You could argue that this week’s aptitude – Handling Stress – is a key component in almost every job. In sales, it is critical because the typical sales position involves multiple levels of stress. Whether it be presentations in front of many Directors and VP’s or dealing with an irate customer, sales presents a wide variety of stresses.
Handling Stress
This is a person’s ability to balance and defuse inner tensions and stresses which, if allowed to build up, could interfere with a person’s ability to perform up to their potential. It is not the person’s ability to handle stressful situations, but rather their ability to appropriately separate themselves from such stressful situations while maintaining their own separate inner sense of peace.
A salesperson with strength in this capacity will be able to encounter a stressful situation, deal with it as need be, and then step away from the situation (resolved or not). They step away in a manner which releases their own emotional involvement and allows them to move on to other matters. These stresses can also be cumulative in nature. Having this ability serves to prevent excess buildup of stress which, in sufficient enough levels, could begin to interfere with performance and physical well-being.
A salesperson with weakness in this area may encounter difficulty accomplishing emotional separation. They continue to exist in the same stressful environment even when not at work (i.e. they bring it home with them). Allowing this cumulative buildup of various stresses may serve to distract them from other tasks, or reduce their effectiveness in them, due to the preoccupation caused by the underlying stress. Being prone to such buildup may also effectively reduce the amount of external stress with which one is comfortable. That, in turn, can lead to a decrease in performance more rapidly than someone who is not as full of stress.