Overwhelmed at work? Here’s how salespeople can take back control

Feeling overwhelmed in your sales job?

You’re not alone. This survey done by Uncrushed shows that over 67% of salespeople interviewed feel they’re close to burnout. 

It’s clearly not abnormal to be feeling this way — but the question stands: Why are so many salespeople feeling this way? And more importantly — how can we fix it?

Why salespeople are so overwhelmed

Let’s start with the why. The natural work habits of those in sales are often extreme. Salespeople are often praised for juggling heavy workloads and working entirely too much. This cycle of overwork is now the status quo, and constant productivity has become the norm. 

Sales jobs often culminate in the perfect storm of work stress: long hours, pressure to obtain results, frequent travel, endless administration tasks, demanding managers, competitive colleagues and a frantic pace that puts a strain on client relations. The more you push through it, the more overwhelmed you get, and eventually, your productivity will actually go down.

My team and I know this because we’ve all been salespeople too, and are very familiar with how easy it is to feel like you’re spiraling. We’ve interviewed hundreds of salespeople (and garnered our own experiences) to understand why and how salespeople are struggling in order to create the perfect formula for change.

Most salespeople note these pain points (among others)

• It’s virtually impossible to follow up on every lead or potential client.
• Staying organized is tough, and takes too much time.
• The tools offered (like CRMs) are only helpful in tracking our performance, and not much else.
• Multitasking is causing stress, anxiety and burnout.
• Manager woes: stress, pressure, strain, and conflict.

If you’re a salesperson, these issues may sound familiar. But you’re not alone. I’ve faced these issues, as have hundreds of others. And if they aren’t dealt with, burnout is inevitable.

My run in with burnout 

Burnout happens to the best of us. These days, I’m the CEO of tech company Kara with a healthy work-life balance. I’ve learned a lot over the years about how to manage stress at work. As a working mom, I had no choice but to prioritize my personal life just as much as my professional life. Much of it comes down to time-management, as well as access to AI tools that make a career in sales easier — including the app Kara.

But it wasn’t always this way. I’d been in the top five salespeople at every company I’d worked at, putting in over 70 hours of work per week. I went through periods of major burnout — one of which left me unable to work for three months because of serious exhaustion.

Now, I use technology to help me with time management, which helps me balance my work life while still enjoying my free time.

After facing burnout, I decided it was all about working smarter. Rather than constantly chasing small deals, I opted to be strategic and go after big deals with loyal clients. My strategy at work is to have two or three tasks that are either urgent or important per day. Instead of prioritizing money, I prioritized human relationships with colleagues and clients. And, to build a sustainable work ethic, I worked on replacing productivity guilt with trusting myself and my sales instincts.

In order to do this, I need to shift my focus to human tasks like building relationships, strategizing, problem solving and creative thinking. This meant I needed to outsource my CRM admin to an assistant that could get it done quickly and accurately. But what human could make this happen? No one seemed to make the cut. I needed a robot. These days, we call those apps. 

Take back control with AI technology 

AI-related technology provides the ability to streamline and support repetitive tasks, making sales processes more efficient.