After a sales interview, good or bad, you might find yourself sitting and wondering “What next?” It’s not good for you to sit around stressing over things beyond your control, and it’s not an effective use of your time–so how should you utilize the time when you can’t just put the interview out of mind, when you feel you need to be doing ‘something’ to calm down? Fortunately, there’s quite a bit of post-sales-interview work for you to do, if you want to optimize your chances of success in this and future interviews. In this article, we’ll discuss five things you should do after every sales interview, for your well-being and your success.

Write Things Down.

As soon as you can, you should jot down anything that stood out to you during your sales interview. Questions you didn’t anticipate, answers that went over well, anecdotes that flopped. You want to dissect your memory of the encounter while the encounter is still fresh. The more details you can wring from your mind, the better you’ll be prepared to follow up on this sales interview and to build strategies for your next sales interview, with this company or another.

Take a Breather.

Once you’ve got everything from your memory that you can, it’s time to relax for a bit. For most people, even a sales interview that goes off perfectly will leave behind some residual stress. Whatever you do to cool down when you’ve had a rough sales session or a bad day in general, do it now. You might need to take a walk, or a nap, or play a video game, or read a book. Whatever puts distance between you and sales, because moving forward you don’t want sharp memories and subjective immediacy, you want objectivity and cool focus.

Review the Interview.

Look at your notes. Think about what happened at the sales interview. You might be viewing certain events in a different light now that you have some mental space between you and the event. Where were you strongest in the interview? Is that something you can play up in follow ups with this company? How about using it in your next interview? Alternatively, where were you weakest? Is there a way to shore up your weaknesses, or to avoid having them come up? Did you realize you hadn’t researched the company enough? Or the hiring staff? Take notes as needed–you don’t want to lose stray thoughts that might prove valuable.

Refine Your Approach.

A sales interview is, itself, a form of sales. Like your normal sales process, you can refine your sales interview process for better outcomes. The goal here is selling ‘you as an employee’ to the company. Now, shortly after a sales interview, is an excellent time to polish your process. If it went well, you have a baseline to operate from, something to work on and tweak for future encounters. If it went poorly, you need to figure out why and develop an approach that avoids the same pitfalls that caught you out. Like any sale, the prep work matters more than all the charm and fast thinking in the world. 

Follow Up.

There are a few stages of follow up you should do after a sales interview, to really optimize your chances of success. It’s becoming common for potential sales people to follow their sales interviews with a thank-you letter to the recruiter, for their time. Short and simple works best–just don’t write anything stupid. Depending on how fast the position is supposed to be filled, you will want to make one or more follow up calls or emails. You’ll have to go by instinct on how often a prospective employer wants to hear from you. You need to tread the line between ‘staying in their mind’ and ‘wasting their time’.