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Optimism and Sales

Optimism and Sales

The foundation to the foundation for success

Dan Barry
February 05, 2024

Welcome to February, a month of romance, lengthening days and my birthday.

🤷‍♂️ In a slightly more philosophical manner, we’re examining why optimism is so misunderstood.

Wishy-washy topics aside, let’s dive in! 🚀

Optimism in sales & business
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🙌 Optimism in business

I’ve thought about this a lot over the years. I think optimism is the MOST IMPORTANT ‘soft skill’ or character trait that drives success (and sanity) in sales.

A recent Modern Wisdom podcast episode reminded me of this and made me want to get these thoughts into words, and your inbox.

I think this applies widely to business and entrepreneurship too.

Let me explain…

🤬 Optimism gets a bad rap

A lot of the time people think the term ‘I’m an optimist’, ultimately means that you’re naive, unaware of risks, or have your rose-tinted glasses on.

Yes, some people can be excessively ignorant to risk. But being optimistic doesn’t make you naive. Optimism, i.e. hoping that something will result in the desired positive outcome, makes you powerful, motivated and infectiously hard-working.

Cynicism can easily be mistaken for wisdom. People who focus on all the reasons why something won’t work can often come across as experienced and reasonable.

❝

The pessimists get to be right and the optimists get to be rich.

Shaan Puri

There comes a point where future theoretical failures of a project, whilst perhaps valid concerns, are just excuses. Excuses to not start, excuses to not continue, excuses to not course-correct. F**k excuses.

❝

Cynical people are seen as smarter, but sizable research suggests they actually tend to be dumber. Cynicism is not a sign of intelligence but a substitute for it, a way to shield oneself from betrayal & disappointment without having to actually think.

Gurwinder - 2023

🔒 Optimism and Persistence

Persistence, alongside dealing with rejection, is widely accepted as a fundamental characteristic of successful salespeople, and rightfully so. You need to be able to stomach 2, 3, 5, 10 NO’s in a row. You need to be able to push forward, even when results aren’t immediately apparent.

But I’d argue that optimism is even more important than persistence. In fact, directed appropriately, it’s the foundation for persistence.

❝

Optimism is a pre-requisite to persistence.

Me, just now.

You won’t be able to find the discipline to persist if you don’t believe that what you’re doing will eventually end with the desired result. If you don’t think that you’ll ever finish a marathon, or that you won’t feel great after running it, you’ll never be able to keep going in the 20-mile practice runs that are needed to get you there.

James Dyson created 5,127 vacuum prototypes (failures) before he finally made the first Dyson. If he wasn’t extremely optimistic about the future success of the product, he never would’ve stuck with it.

🫣 Why is it important in sales?

Somewhat obviously, this relates to newsletter ad sales a lot. And all sales for that matter. In media, a 20% conversion rate following a proposal, is good. That means that you should expect four deals in a row to fall through. You’re likely to sometimes see 10 in a row finish without revenue.

Extrapolating that, this can leave you sending 100s, maybe even 1,000 cold emails with nothing to show for it. You NEED to be optimistic that you will be able to close and fill your ad calendar. Without that, you’ll get despondent and likely give up.

Sales tend to come in waves, mainly due to where you allocate your time when your pipeline is full (proposals, calls and follow-ups), and when it’s less so (outreach). So optimism in the bad times will help you push through to the good.