A terrible sales meeting can have disastrous effects on your morale, throwing off your game for hours or even days. The more important that terrible sales meeting was, the worse it will impact you–but you can’t let it bleed into the rest of your work. In fact, you shouldn’t even let it ruin the deal associated with it. One terrible sales meeting doesn’t have to spell doom, it doesn’t have to ruin anything. In this article, we’ll discuss how to throw off the pall of a terrible sales meeting, learn from the experience, and get back to fighting form in no time flat.

Recovering from a terrible sales meeting should be broken into two broad sections: Recovery and Digestion

Recovery

Do Something to Clear Your Mood. Coming off a terrible sales meeting, your mood and morale aren’t likely to be in good shape. You need to take a bit of time and do something to relax and reset. What that means to you will vary–some people will need to go take a walk, or get a snack, or play a game of solitaire on their computer. Maybe, if the situation permits, you need to find somewhere and take a nap. This might sound a bit silly, but your mood is important and doing what it takes to reset will do you more good in the long run than trying to bull through. 

Work on Another Sale. After you’re back to a neutral mindset, it’s time to go grab a success. It doesn’t have to be anything big, just do something you can think of as ‘leading to a sale’. Any sale, any task, whatever gives you the satisfaction of moving closer to a closed deal. Whether it’s following up on a hot lead or just a bit of research on your next cold call, do something worth doing. A mood of success is important, because next it’s time to tackle the terrible sales meeting head on.

Digestion

Consider What Went Wrong. You’ve had your mental break from thinking about the failure, now you’re mentally prepared to consider what went wrong–objectively. Trying this right after the meeting often produces nothing but self-doubt and useless speculation, but with some space and the right mindset you can turn a terrible sales meeting into a learning experience. Very rare is the sales person who succeeds more often than they fail, and the ones with such stellar records got to that level by failing and learning from their failures. Analyze the terrible sales meeting, pick it apart. Did you fail in prep? In earlier conversations? In your call to action? Personal presentation? Or does the problem go back even further, to a lead that was never worth pursuing? Once you know, you’re ready to…

Develop a Plan for Next Time. You should never experience the same terrible sales meeting twice, because you should always learn from them and develop a strategy for the next time the same situation arises. It might end in a different sort of disaster, but that’s just another point of data for perfecting your sales techniques. The point is to have a considered, well-developed plan for facing the situation the next time it arises. By seizing the initiative in this way, you’ll also find your mood improving and the ‘funk’ of failure weighing on you less heavily.