The pessimistic sales person
Optimism is seen as one of the most important qualities of a sales person. You have got to have the ability to experience a string of losses and still be able to walk into your next meeting feeling certain that your proposition is strong.
That is certainly true, however, I’d like to argue the corner for pessimism. When the optimist is sure the meeting will go well, the pessimist is anticipating problems and preparing for every eventuality. Where the optimist skips around the office with joy at a complementary line in an email from a prospect, the pessimist thinks “it may be a negotiating tactic” and prepares for tougher negotiations. Where the optimist is sure the opportunities in her pipeline will pretty much all come in, the pessimist is on the phone tracking down new opportunities because he’s sure those pipeline opportunities are going to drop out.
Seeing the worst case scenario and everything in between allows you to prepare.
Unbridled optimism, like unbridled pessimism, is a disaster. But the right combination of the two provides the sales person with a more robust approach to his job.
Interestingly, research by Martin Seligman discovered that pessimists are much better predictors of what will actually happen than optimists. A rather depressing discovery, but it supports my point that reality is often trickier than the rose tinted view we would like to have.
