When results drop and motivation fades, the fix is to increase your prospecting activity above your normal baseline, not wait until you feel ready. More calls create more conversations, more conversations create more opportunities, and opportunities produce results.

The Slump Every Salesperson Knows

I want to talk about something that every single salesperson experiences at some point in their career: the sales slump.

You know the feeling. You’re making calls, you’re showing up, you’re putting in the effort, but nothing seems to be working. Nobody’s answering the phone, deals are falling through, and your motivation is disappearing. Suddenly, the hardest thing in the world becomes the very thing that normally drives your success: the activity.

The truth I want you to take away from this is simple. Activity can cure almost any sales slump.

The Story That Changed My Career

One of my biggest sales slumps happened about six months into my sales career. At the time, I was still trying to figure out whether sales was something I was actually good at.

I had great leadership, solid training, and I was showing up early every day. I was engaged and doing the work. Technically, I was meeting expectations. Our company required 55 calls a day, and I consistently hit that number, sometimes even exceeded it. But while I was making sales, I wasn’t making enough. As a competitive person, that started eating at me.

I watched coworkers closing big deals. I watched people win sales contests. I watched others gain momentum while I felt stuck. Eventually, my motivation started to fade. I started thinking, what was the point? I felt like all the effort I was putting in just wasn’t paying off.

After a couple of weeks in that mindset, I convinced myself that maybe sales wasn’t for me. So I made a decision. I walked into the owner’s office to resign.

This was a small, family-owned business, and he was the person who hired me. I felt I owed it to him to have the conversation. I explained everything and told him I was frustrated, that maybe I wasn’t good at sales, that I didn’t think I was going to see the success happen.

After listening carefully, he asked me one simple question: Do you enjoy coming to work every day?

Honestly, yes. I loved my coworkers, I believed in the company, I believed in our product. I just didn’t believe I was succeeding.

Then he said something that completely changed my career.

He said, Jessica, I believe in you. I see your effort, and I think you can become a great salesperson. But right now, you’re simply not doing enough activity.

At first, I felt defensive. In my mind, I was doing enough. I was hitting the company minimum.

Then he explained it differently. He said, yes, 55 dials a day is the minimum. But if your results are behind where you want them to be, your activity probably needs to be higher than average.

He gave me a challenge. Don’t quit today. Give it 90 more days, but instead of aiming for 55 calls, aim for 75. Commit to doing more activity consistently, and I believe the results will follow.

Honestly, I wasn’t convinced. I remember thinking, how are 20 more calls a day supposed to magically solve my problems? But I didn’t have another job lined up, and I had rent to pay. So I accepted the challenge.

What Happened When I Raised My Activity

That same day, I went back to my desk and decided I was going to overachieve the activity expectations every single day. It was not glamorous. More calls meant more nos, more gatekeepers, and more rejection.

But something else started happening. I started booking more appointments. I was uncovering more opportunities. And then I started posting more sales.

Within those few months, everything changed. I went from dead last on the monthly sales leaderboard to competing for a top spot on the team. We only had eight people on the team at the time, but climbing from position eight up to position four mattered to me, because it proved something important: the problem was never my potential. The problem was my activity level.

I stayed with that organization for nearly ten years. The following year, I generated a million dollars in revenue and eventually moved into a sales leadership role. None of that would have happened had I walked away during my slump.

Discouragement Does Not Drive Revenue. Activity Does.

Too many salespeople wait until they feel motivated to prospect. The truth is, activity often creates that motivation. If you’re in a sales slump right now, here are four things to focus on.

1. Raise Your Activity Target

Don’t aim for the minimum. Don’t aim for where your coworkers are. Set your daily activity higher than normal. If your results are down, your activity needs to go up. More conversations create more opportunities.

2. Focus on the Controllables

You cannot control who answers the phone. You cannot control budgets or timing. But you can control how many times you pick up the phone. You can control how many emails you send, how many follow-ups you make to ghosted opportunities, how active you are on LinkedIn. Winning salespeople focus on the controllables.

3. Be Physically Active

Your physical energy impacts your sales energy. Move your body to reset your mind and build momentum. Take a walk at lunch. Get to the gym in the morning. Meet friends for a round of pickleball or shoot some hoops. More movement outside of work creates more energy and confidence inside of work.

4. Celebrate the Small Wins

If you hit an activity target, give yourself a gold star on the calendar. If you book an appointment, reward yourself with a small treat, like an afternoon iced coffee. Small wins rebuild confidence, and confidence fuels consistency.

A Sales Slump Does Not Define Your Future

If you’re struggling right now, hear this: a sales slump does not define your future. Sometimes you’re closer to a breakthrough than you realize. But breakthroughs rarely happen while we’re standing still. They happen through activity, through consistency, through pushing forward even when the results aren’t there yet.

Because activity can cure almost any sales slump.

If this episode encouraged you, share it with another salesperson who might need this reminder. Keep showing up, keep dialing, keep moving forward. This is Jessica Stokes. Make today awesome.

The slump ends when the activity starts. But before you dial, take stock of where you actually stand. Jessica’s 5-minute course, How to Give Your Pipeline a Reality Check, teaches you a simple technique for making sure you have enough pipe to hit your number this month or quarter.