“Burnout” is the inability to continue to function in the same professional  manner or at the previously maintained level. According to the Encarta Dictionary, “Burnout” is “to become exhausted or unwell through too much hard work, stress or reckless living”. In its extreme, sales burnout is the dissolution of the man, down to his roots.  It is the cracking of his self-esteem.  It is the charring of his soul, resulting in his becoming unusable by and useless to himself, his fellow workers, his clients, and his company.  Burnout is usually associated with older sales professionals, but since it is a sort of mental “repetitive stress syndrome”, old becomes a relative term.

* I’m going to use masculine forms in this article, partly for linguistic convenience, and partly because burnout in women often substantially differs from the way in which men are effected and therefore, rightly deserves a treatment of its own.

“Burnout” is a term that everyone uses but no one wants to really talk about, especially with someone who is actually “burning out.”  It’s like discussing cancer.  What in the world could you possible say to the cancer (or burnout) victim?  Maybe it will just go away and those of us who aren’t (yet) afflicted would rather not even invoke the word.  There even seems to be something shameful about burnout, as if the victim is somehow guilty of having the disease.

It’s like discussing cancer. 

For an engrossing example of sales burnout in cinema, I recommend watching Jack Lemmon, in “Glengarry, Glen Ross”.  He is being eaten alive by younger, more aggressive salesmen, by a hostile, heartless and vicious new boss; but mostly by his fear and his own inability to achieve, in tasks in which he used to excel.  It’s a movie that no veteran salesman can watch with equanimity.

Very few sales people ever recognize or admit to burnout, especially when they’re in the process of burning out.  They complain about how tired they are.  They complain about how the lousy customers are changing and becoming harder to deal with.  They complain about their managers, about the product they have to sell, about the engineers who design the product.  But they rarely recognize what is happening to them and, if they did acknowledge burning out, they would still have no idea of how to stop or reverse the process. 

Typically, the company for which he works is equally unwilling to validate the syndrome or to admit any responsibility for its onset or to seek mitigation or cure. 

This is tragic, because burnout isn’t just about personal meltdown, it’s also about the devastating loss of a highly valuable company resource.  It affects revenue dramatically in that territory.  Management has to expend time and money in replacing the burnout victim.  Loss of the individual gives competitors a breach in the previously unbreakable wall that he created with his years of personal relationships.  

Burnout of a formerly productive salesman will have a deleterious emotional effect on other sales and office staff.  It may even impact the sales manager’s perceived value to the company since it was on his watch that the sales person crashed and burned.  Therefore, attempts to mitigate the effects of “burnout” aren’t merely humane acts, as if that weren’t reason enough.  The mitigation of burnout  is simply smart business and denotes a professional management team.

In effect, both the individual and company conspire to ignore the problem

Just as it is best to discuss the causes of the disease and its symptoms before discussing the cure, we ought to first enumerate some of the more common factors that lead to burnout, some of its more common warning signs.  Then we will discuss the methods by which burnout might be prevented or its effects on the company mitigated

The following are some common causes.  Each of the following makes the salesman confused, afraid, angry, paranoid, and depressed until the cumulative effects result in burnout.

1. Customers change. Mostly, they get younger as the salesman gets older. For instance, the salesman’s “contact” will, at some point, either leave the company or achieve a higher position within the company.  In either case, the replacement will almost always be a younger person. 

Your best salespeople are chameleons.  They have been successful because they have had the ability to identify, on many personal and professional levels with their clients.  But a vast disparity in age cancels that ability and makes the salesman, no matter how hard he tries, less effective and out of touch with more and more of his customers and this will make him confused and angry. 

2. The older salesman, who has been sublimating his personality to those of his customers for years, (being the good chameleon), at some point begins to demand the right to assert his own personality.   It is natural that as the salesperson gets older he demands more respect from his younger clients.  After all, he’s been doing this job for eons and the client is “young enough to be his son or daughter”. 
 

Unfortunately, the clients, though younger, are not his children and are jealous of their roles as clients and as adults.  They will not suffer the “old guy” to tell them what to do, regardless of his experience.  As with his children, the salesman will find conflict in this relationship, which of course will lead to anger, depression, etc.

3. The salesman expects respect from his company.  But if he’s been in his sales position for years, in all likelihood, his manager is younger than he is.  The younger manager is also jealous of his prerogatives and so friction develops between the old salesperson who “knows everything” and feels he ought to be heard, and the young “pup” manager who only thinks he knows everything.  Yet again, anger, confusion, etc.

4.     As contrary as it sounds, with success and longevity comes the dread of loss.  If it is safe to say that if fear heralds the onset of burnout, and it does, then it is equally true that “burnout” truly begins when the salesman is at his professional apex. 

Young sales people are building their reputations and “empires.” They have little history of sales success.   They have far less to lose than the older, established salesman who has everything to lose (now that he has everything).  His family is older and the financial drains are probably greater (college tuitions, mortgages, etc.)  His reputation, which is understandably precious, can be lost or diminished, with the subsequent devastating loss of face.  If he becomes fearful, it is because he has so much to lose and no guarantee that he won’t lose it all.  Remember that college students aren’t usually fiscal conservatives because they haven’t yet acquired anything about which to be conservative.

5.     With age comes the lessening of physical stamina.  While we all know older salespeople who can still work 18 hour shifts at trade shows and then go back on the road for a few weeks, the likelihood is that the older sales people will need two weeks to fully recuperate from a four- day trade show.  Physical fatigue creates mental fatigue, an inability to focus, greater irritability, paranoia and fear.

6.     Loss of prestige and power leads to increased panic.  When sales are up, management keeps its distance and is solicitous of the salesperson’s opinions and wellbeing.  Once sales start to slip, however, he is no longer listened to; his opinions are ignored.   Essentially he’s being told to shut up unless he can make his numbers.  His past success suddenly counts for nothing and his feelings of self worth and security are under attack.  Fear, anger, paranoia follow.

7.     In technical industries, salespeople face another, very specific fear; being unable or unwilling to keep up with technical innovations.  The younger customers are, in so many of our industries, inherently more knowledgeable about the new technology.  Again, the salesman faces  loss of status, loss of reputation, etc.  (And, in rapidly changing technical markets, this is matched by the fear of being undercut by the competition and manufacturers.  An element over which he has little or no control).

8.     “Burnout” is also caused by the immense and often contradictory family pressures to; provide more income; work fewer hours, spend more time with family members; pay more attention to spouse and children, etc.  “Burnout” victims may have career ambiguities such as going to night school, playing in a band, etc. The need to have a life outside of the stress of work and away from the equal stress of family obligations leads to the untenable situation where there is no safe haven in which the salesperson can hide and recharge his batteries.

Over years, burnout is the final dissolution of the salesperson’s ego.  That ego is so often and continually assaulted by recalcitrant clients, bad market conditions, home office politics and policies, and the often unwitting, but no less devastating, depredations of family and friends. 

The stresses from work, family and even supposed recreational activities, create a constant and pervasive fear in the salesperson.  And, as we know from the animal kingdom, there are only two responses to fear -- flight or fight.  If you’ve been wondering why your older, formerly best salesman, is talking about looking for another job or becoming impossible to deal with, is sullen, paranoid, furious, and depressed, you’re witnessing the classic fear response of the salesman who is rapidly burning out. 

Of course, admitting to being terrified will create the very situation of which the salesperson is afraid, termination or loss of power or loss of face.  Admitting weakness is not safe in most companies.  Therefore, the salesperson that is in the midst of burning out will do everything to hide the fact from everyone, including himself.  Many companies, desiring to minimize confrontations, will almost always ignore the situation until it is so bad that termination is the only solution.

For the good of all involved, it is essential to recognize burnout as it is starting, not after the salesperson has become a pile of ashes.  None of the following alone is a sure symptom of “burnout”, but taken together, they are red flags and must be addressed. I’ve listed some common symptoms here, but any good sales manager can probably add more from his or her own personal experience.

1. Taking longer lunches, coming in later, leaving earlier

2. Avoiding making cold calls.

3. Making fewer road trips outside of the immediate “comfort” area.

4. An inability to work with/identify with younger clients.

5. Impatience with clients/ excessive anger with clients who don’t do what the salesperson advises them to do.

6. Making uncharacteristic goofs in sales presentations that only novices would normally make.

7. Dressing down clients who buy from competitors.

8. Incessant battles with management

9. Continual threats to resign.

10. Diminishing market share.

11. Less monitoring of self/more blaming of others for problems.  More rationalization of failures.

12. Snapping at clients in general.

13. Bringing “home” problems into the office.

14. Over-indulgence in alcohol or indulgence in drugs.

As with any pathology, prevention is far better than a cure.  In fact, by the time the salesperson is demonstrating the problems listed above, there may not be a cure short of termination.  So lets take a look at the proper care and feeding of your good salespeople, starting with the time you hire them. 

Don’t promise management positions if they succeed in sales.  The best salesperson is often the worst manager since the skill sets are rarely transferable and you need to keep your most successful salesmen in the field.  That’s where they’ll make the company the most money. 

To keep your salespeople productive in their roles and not craving management positions, you must show them that a career as a lifetime salesman with the company has meaningful benefits.  Consider that top salesmen in successful companies often do, in fact, make more money than most in management.  Salesmen may often be a pain in the ass, but if they are properly cared for, they will rarely burn out.

1. Create the proper office support structure for your sales professionals.  Be sure there is someone in the office at all times to handle "road emergencies". Work with them to provide perspectives and organization to minimize this dynamic.

2. Be sure to supply your sales people with the tools they need.  If they need product support literature, be sure they have reasonable supplies.  If they need product samples, be sure they’re always available.  If they need technical assistance, be sure your engineers are accessible. 

3. Support your sales people with good marketing.  If clients are pre-positioned to believe in the company and its products, the salesmen's expertise in closing on the appropriate products will be more efficient.

4. Don’t let your sales staff be hammered by other departments. We all know sales people aren’t well organized, but don’t let your comptroller, for instance, browbeat, humiliate and eventually dock the pay or refuse the T&E reimbursement of a productive salesperson because they are late with their travel reports.  It’s easy for an accountant to get hardnosed with a salesperson over such matters.  However, he’s not the one who just spent a week at a convention, followed by two weeks living out of a suitcase while his wife berated him for missing his daughter’s birthday party. 

5. Don’t put undue and artificial pressure on your sales staff.  Cramming their sales into an artificial and often arbitrary pattern defeats the purpose. Good sales management acts as a buffer for the sales staff.  Great sales management knows how to evaluate and monitor sales people in order to get an idea of what sales are in the pipeline.  Forcing sales people to “declare” sales in order to make top management feel secure about the future, and then slamming them when the money doesn’t come in the week or month promised, will lead to duplicitous behavior and unnecessarily stressed out salespeople.

6. Work with your sales people on discounts and deals.  No salesperson ever sees the famous “big picture.”  Sales are made by one and one.  Every sale is a matter of life and death.  It is the salesperson’s obligation to bring even the biggest “giveaways” to management.  It is management’s job to achieve a balance between market share and profitability, but it is never acceptable to blame the salesperson for pushing for the deal. 

 

After all, salespeople work on a percentage of the “gross.”  Net profits are management's responsibility.

7. Do not put caps and other restrictions on the salesman.  The salesman lives in a world of constant “inconstancy”.  Unlike management, in most cases his income is dependant on his sales.  If he is successful, the company is successful.  If he falters, the company falters.  If his 10% commission earns him $100,000, it’s because he sold $1,000,000 worth of products or services, and the company grossed $900,000. 

8. Management doesn’t have to accept every recommendation that comes from its salespeople, but it must afford them the respect of taking their ideas seriously.  Because the really great salespeople are often the most eccentric, management often assumes an adversarial counterpoint.  Rightly or wrongly, management must understand that part of its role and responsibility is to accommodate the eccentricities of its productive sales people. 

9. Salespeople are, by the nature of their positions, lonely.  This leads to some odd behavior patterns.  What sales manager hasn’t gotten that bizarre call from the road, where the salesman goes on and on about virtually nothing?  In fact, what the call was about was the need for reassurance and companionship.  It’s horribly lonely out there.  Those managers who think that salespeople ought to “suck it up” and be “real men” probably ought to be managing high school football teams. 

10. Insist on vacations.  Good salespeople think they’re made of iron and most companies are only too happy to have their salespeople work continually.  But such non-stop activity shortens the life of the most important asset the company possesses.  Most managers take far better care of their automobiles than they do of their star salespeople.

11. Organize meetings on a regular basis to allow the team to vent.  If salesmen are off site, set aside a regular phone time.  Set aside the budget for (at the very least) twice-yearly face-to-face sales team meetings.  During these meetings, set aside the time for the sales team to sit together without management present so they can complain, bond, compare nightmares and learn from each other.

12. Be sure to visit with your salesman, in his territory on a regular basis, not to spy on him but to support him and give him access to the company’s “ear.”

13. Get to know your salesman’s family and try to get them to understand the company. Try to involve spouses and children in events where possible.  Hold family seminars to explain company policies and procedures. Put spouses on a company mailing list devoted to them.  Open up a channel between the family and the company so that spousal concerns may be addressed.

14. Have access to a competent analyst, or a neutral and experienced person that the company can recommend and the salesperson can use to address early signs of burnout or any type of unusual behavior.

1. Confront the situation quickly, even though it’s uncomfortable. See if the salesperson will admit that there is a problem.  Assess if there is something that needs addressing in the companies policies, and address them.  Give him management’s perspective, as required, in a non-threatening manner. Do not lie to the salesman.  If he is in danger of being replaced, tell him so, but then, (if it is true), tell him you will keep him if things change.

2. Give the salesperson a list of why salespeople suffer from burnout (such as the one above) and see if he will acknowledge that any of them applies to him.

3. Ask the salesperson if he can identify the reasons for the problem, in writing preferably.

4. Ask the salesperson to state the ways in which he believes the problems might be solved.

5. If possible, try to address any addressable irritants immediately, such as conflicts with other personnel.  

6. Aid the salesperson in finding a competent mental health professional if indications, warrant such a move. 

7. Demonstrate sympathy, understanding and the company’s willingness to support him, if he is worth salvaging. 

8. Look into hiring a sales assistant for the salesperson, letting him keep his longtime “friends” while assigning newer clients to the younger assistant. 

9. Look into assigning the salesperson a smaller direct sales roll but a greater mentoring roll for the younger salespeople.

10. Look into enrolling the salesperson in “refresher” sales courses. 

11. If possible, speak with the salesperson’s older and friendlier clients to see if you can gain some perspective on the problems. 

12. Examine whether giving the person extended time off might help.  

13. Arrange to speak with the salesman’s spouse and try to identify family related causes or ways in which the family can be especially supportive (this is, admittedly, thin ice and ought to be dealt with carefully).

Of course a company isn’t a rest home and every employee must carry his own weight in the final analysis.  However, even when everyone in the company is convinced that the burnout victim must go, there is a right and wrong way to proceed.  Remember that your existing sales staff will closely watch the manner in which you treat the departing salesperson.  They will often judge the company (and how loyal they ought to be to the company) by your actions in this case.

1. See if there is a different position within the company for which he is qualified and in which he has an interest.

2. Always allow the person the option of resigning, in order to maintain his self-respect and make his job search easier.  Be liberal on the departure date, if required to uphold the story.

3. This is not the time to get tight on his outgoing financial arrangement.  The company's handling of the situation will inspire other employees.

4. Work out a financial arrangement for the proper turnover of records, etc. over and above the normal severance package.

5. If at all possible, keep the person on in some sort of “emeritus” role.  Keeping him on in even a diminished role as a “senior statesman” will please your clients (who want to see you act better than they themselves would ever act).

6. Examine the possibility of finding the person a position with one of your clients.  

In short, treat the burnout victim with kindness and generosity.  He contributed to your success, and he burned out in service to your company.  Most generals (Patton being the exception) didn’t add insult to injury by slapping their shell-shocked soldiers.

Salesmen do come back from dark periods, and burnout need not be forever.  But understanding why it happens, how to head it off and/or how to mitigate its effects on the company ought not to be addressed for the first time when the salesman is sitting in a corner of his office sobbing.  Like any other potential business problem, professional managers should be well versed and prepared for the contingency before it occurs.

Herb Schiff can be reached at haschiff@attbi.com

Phone (310) 837-6460

© 2003 Herb Schiff. All rights reserved.

Please note that Printing browser documents in Landscape Mode will usually get you optimum results