To Be Successful In Sales You Must Learn To Overcome Adversity

Eighty percent of all buyers say “No” before they eventually say “Yes”. The word no is an easy and convenient way of saying, “I don’t have time right now”, or “I don’t know enough about your product to say yes”, or “I’m not in the mood to buy anything right now”, or a lot of other reasons. Sales people can find adversity every time they turn around in the world of sales. There will always be adversity and to be successful, sales people must learn how to deal with it. When pondering the trials of being a sales person, I often think of the story of the farmer and the mule.

A farmer owned an old mule. One day the mule fell into the farmer’s well. The farmer, hearing the mule braying, rushed over to see what had happened. After assessing the situation, the farmer decided that neither the mule nor the well was worth the trouble of saving.

Instead, he called his neighbors together and told them what had happened, and enlisted their help to haul dirt to bury the old mule in the well and put him out of his misery. At first the old mule was hysterical. But as the farmer and his neighbors continued shoveling and the dirt hit his back a thought struck him. It suddenly dawned on him that every time a shovel load of dirt landed on his back, he could shake it off and step up. So this he did, blow after blow – shake it off and step up, shake it off and step up, shake it off and step up.

It wasn’t long before the old mule, battered, dirty and exhausted, stepped triumphantly over the wall of the well. What seemed like it would bury him had actually been the means of his rescue. Yes, it’s all in how you handle adversity. No matter how much dirt is thrown on you, just SHAKE IT OFF AND STEP UP.

Sales people need to adopt the same attitude as the mule and shake off the opposition and step up to find new opportunities. I don’t believe any sales person has had to deal with more opposition than Bill Porter. Bill Porter first came to public attention when The Portland Oregonian wrote an article about him called “Life of a Salesman.” His inspirational life and message spread world-wide when 20/20 ran a segment on him and TNT aired a movie about his life, called Door to Door. But he had already been touching the lives of the people to whom he sold products and of his managers and co-workers at
Watkins Products for years.

Bill Porter was born with cerebral palsy. Once told by the State of Oregon he was “unemployable,” he overcame the odds against him and got a job as a door-to-door salesman for Watkins Products. He went on to become the company’s top salesman, one door at a time, succeeding by staying focused on what he was passionate about--sales. Few sales people will have to deal with the challenges that Bill Porter was born with, and yet many sales people will allow adversity to blind their path and hinder their success. Many of the great achievers in life have had to overcome challenges and adversity to become great. Let me tell you about Peter Grey and Pete Strudwick.

As a young man, Peter Grey had a tremendous desire to play professional baseball. He said to himself, "Some day I'll play in the major leagues at Yankee Stadium." So, Peter went to work to attain his dream. He played for his high school team and them became a star player for his college baseball team. Due to his willingness to work hard and follow his dream, Peter finally ended up playing in the major league.

Although Peter Grey only played for the St. Louis Browns for one year and only played at Yankee Stadium one time in his short career, many fans feel he should be elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame. His fans feel that way even though Peter never hit home runs or did anything we might consider great. You see, Peter Grey had only one arm.

And then there is Pete Strudwick, a marathon runner. Pete regularly competes in the grueling Pike's Peak Marathon, one of the most difficult in the world. Over the years he has run more than 25,000 miles. You might ask, "what is so great about that, a lot of people run marathons?" Well, Pete Strudwick runs marathons on stumps, because he has no hands or feet.

How could Peter Grey play in the major leagues with only one arm? How does Pete Strudwick run the Pike's Peak marathon with no feet? Why are some people like Peter Grey and Pete Strudwick able to overcome terrible adversity and obstacles to achieve greatness, while others, in spite of every advantage, turn their lives into a disaster? The answer is quite simple. Those who are successful in life have learned how to create an overpowering desire to succeed. No one ever attained a consistent pattern of sales success who didn't have a burning desire to succeed.

Henry J. Kaiser, the great American industrialist said, "What a man can imagine or conceive in his mind he can accomplish. Impossibles are possible as thinking men make them so." When the adversity of sales has you wondering why you chose this great profession, think about the story of the farmer and the mule, or ponder the challenges Bill Porter had to overcome to be the top sales person for Watkins Products, or consider the lives of Peter Grey and Pete Strucwick. If they can overcome their difficulties, what could you ever consider a challenge in sales?

A Challenging Economy Requires Sales People To Rise To The Challenge

One of my greatest frustrations with sales people revolves around the notion that sales performance is mysteriously tied to trends in the economy. In other words, when the economy is good sales are good. When the economy is bad sales are bad. Nothing could be further from the truth, yet sales results typically parallel the trends in the economy. Henry Ford is quoted as saying, “Whether you believe you can or believe you can’t, you’re right.” Sales people need to believe in themselves, not in what others think or believe. Let your competition believe that there will be fewer sales during a challenging economy and then you dig deeper and work harder than ever before. You will not be disappointed with your sales results.

A few years ago I was working with one of my clients who was a paving contractor. Times were difficult. It seemed there was not enough work to keep those in the industry busy and profitable. Several paving companies laid off crews, sold equipment and priced what work they could find at cost just to keep their remaining employees busy. My client remained incredibly busy and profitable during this difficult economic period. In order to handle the increased work load, they hired the paving crews laid off by their competition and purchased competitors equipment at auction for pennies on the dollar.

The work was not easy to find, and it was not found in the usual places when times were good, but it was there. These skilled and hard working sales people didn’t concede to a declining market, but found opportunity amidst difficulty. They had their best year ever while their competitors were experiencing their worst year ever. Their margins increased by eight percent and their total volume of work increased by more than two and a half times. I’m reminded of the poem entitled, “Now Let’s All Get Down To Work”.

Said the Little Red Rooster, “Believe me, things are tough,
Seems that worms are scarcer and I can’t find enough;
What’s become of all those fat ones is a mystery to me;
There were thousands through that rainy spell, but now where can they be?”

Then the Old Black Hen who heard him, didn’t grumble or complain—
She had gone through lots of dry spells, she had lived through floods and rain.
So she flew up on the grindstone, and she gave her claws a whet,
As she said, “I’ve never seen the time when there weren’t worms to get.”

She picked a new and undug spot; the earth was hard and firm.
The Little Rooster jeered, “New Ground! That’s no place for worms.”
The Old Black Hen just spread her feet¬—she dug both fast and free.
“I must go to the worms,” she said, “The worms won’t come to me.”

The Rooster vainly spent his day through habit, by the ways
Where fat round worms had passed in squads, back in the rainy days.
When nightfall found him supper less, he growled in accents rough,
“I’m hungry as a fowl can be. Conditions sure are tough.”

He turned then to the Old Black Hen, and said, “It’s worse with you.
For you’re not only hungry, but must be tired, too.
I rested while I watched for worms, so I feel fairly perk
But how are you, without worms too, and after all that work?”

The Old Black Hen hopped to her perch and dropped her eyes to sleep,
And murmured in a drowsy tone, “Young man, hear this and weep,
I’m full of worms and happy, for I’ve eaten like a pig.
The worms were there as always—but boy, I had to dig!”

Here are ten solid principles and ideas that sales people can apply to increase their sales in a challenging market.

1. Change your thinking. Believe that your sales can increase even when the market is declining.
2. Work harder than you have ever worked before. Difficult times require extreme effort.
3. Put in the time. Plan and schedule a full eight-hour sales day. That means eight hours finding and developing sales opportunities.
4. Set very specific daily, weekly and monthly goals with activities directly focused on achieving those goals.
5. Define your sales process and focus only on those specific activities that will generate sales. You don’t have time to do “stuff”.
6. Do not error in believing that you are getting one hundred percent of your current customers business. Make contacts at all levels and within all departments, groups, and subsidiaries to be certain that you are not leaving anything for your competitors.
7. Make a habit of telling everyone you meet what you do for a living. If they need your product or service then sell them. If they don’t, then ask for their help in introducing you to those who may need your products.
8. Contact every company or individual who has purchased from your company in the past ten years.
9. Ask every current customer for leads and referrals. Define for them precisely what you are looking for in a lead or referral. Everyone knows someone; don’t take “no” for an answer.
10. Review your performance and success daily and recommit yourself each day to following your plan, regardless of how difficult it may be. Remember, a challenging economy requires rising to the challenge.

Listening, The Key To Successful Sales

Effective listening skills can be applied to all of our interpersonal and business relationships. We will become more effective listeners as we practice at home, in our business dealings, and in our social circles. One of the greatest gifts we can give another is that of truly listening.

Listening is incompatible with being in a hurry, or with the fast paced world around us. Such careful listening requires that we, at least for the moment, place time on slow motion and suspend our own thoughts and needs. There are no shortcuts to effective listening.

Silence makes people uncomfortable. Yet, one of the most important listening skills is not interrupting pauses, or periods of silence. When a person pauses they continue to think about the challenge. When we respect these pauses, by not interrupting, we are in essence offering the person a psychological chair to sit on; it is a way of saying “We are not going to abandon you.”

Becoming a good listener requires avoiding premature conclusions. Our effectiveness as a listener is often lost if we solve the problem before the person we are listening to successfully draws out of themselves their hidden thoughts. When people are truly heard, they will often come to their own correct insights. The role of the listener is to help empty the reservoir of emotion, anger, stress, frustration and other feelings until the individual can see more clearly. The art of listening may require consciously fighting to keep an open mind and not judging the other person. The role of the listener is to help and to allow the other person to open the flood-gates of their feelings and beliefs and to express themselves verbally, maybe for the first time.

Life is a stage, and we are all actors. More than anything, we want to stand on that stage and act out our parts and speak our hearts. Becoming a good listener allows others to take the stage. When we don’t listen, the actors play to an empty audience and the words from the stage ring silent and unfulfilled.

There are many ways we can signal an interest in listening and learning more. One of the most typical is to simply say, “tell me more.” True listening requires allowing the other person to do most of the talking. Most people are far better talkers than they are listeners. Why? Because talking is easy and natural for most of us, and few of us have ever spent the time and effort to learn how to listen. In the words of Alfred Benjamin, “Genuine listening is hard work; there is little about it that is mechanical…. We hear with our ears, but we listen with our eyes and mind and heart and skin and guts as well.”

There seems to be a growing realization of the importance of solid listening and communication skills in business. After all, lack of attention and respectful listening can be costly, leading to mistakes, poor service, misaligned goals, wasted time and lack of teamwork. The act of listening is less important than how you listen. By listening in a way that demonstrates understanding and respect, you build rapport, and that is the basic foundation from which you can sell, manage and influence others. The overall best sales performers are people who listen. They diagnose people's inclinations and the logical content of their thoughts, needs and wants. They find out precisely what it will take to solve problems and then they act on what they've learned. You can’t sell unless you understand your customer’s problems.

Since most sales people talk far too much, and have never learned how to listen, here are seven concise steps to becoming a better listener. Apply these principles and watch your sales increase!

1. Give your full attention on the person who is speaking. Don't look out the window or at what else is going on in the room.
2. Make sure your mind is focused, too. It can be easy to let your mind wander if you think you know what the person is going to say next, but you might be wrong! If you feel your mind wandering, change the position of your body and try to concentrate on the speaker's words.
3. Let the speaker finish before you begin to talk. Speakers appreciate having the chance to say everything they would like to say without being interrupted. When you interrupt, it looks like you aren't listening, even if you really are.
4. Let yourself finish listening before you begin to speak! You can't really listen if you are busy thinking about what you want say next.
5. Listen for main ideas. The main ideas are the most important points the speaker wants to get across. They may be mentioned at the start or end of a talk, and repeated a number of times. Pay special attention to statements that begin with phrases such as "My point is..." or "The thing to remember is..."
6. Ask questions. If you are not sure you understand what the speaker has said, just ask. It is a good idea to repeat in your own words what the speaker said so that you can be sure your understanding is correct. For example, you might say, "When you said that no two zebras are alike, did you mean that the stripes are different on each one?"
7. Give feedback. Sit up straight and look directly at the speaker. Now and then, nod to show that you understand. At appropriate points you may also smile, frown, laugh, or be silent. These are all ways to let the speaker know that you are really listening. Remember, you listen with your face as well as your ears!

Appearance Dramatically Influences Sales Scuuess

The moment you set your eyes on someone, your mind makes evaluations and judgments with lightning speed. The same is true for buyers. They assess the sales person long before he opens his month to address them. Like it or not, your out¬ward appearance influences the buyer as well as your own attitude, confidence, self-image and sales performance.

The American public is very appearance oriented. Research has shown that 55% of what people believe about each other is based on their observation and interpretation of non-verbal signals. The University of Pennsylvania has done an enormous amount of research on the topic of appearance. Their results show conclusively that caring about your appearance has a profound impact on your professional, social, mental, and physical well being. People who were well dressed and well groomed were found to be better liked, thought to be more intelligent, successful and competent and made more money than their counterparts who were not concerned about appearance.

As a young boy of fourteen, I spent the summer working as a dishwasher in the coffee shop at Little America, Wyoming. One afternoon while I was working behind the dish washing counter with dishes piled over my head, a middle aged man dressed in cowboy clothes and looking like he had just slid out of the saddle, came into the kitchen and assumed a position in front of the mountain of dishes and started to help me with my work. With no other communication, I assumed from his appearance that he was unable to pay for his lunch, and had been directed to the kitchen sink to work for his meal. After an hour or so, we had the mountain of dishes reduced to a few plates and a handful of silverware. With his job done, he quickly left the kitchen through the back door. Within just a few moments of this cowboy’s departure I was swarmed by the kitchen staff asking if I was nervous working next to Earl Holding, the billionaire owner of Little American and Sinclair Oil.

Just like my experience with Earl Holding, the respect you receive when making a sales presentation is in direct proportion to your visual impression. If you are wearing clothes that are generally associated with leisure activities, you may be telling those who see you that you do not take your career seriously, and therefore are not committed to your work. By the same token, if you present yourself at a sales presentation wearing clothes that undercut your perceived effectiveness, personal skills, and professionalism, it will be hard for you to be taken seriously no matter how prepared and skilled you may be. Employers rarely make overt statements about acceptable dress codes to their employees. More often there is an unspoken rule that those who wish to climb the ladder of success will dress appropriately and those who don’t, won’t.

Several years ago when I first went to work as a junior sales executive for a Fortune 100 company, I took great interest in what the senior sales people in the company and the industry were wearing. I noticed within our office and customer base, the successful people all dressed alike. At first I wondered what happened to individuality, and if they were all lemmings, blindly following those in front of them. I soon realized that part of the success formula was based on perception and part of that perception was image. If we looked the part, it was believed we could act the part. If we could act the part, then we could be the part. My success was influenced by my willingness to dress the part.


Our appearance tells people how we feel about ourselves as well as how we feel about them. By dressing to convey the appropriate image you will gain a real edge over your competition. In fact, your overall appearance and presentation may even leave a more tangible impression than the words you say, since memory is rooted most strongly in pictures and impressions. At the very least, you should expect your words to be strongly influenced by your appearance.

The act of taking time to present an appropriate image before your presentation will add to your own sense of self-esteem and confidence. The safest look for both men and women in sales is traditional and conservative. The key for both is to dress for your audience. Looking confident in your dress and appearance will inspire others with the confidence necessary to include you in their buying decision. Remember, people buy from people they believe, like, and trust. Your overall appearance will help to instill these feelings in your prospects.

The correct appearance alone probably won’t get you the sale, but it will go a long way toward winning the attention of your prospects. When you know you look right, you can stop worrying about the impression your clothes make and concentrate on communicating your message. Much of what people believe about others is based on the perception of their appearance. When you dress and look appropriate you will be amazed at your sales success.