Addressing Stress and Depression Over Declined Deals

I wanted to add to my series discussion by touching on a topic that isn’t often discussed in our space, and it pertains to dealing with depression, stress and other mental health related conditions over the loss of a deal.

Let’s Be Honest

Let’s face it, most of us (as brokers) work on a 100% commission structure, or derive a significant portion of our income from commission, this means that our compensation is based on performance. This performance is directly correlated to the amount of new/renewal business that we fund. The word fund is the keyword here, as your performance in terms of selling might be excellent with the continued production of new leads, new applicants and new interested parties to our industry’s working capital selections. However, if those new leads and applicants don’t fund, then in terms of your performance, they don’t count. An applicant can be declined for a variety of reasons and all of them are usually totally out of your control. However, your compensation is dependent upon your merchant’s approval as well as the offering of terms/conditions that they deem acceptable. This high level of stress can lead to mild bouts of depression, and that depression could lead to a variety of other issues such as overeating, not eating, over sleeping, not sleeping enough, emotional breakdowns, paranoia, personal relationship issues, along with a variety of other inefficiencies.

The Loss Of Hope

Google says that the definition of depression is related to “the feelings of severe despondency and dejection.” Despondency and dejection refers to a state of low spirits caused by the loss of hope, and hope is sometimes all we have as Brokers. All we have going for us is an internal “hope” that our sales abilities will produce the commissions needed to not just cover our business/tax expenses, but cover our personal expenses, insurance, etc., and leave some left-overs to allow us to save for retirement. If you put your soul into this (like I do), then with every funded deal you will rejoice internally, and with every deal declined or approved with terms that are unacceptable to your client, you might feel sudden emotions of panic, fear and uncertainty. As a one man show, I have funded hundreds of deals while also building up a side merchant processing portfolio that processes tens of millions in volume every year. But I have also lost a ton of potential deals on both the funding side and the merchant processing side through declines or approvals that were unacceptable to my client. If left unchecked, still to this day I feel emotions of sickness and depression over declined and lost deals, so much so that sometimes I just have to go home and lay down in the bed for a minute.

Tackling The Stress Through Other Means Of Management

So how do I handle depression and stress over declined and lost deals for the most part? Here are some tips on how I handle the stress and depression of this industry, and perhaps they too can provide some assistance for you in those critical, nerve-racking situations of receiving emails from your Funder with “Declined” or “Application Ineligible” typed out in the Subject Line:

Diversify, Diversify, Diversify

This isn’t just true in Stocks, but it’s also true in being an Independent Agent/Broker. You are a 1099 Independent Sales Office and there’s just no reason why you ought to only be selling one product. Remember as I touched on in prior deBanked articles, as a Broker your job is to be as Jeff Thull from Prime Resource Group explains, which is to be a valued source of business advantage for your prospective and current clientele. You should have access to knowledge, resources, networks, products and platforms that your prospective and current clientele lacks access to, allowing them to see you as a “valued extension” of their organization in terms of the value of your expertise and network.

So there’s no reason that you should just be selling Merchant Cash Advances or Alternative Business Loans, you should be selling a variety of other products in various different segments such as POS Systems, Merchant Processing, Equipment Leasing, Insurance, Big Data, Marketing Programs, Cost Reduction Programs, etc., just to name a few.

Do This Because It’s Your Purpose, Not Just For The Money

Listen, I’m not here to convert anybody to any particular Religion, but I believe that if you are going to be an entrepreneur (which is what you are as a 1099 Broker/Agent) then you need to have a very strong internal spirit or soulful foundation. Your motivation, joy, peace and confidence should extend beyond your earthly circumstances. You should see this industry as something you do as a Purpose that aligns with your spirit or soulful foundation, rather than just seeing it solely as a means to make an income.

Continued Learning and Development

The Merchant Services related industry continues to evolve and you should be following all of the trends and updates. The best places to do this for the Merchant Services related industry, is to make sure to follow deBanked as well as other sources such as The Green Sheet, Payment Source’s ISO/Agent, The ETA, The SBFA, as well as various industry trade conferences such as LendIt and The AltLend Summit.

Focus On Total Financial Management

Financial management is not just about bringing in decent income, it’s about managing the six pillars of finance which are Income, Investments, Insurance, Credit, Expenses and Taxes.

For example, you might be bringing in $100,000 a year in commissions from your Home Office, but you might be living in a high cost of living area, have horrible spending habits, have inefficient tax reduction strategies, and you have four children from four different women paying very high child support claims. This means that your expenses are too high and your financial efficiency is going to be off.

On the other hand, you might be making $50,000 a year in commissions from your Home Office, with no children, living in a low cost of living area, with efficient budgeting and tax reduction strategies, putting away let’s say $7,500 a year into your retirement accounts. If you do this for 40 years from 25 – 65 for example, with just a conservative 5% per year return, you will have over $1 million at age 65. You will have made yourself a self-made millionaire and you didn’t need a six figure annual commission compensation to do it. All you needed was Total Financial Management.

To Wrap

So in a nutshell, I manage the stress and depression of our industry through having a totally efficiently managed financial system in place, not selling just one product, always learning, and making sure that everything I do is grounded in Purpose. I believe that if you too were to adapt some of these techniques, the loss of that deal you worked so hard on, might not “sting” as bad after all.