You're not a lazy person.

You work hard. You hit your call metrics. You use the scripts. You stay persistent even when it feels like you're getting nowhere.

You're doing everything you were taught to do.

So why does it feel like your results have hit a wall?

Most reps are trained to know the product inside out. And that's fine. But the reps who actually break through? They spend that same energy learning about the person in front of them.

There's a version of sales that looks like this:

And for a while, it works.

Call volume can cover a lot of gaps when you're new. But at some point, usually right around where you are now, growth will begin to slow. You're putting in the same effort, maybe even more, and the results aren't moving.

Many people are told they lack the motivation to really push through. But often times its the sales method they are trapped in that is the real problem. When you try to push through as many calls as possible in a day, you end up not taking the time to get to know your prospect.

Think about the last deal that fell apart. The one where you had calls and momentum. The one that felt like you had a real chance to close.

What actually happened?

In most cases, it wasn't your product or your pricing.

It was that the person on the other side of that deal never fully trusted you.

Trust doesn't come from a good script. It doesn't come from persistence. It doesn't come from knowing your product inside and out.

It comes from the prospect feeling like you actually understand their situation and what's at stake for them personally if this goes wrong.

That's the part that gets rushed or skipped entirely when you try to push through calls. 

I can't emphasize enough how important trust is when closing deals. In this day and age, a client can pick from a dozen products that offer the same benefits. The one thing you can offer them that will help you stand out is your relationship with them.

I once had a rep who was sharp, prepared, and genuinely worked hard. He gets on a call with a promising prospect. Has 12 more calls scheduled after it. So he moves through the call fast. Qualifies fast, pivots to the pitch, handles objections, pushes for next steps.

The prospect says they'll think about it. They don't call back.

Here's what he didn't know: that prospect had just gone through a rough quarter. There was internal pressure to get this decision right. They weren't looking for fast. They were looking for someone who took the time to ask the right questions and understand what was actually going on.

That rep was so focused on getting through the call that he never had the conversation the prospect actually needed to have.

When you take the time to have those conversations, you build strong relationships with the prospect that could deliver more value than that one transaction the rep was pushing.

That promising relationship never started. So the deal never closed.

Nobody in sales gets trained on this. You get trained on the product, the pitch, the objections, and the CRM. You get taught exactly what to say. And sometimes that's exactly the problem.

You don't get taught how to make someone feel genuinely understood in 30 minutes. You don't get taught how to slow down enough to find the real reason someone is or isn't ready to buy. You don't get taught how to truly connect with someone.

And so reps keep optimizing the wrong things. More calls. Tighter scripts. Faster follow-ups. More urgency.

Meanwhile, the reps who are actually breaking through and closing deals have figured out that the deal is a byproduct of a strong client relationship, and they slow down enough to make those connections.

I'm not going to tell you to overhaul everything you do.

But I do want you to answer honestly about the deals in your pipeline right now:

Do you actually know what's going on in this person's world, or do you just know where they are in your process?

That gap is where deals go quiet. That gap is what we need to start closing.

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If this hit close to home, forward it to a rep on your team who needs to hear it. The ones putting in the most effort are usually the ones who need this the most.

Keep learning,

Better Relationships. Better Conversations. Better Sales.