The two reasons a survival mode mindset will sabotage your sales
…and three steps you can take to overcome it.
What is survival mode?
If you’ve ever been in sales or management or owned a business, you’ve run into survival mode at some point. This is when there is no long term or medium-term plan, it’s all about getting through the next 24 hours—surviving today.
It feels like there IS no tomorrow and you’re in a deep hole with no visible way out. It’s both an enormous emotional weight and a cage that gives you no choice but to act in the moment.
The two types of survival mode
There are two types of survival mode. There’s:
the survival mode of scarcity,
and the survival mode of abundance.
Scarcity
The survival mode of scarcity means that you need a financial gain to overcome the pressure of a loss. There are a deadline and a clear consequence of not meeting that deadline. You’ll get kicked out of your home, your car will be repossessed, you won’t put food on the table if the deal isn’t closed and money isn’t made.
Time seems to be ticking away. The consequence of failure is the only thing that’s in focus. The fear of what will happen dominates your mind, actions, and decisions.
Abundance
The survival mode of abundance is the opposite. Things are going phenomenally, so much so that you’re overwhelmed. You’re not sure how you’re going to deliver on your promises.
Whether it’s due to deadlines, little or no inventory or not enough personnel, you’re stretched thin and stressed out.
This drives a similar reaction to the scarcity survival mode: the focus of failure and the fear of consequence. The loss of reputation. The need to issue refunds. The loss of your business. It becomes the focal point of all your decisions and reactions.
Where it comes from
Both types of survival mode are driven by the primal urge of self-preservation to survive our environment. Thinking about future consequences is not part of that.
Everything seems to speed up. You must react, and not staying in that situation becomes the priority. It’s about putting out all the fires as quickly as possible and by any means necessary.
Whether you’re in scarcity or abundance survival mode, the fallout is the same. And without realizing it, it will sabotage your success, hurt your business and profit.
And the most damaging aspect of this mindset is that it happens subconsciously. It’s part of our survival mechanism.
When we’re in an environment that’s under pressure, the stress demands our “old brain.” It’s the brain we had as cavemen that kept us from being eaten by dinosaurs or out of other dangerous situations. It keeps us safe — this is great if all you had to do was find food and avoid being on the menu.
In sales or business, it has the opposite effect. When you’re in survival mode, you become self-focused. It’s all about surviving the immediate situation, and you go into a state of self-preservation.
The engine that drives this self-preservation vehicle is fear — the fear of loss, the fear of failure. Those in survival mode have an emotional connection to the potential consequences of failing rather than the joy of succeeding.
The outcomes of survival mode
In sales, survival mode has two devastating outcomes: loss of business and loss of reputation.
The first type of sabotage in survival mode is the loss of perceived value. When you’re confident, not in survival mode, and meet with a potential client, you've done your homework.
You know their business, their culture, their clients. You’re asking all the right questions and you’re presenting solutions and insights that the customer likely hasn’t considered.
At that time, the client’s perceived value of you changes. They’re no longer buying your product or service; they’re buying your expertise to provide a product or service that solve their problem. You’re now a strategic resource for them.
However, when you walk into the meeting in survival mode, your focus is not on positioning yourself as a strategic resource. It’s all about closing the deal and getting what you need to survive the situation you’re in — so you tend to over-promise. You’ll say anything and everything you think the client needs to hear.
Your body language reeks of desperation and impatience. The focus is no longer on the client, it’s on what YOU need. This is when the client can take advantage of you, because it’s not about the value you provide, it’s about the best price they can get.
You’ve lost that client, either because they don’t want to do business with someone who’s desperate, or because you allowed your competition to come in and establish their value.
The rep in survival mode is emotional. In scarcity mode, it’s all about relieving the pressure of potential loss. In abundance mode, it’s about trying to get out from under the weight of promises.
Self-sabotage
This creates the second type of sabotage reps experience in survival mode — self-sabotage. The loss of reputation, clients, sales, your job. It starts to sound like an old country song: you lost your truck, lost the girl, lost the farm, lost your dog.
All because you’re no longer focused on what’s best for the customer since all you want to do is get the pressure off you.
Because you’re in survival mode, all the things you’re trying to avoid end up coming to fruition. Even if you succeed in getting the sale, the damage is done. It’s permanent, while that financial gain is temporary. What happens next week, next month, next year?
Overcoming survival mode: a checklist
Recognizing that you’re in survival mode is the first step in avoiding the sabotage it brings. The Rosen Institute has a great list of “8 ways to find out if you are in survival mode.”
Everything is urgent. Everything needs to happen right now, not for the benefit to the customer, but because you need it done now.
Your meetings, calls and other appointments are constantly canceled and rescheduled because you’re not providing what you need right here, right now.
You feel that no one can help you.
The stress starts to feel overwhelming.
There’s no joy. Your goal is to avoid having a terrible day. Having a great day isn’t an option.
Everything is reactionary. There’s no planning, no proactive, just reacting to here and now.
Everything is risky. If it doesn’t give you an immediate result, it becomes risky.
You can’t take the time for excellence. It seems that nothing is up to par because it’s about the speed of getting what you need at the moment.
If any of these apply to you, you’re likely in survival mode.
Three steps to get out of survival mode
How do we overcome survival mode?
1. You must organize. Take a moment to prioritize your needs.
If you’re in scarcity survival mode:
List out all the bills, everything you need from a financial standpoint.
Prioritize them and then look at things from: What do I need to sell to get to number one? What’s the highest level of priority?
Break it all down into small bite sizes.
If you’re in abundance survival mode:
Look at your clients, your products, your deadlines.
Once you’ve done this, create a strategy to make it all happen as a logical process, step by step.
Break it down into smaller numbers and prioritize your clients and their readiness to buy.
Get small wins that together add up to the number you need. This will help you feel like you don’t need to get it all out at one time.
2. Ask for help!
Too often, we get caught up in our own fear and embarrassment when the solution is only three words away: I need help. You’re not in this by yourself. Sometimes all we need to do is to recognize that we’re in survival mode and ask for help.
Someone who’s not in the middle of the fear factor can help you see a different perspective and plan how to get back on track — and they can keep you accountable.
3. By far the most important, reevaluate. Mistakes were made somewhere.
Valuing yourself and your decisions is the first critical step. Remember, no successful person has ever achieved anything without failing first. It’s what you do AFTER you recognize a mistake that makes the difference.
Be honest with yourself. Find where to improve—skill, process, performance—and then pivot. In that pivot, you grow.
Know that this is part of your growth plan. Readjust and try again, only smarter, because you understand what NOT to do. Expect that you may have different adjustments you’ll need to make later. Making the necessary adjustments is how you grow.
To succeed, be open to failure
The reason some people don’t get out of survival mode is that they weren’t able to admit their part in the situation. And, worse, they weren’t willing to learn from it. They say it was someone else’s fault — the client, the distributor, lack of inventory.
Don’t be that person. Fail forward fast and you’ll always outlast the competition.
Our minds learn by trial and error. Learning how to do things better is what allows us to evolve and find our true skill and abilities.
Just because you’re in survival mode, doesn’t mean your skill, ability or passion has disappeared. They’re just overshadowed by the fear of consequences. Use your natural skill, plan by learning from mistakes and come out swinging — a better sales rep, a better business owner, a better leader.
The only limits that we have are those that we create for ourselves. Don’t let the fear of what COULD happen keep you from the success you are meant to achieve.