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Stress Less, Sell More. 220 Ways to Prioritize Your Well-Being, Prevent Burnout, and Hit Your Sales Target. Edition No. 1

  • Book

  • 288 Pages
  • February 2023
  • John Wiley and Sons Ltd
  • ID: 5837902
Improve your sales performance and avoid burnout with Mental Health, resilience, and stress-management strategies.

In Stress Less, Sell More: 220 Strategies to Prevent Sales Burnout and Maximize Mental Performance, celebrated sales leader and founder of the Sales Health Alliance, Jeff Riseley, delivers a practical and impactful handbook that makes it easy for sales teams to perform better and build mental health conversations consistently into their busy selling days.

In the book, you’ll explore ways to navigate the pressures and stressors faced by every sales professional. Its pages can be read day-by-day or all at once, and a companion website supplements the material found in the book with free articles,, and videos. You’ll also discover: - How to build an individual Mental Health and stress-management toolkit to improve mental resilience and sales performance. - Ways to overcome stressors in sales like lost deals, missed targets and buyers ghosting. - Helpful team-based changes that dramatically improve salesperson mental health - like quota relief during vacations

An essential guide to improving salesperson wellbeing and sales performance, Stress Less, Sell More will prove to be an invaluable resource for sales leaders, team leaders, salespeople, and sales teams looking for ways to make daily work life less stressful and more productive.

Table of Contents

How to Use This Book xv

January 1

Quota Relief 2

Compounding Health 3

PIP 2.0 4

Sales Sabbaticals 5

Intrinsic Motivation 6

Work Hard, Play Hard 7

Kobe 9

The Problem with Slack 10

Slack Hygiene 11

Eight Rules to Live By 12

Take Your Breaks 13

The Problem with Process 14

VP Sales Enablement 15

Interview Questions 16

LeBron James 17

Daily Vitamins 18

Advice from a Friend 20

Remove Your Blockers 21

Hiring Process Burnout 22

Sharing Bad Habits 23

Endnotes 23

February 25

Listen to Your Body 26

Stop the Hamster Wheels 27

Being Present 28

Sales Role Models 29

Recognition vs Praise 31

Treat Them like Family 32

Who Will Be More Motivated? 33

Two Tennis Balls and a Sock 34

When You’re Not 100% 36

How to End Stigmas 37

The Date Jar 39

Who’s More Responsible? 40

David vs Goliath 41

Rejection Handle 42

Dangerous Expectations 43

You Need a Hobby 44

Do Wellness Initiatives Work? 45

Save Past Experiences 47

Responding to Good News 48

Changing Jobs 49

Endnotes 50

March 51

“Grinding” in Sales 52

Fight Together, Not Alone 53

Motivation Bucket Checklist 54

Meaningful Work in Sales 55

Connecting through Failure 56

The Problem with Rewards 57

Pattern Interrupts 58

Steve Kerr 59

Am I Experiencing Burnout? 60

What Are We Doing? 61

Vulnerability Paradox 62

Revenge Bedtime Procrastination 63

Not Programmed to Exercise 64

Sales Is a Marathon 65

Stoicism and Resilience 66

Burnout and Control 67

“Squeezing” Salespeople 69

Formula 1 70

My Team “Looks” Healthy 71

Mindful Eating 72

Endnotes 72

April 73

Messy Humans 74

Exercise for $25,000? 75

Drinking Culture in Sales 76

Prioritize Mental Health 77

Collaboration in Sales 78

Sales Training Confusion 79

Lark or Owl? 80

Have or Have Not 81

Getting Mental Health Wrong 82

Languishing 83

Emotional Experiences 84

Napping in Sales 85

20 Extra Days 86

Don’t Be a Homer 87

Take a Mental Health Day 88

Control What You Can Control 89

Get Involved 90

Protect Your Players 91

Your To-Do List 92

Proactive Sales Onboarding 93

Endnotes 93

May 95

Say NO More 96

Recovery Metrics 97

Personal Growth 98

Unlimited PTO Is Not Enough 99

Contents ix

Climb Down into the Hole 100

Mental Health Cost Calculator 101

Uncle Ben 103

Stop and Check 104

The Wim Hof Method 105

The Power of “Yet” 106

Visualizing Sleep 107

Where Is the Off-Ramp? 108

Toxic Sales Dashboards 109

Sharing Openly 110

Why Are You Angry? 111

Components of Hope 113

Not Feeling Motivated? Read This 114

Impact of Job Security 115

Being Supportive 116

Choosing the Right Type of Meditation 117

Endnotes 117

June 119

Craft, Mind, and Body 120

Who Do You Want to Be? 121

The NFL and Sales 122

It’s Showtime! 123

The Power of Appreciation 124

Grab an Umbrella 125

Corporate Greed 126

Learning a New Skill 127

Be Like Mike 128

What Are You Feeling? 129

Endnotes 129

July 131

Back from Vacation 132

Your Signature Move 133

Empowering Sales Teams 135

Top-Down, Bottom-Up 136

Eustress vs Distress 138

Benefits of Meditation 139

Emotional Literacy 140

Compound Resilience 141

Block the Sales Dashboard 143

Upper Limit Happiness 144

The Right Action 145

Hearing vs Listening 146

Distanced from Work 147

Competing Perspectives in Sales 148

Top Performers 149

The Bus Stop 150

Overtraining 151

Afternoon Coffee 152

Email Apnea 153

Theory X or Theory Y 154

Endnotes 154

August 155

Uncoupling from Fear 156

Courageous Vulnerability 157

Mindset Matters 158

Praising Effort and Learning 159

Perception and Targets 160

Becoming a CEO 161

ABCs of Anxiety 162

Sales and Masks 163

Five Dysfunctions of Mental Health 164

Your Voice Matters 165

Mindset and Algorithms 166

The Anxiety Cure 167

Action Thinking 168

Interview Candidates 169

Dark Horses 170

Wellness Day Problems 171

Social Impact 172

Get in Touch 173

Delivering Bad News 175

Stop Making Excuses 176

Endnotes 176

September 177

Stop Wasting Time 178

Suicide Prevention 179

Push-Ups and Sales Burnout 180

Sales Biases 181

Types of Sales Stressors 182

Swing Votes 183

Fear of Loss 184

Doing the Dishes 185

Control Your Information 186

Bad Outcomes of Success 187

The Pre-call Ritual 188

Needs vs Wants 189

Sales Needs Emotion 190

Drinking on the Job 191

Playing the Long Game 193

No One Is Wearing Shoes! 194

High Strain Activities 195

Stop Aiming for Perfect 196

Intermittent Fasting 197

Input-Focused Mindset 198

Endnotes 199

October 201

You Don’t Need Years of Experience 202

Starting the Conversation 203

No Brakes 204

What Is Empathy Really? 205

30 Days of Sweat 206

Ryan Reynolds 207

RATT 208

Working for Workers Act 209

Stop Comparing 210

Your “Spidey-Sense” 211

More Sleep = More Sales 212

“I’m a Failure” 213

Seasonal Changes 214

Maybe They 215

Trust Recession 217

HALT 218

Be Kind to Each Other 219

Did I Matter? 220

Fix Yourself First 221

Hope in Sales 222

Endnotes 222

November 223

Buyer Mental Health 224

Mastery Manipulation 225

Super Mario 226

Failure in Sales 228

“Feeling Lucky” 229

The Drivers 230

Seeds of Growth 231

Planning to Miss 232

Story Editing 233

Instant Gratification 234

Don’t Speak Up 235

Rehearsal Loop 236

Small Actions Matter Most 237

Buyer Ghosting 239

Challenging Experiences 240

The PIP 241

Becoming a Chameleon 242

The First Call 243

Jeff Goldblum 244

The Off-Season 245

Endnotes 245

December 247

Your Inner Citadel 248

Building Empathy 249

Law of the Lever 250

Bad Is Stronger than Good 252

Keeping It Objective 253

Finding the Present 254

How Supported Do You Feel? 255

Naïve Realism 256

Stress-Enhancing Mindset 257

Sleep Best Practices 259

Endnotes 260

Afterword: Salience Bias 261

About the Author 263

Index 265

Authors

Jeff Riseley