it, I suggest you read his book, The Game Plan which I will be speaking about in more detail at SaaS Growth in July.

We’re beginning to recognise the problem. We should now take bigger steps to find the solution.

What other actions can we take to help solve mental health issues in the sales environment?