Optimism & Realism In Sales
- Dan Greenberg
- Apr 2
- 5 min read
We have all come across sellers whose optimism is nauseating. They are always about to close the biggest deal yet. They project monster numbers, and they consistently talk about how they will “crush their number”. Sometimes they do, and sometimes they don’t but the frustrating thing, for managers and leadership, is that they make it very hard to forecast. Managers must build in systems and checks in order to counterbalance the optimism and relay realistic forecasts. The over-optimists do tend to attract real belief in their ability to perform, but they are not seen as savvy when it comes to the business, and they have a hard time advancing in the organization.
The other side of the coin is not pessimists. Pessimists frustrate people with their lack of belief, and they cause similar problems from a forecasting perspective because they underestimate their numbers. The pessimist does not have an upside. The other side of the coin is actually the realist. The realist is perceived as having a lack of belief because they tend to predict lower projections than managers expect, but their projections tend to be closer to the truth, and their understanding of potential blockers and headwinds is usually understood to be savvy. So, while they do not tend to inspire that high level of belief, they do tend to be seen as sound organizational players who can advance in the organization when they do perform.
So, the question is which should you tend towards? The sandbagging realist, or the head-in-the-clouds optimist? The realist will often be called a pessimist because they under-forecast, but they are often much closer to the actual results than the pessimist would be. What makes things so hard for the realist is that it is in the realist’s nature to only project revenue that they can see a path to. The problem is that we cannot see a path to all the revenue that we can expect to bring in over the course of a quarter or a year. We just simply have not had all the right conversations yet. If we only projected revenue that we could see, our projections would be pretty low, and we would not inspire much hope for growth.
The problem for the optimist, on the other hand, is that they assume that every deal that is in their pipeline is likely to close. They actually have the same problem as the realist but viewed through a different lens. They cannot see the reason why they are likely to lose any deal, so they assume they won’t. For this reason, they are certain that many of their deals will close, and they end up over projecting.
It is OK to start from either point of view. If every deal in your pipeline is likely to close, you have to figure out a way to sprinkle in healthy realism that introduces possible pitfalls and headwinds, and allows you to discount your forecasts, but more importantly, become vigilant against possible problems. However, if you can’t possibly think of a world in which unlikely or unknown deals could possibly close, it is important to figure out a way to introduce a business development, or new opportunity coefficient into your calculations so that you can correct your forecasts to a more growth oriented level, and more importantly, redirect some resources and mindset to those potential opportunities which will make them more likely to manifest themselves.
The idea here is that you can start from your natural personality and mindset, but having self-awareness, and knowing yourself very well, allows you to introduce checks and balances in your own mind that will help you forecast better, but also make you a better seller, and alert you to the right ways to spend your time and resources. It is not easy to find this balance, and not everyone will find it in the same way, but it is important.
Understanding your odds of success is an important part of selling, not only for forecasting purposes, but for your own mindset as well. It is estimated that Idina Menzel and Kristen Bell each made $10M for their roles in the production of Frozen 2 last year, while the average Broadway performer, or actor is waiting tables, working towards membership points in their union, and trying to scrounge together enough money to pay rent. Patrick Mahomes is projected to make well over $200M in salary alone over the course of his likely 15 plus year career, as quarterback for Kansas City Chiefs, while the average NFL player will play for about 3 seasons and make about $3M, in total. $3M may seem like a lot of money, and it is, but remember that they have trained their entire life for the job, and will likely find themselves physically unhealthy, and somewhere around 26 years old without other skill sets necessary to excel in other fields. And all of that does not even take into account the average football player who never made it to the NFL and was never paid to play.
Are Idina Menzel and Kristen Bell 50 or 100 times better than the average highly trained singer, dancer, and actor out there? Is Patrick Mahomes, or any top athlete 75 times better than the average player in their sport, or hundreds of times better than highly trained top collegiate athletes who never made it to the NFL? Absolutely not. Sure, they may have a unique quality about them. They may perform the right role, or play the right position, at the right moment in time. They may work harder, although there are only so many hours in a day, so that effect can likely only be incremental. But they are certainly not 50, 75, or 100 or even more times better than the other highly trained and talented individuals they compete against. So, why do they make 50, 75, or 100 times more money than those other people?
Tiger Woods, at his peak, only shot 2–3 strokes better than average tour golfers at many tournaments. That’s about 4% better. Top CEOs, absent external factors, can expect to drive a company’s CAP table growth to somewhere around 7% in a great year, while average CEOs can expect something more modest, like 4% or 5%.
The sellers who are making $300K or half a million, or even a few that are making over a million per year; they are not 10 times better than the average seller. They have learned to do the little things better, and they have learned to become so consistent at those little things that they are now second nature.
Of all of your suspects, a small percentage become prospects, and of your prospects, a small percentage become leads, and of your leads, a small percentage become opportunities, and of your opportunities, a small percentage become deals. This may sound depressing, but it is exactly the opposite. It is exhilarating. It means that we just have to move the needle slightly at a few strategic points in our funnel to change our outcomes drastically. If you are closing deals with 2% of your prospects, and you change that number to 4%, you just doubled your revenue to goal and your commission.
The high earning sellers out there are not more talented, and they don’t know something that you don’t. They don’t have a special personality or demeanor, and they are not born with an ability to handle rejection that you don’t have. They have simply improved over time. They have committed to learning from setbacks, and they have made a commitment to themselves to get better each day, which adds up over the years.
They have trained themselves to control their emotions. They have learned to really listen. They have coached themselves to be attuned to social cues and to recognize what drives emotion and engagement. And most importantly, they have developed, in themselves, the discipline to set routines and systems and to stick to them.
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