Your weekly dose of Alluviance!
Hitting quota can make you worse at sales.
I know because it happened to me.
I could overprepare, carry conversations, muscle deals forward, and push the second I felt nervous.
And still hit 127%.
Salesforce said I was crushing it. Managers were happy. Commission checks cleared.
So I kept going.
I kept opening the laptop at 11 PM for calls I was already prepared for.
I kept jumping into every silence.
I kept carrying deals on my back and calling it ownership.
Some of that wasn’t discipline. It was my nervous system trying to buy certainty.
I wasn’t filling the silence for the buyer. I was filling it because I couldn’t sit inside it.
And I got rewarded for it.
That’s the danger of success.
When you’re missing quota, everybody looks for the problem.
When you’re crushing it, people mostly leave you alone.
Including you.
Quota can tell you how much you sold. It can’t tell you what it cost, whether the buyer felt understood, or whether your effort came from devotion or fear.
Sometimes your talent is strong enough to outrun the leak.
For a while.
Then the territory changes. The market tightens. Your life gets fuller.
And the habits that looked like commitment start revealing themselves as control, fear, and not-enoughness wearing a President’s Club jacket.
The real work is getting curious while the scoreboard still loves you.
Am I preparing, or am I afraid of being surprised?
Am I leading the conversation, or am I scared to release control?
Does this deal need another push, or do I?
You don’t need a bad quarter to change how you sell.
Celebrate the number.
Then get quiet enough to ask what it might be hiding.
That’s the work.
P.S. If the number looks great but something underneath feels off, hit reply. I read every reply to these newsletters. I got you.
1. Quote to fuel your Alluviance:
"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool."
– Richard Feynman
With Alluviance & In Extreme Gratitude,
Alex Kremer