Sales People Can Become Top Wage Earners

I never cease to be amazed at the number of sales people having difficulty achieving success. I’m not talking about a fifty or sixty thousand dollar per year income; I’m talking about eighty thousand plus on the low side. Top sales people earn an income in the upper five percent of all wage earners. I have several clients who, even at a relatively young age are earning more money than highly compensated doctors, attorneys, or CPA’s. These professionals have spent years studying and training to conquer the skills required to be respected in their perspective fields. Unfortunately, most sales people have never been trained to reach the success they desire, nor have they invested the time and effort necessary to be the top sales people.

Most sales people have just fallen into sales, maybe having a background in engineering, business, finance, marketing, or possibly no post high school studies at all. They really never planned on a career in sales, but just found themselves in that arena due to shear happenstance. Their attitude is one of “I’ll try sales, it can’t be that bad, and if it doesn’t work out, hopefully I can find something else”. The more education a man or woman can acquire the better, but a college degree is not necessary to be successful in sales. The three things that are necessary to be a top income earner in sales are: (1) A desire for a greater lifestyle; (2) The motivation to do the things that average sales people are not willing to do, and finally; (3) A belief in yourself and your abilities. In addition, they must learn the principles and skills that top sales performers have made a habit of doing in their daily activities. To be the best at anything requires an unusual effort. It requires the effort displayed in the following two stories:

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 a marathon 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 success that 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. Impossible things are made possible as thinking men make them so". I love the comment made by Coach Lavell Edwards as he talked about what it takes to have a winning football program. He said, “If you see a man on top of a mountain, he didn’t just fall there”. Top sales performers don’t just happen. They don’t just get lucky, and they don’t become successful without paying the price of success. Remember, successful sales people must have a desire to improve their lifestyle, the willingness to do those things that average sales people are unwilling to do, combined with a belief in self. These attributes must also include proper learning and hard work. With this formula, you can land on the top of the sales mountain. When you want a successful sales career to the extent that Peter Gray wanted to be a major league baseball player, and you are willing to overcome the obstacles of Pete Strudwick in running marathons, then you will find your self in the top five percent of all wage earners.

Selling Is A Process, Not An Event

Several years ago I learned a very important sales principle. The knowledge and application of this principle has made a one hundred percent improvement in my ability to make a sale. I’m going to share it with you in hopes that it will have the same effect on your sales.

As a young and inexperienced sales person, I believed that selling was simply telling someone about your product or service and then working really hard to persuade them to buy it. In other words, something would happen at the end of a sales pitch that would persuade the prospect to buy. There are two key elements to this sales event: First, some unknown thing would happen and second, the prospect would occasionally buy. The buy-in, or decision to purchase became a separate event or a post event to all that happened previously. I would make my presentation and then decide which one of ninety-nine closing techniques I should apply to close the sale.

I’m happy to say, those days are over. Selling has never been more enjoyable and successful. This is what I learned. Selling is a process. From the time you first make a contact with someone who has a potential need for your product or service, you are following a process which will eventually lead to a sale. There is no separate phase where you apply the strong arm of “closing the sale”. Closing the sale begins at the beginning. It begins with the fact that someone is willing to invite you into their time and their space. Closing the sale is part of, and integrated into your sales process, not something that is added at the end of a sales pitch.

From the very beginning you want to establish a need for your product or service. If there is no need, either staring you in the face, or hidden to their understanding, then you should politely pack up your things and leave. Never attempt to sell someone something they don’t need! Once you have identified the need, everything that you say and do should be directed towards meeting the need of the prospect. This whole concept of making the sale part of the process from the very beginning instead of a separate event at the end, reminds me of a popular poem written by Joseph Malins entitled, A Fence Or An Ambulance. It talks about the prevention that should come at the beginning of a process, compared to the rescue that comes at the end. In this analogy to the proper sales process, Joseph Malins offers a poetic reminder that it is much better to solve a problem at the beginning than to effectively deal with the result at the end. Enjoy the poem and remember that the best way to close a sale is to present a solution to the prospect’s need at the beginning and throughout the entire process and not by treating the closing of a sale as a separate isolated event at the end.

A Fence or an Ambulance
by Joseph Malins

‘Twas a dangerous cliff, as they freely confessed,
Though to walk near its edge was so pleasant;
But over its terrible edge there had slipped
A duke and full many a peasant.
So the people said something would have to be done,
But their projects did not at all tally;
Some said, “Put a fence around the edge of the cliff,”
Some, “An ambulance down in the valley.”

But the cry for the ambulance carried the day,
For it spread through the neighboring city;
A fence may be useful or not, it is true,
But each heart became brimful of pity
For those who slipped over the dangerous cliff;
And the dwellers in highway and alley
Gave pounds or gave pence, not to put up a fence,
But an ambulance down in the valley.

“For the cliff is all right, if you’re careful,” they said,
“And if folks even slip and are dropping,
It isn’t the slipping that hurts them so much,
As the shock down below when they’re stopping.”
So day after day, as these mishaps occurred,
Quick forth would these rescuers sally
To pick up the victims who fell off of the cliff,
With the ambulance down in the valley.

Then an old sage remarked: “It’s a marvel to me
That people give far more attention
To repairing results than to stopping the cause,
When they’d much better aim at prevention.
Let us stop at its source all this mischief,” cried he,
“Come, neighbors and friends, let us rally;
If the cliff we will fence we might almost dispense
With the ambulance down in the valley.”

Oh, he’s a fanatic,” the others rejoined,
“Dispense with the ambulance? Never!
He’d dispense with all charities, too, if he could;
No! No! We’ll support them forever.
Aren’t we picking up folks just as fast as they fall?
And shall this man dictate to us? Shall he?
Why should people of sense stop to put up a fence,
While the ambulance works in the valley?”

But a sensible few, who are practical too,
Will not bear with such nonsense much longer;
They believe that prevention is better than cure,
And their party will soon be the stronger.
Encourage them then, with your purse, voice, and pen,
And while other philanthropists dally,
They will scorn all pretense and put up a stout fence
On the cliff that hangs over the valley.

Better guide well the young than reclaim them when old,
For the voice of true wisdom is calling,
“To rescue the fallen is good, but ‘tis best
To prevent other people from falling.”
Better close up the source of temptation and crime
Than deliver from dungeon or galley;
Better put a strong fence round the top of the cliff
Than an ambulance down in the valley.

Managing Your Time Allows You To Focus On The Important Things

Have you ever figured out what your time is worth? Have you ever pondered what you could accomplish is you had all the time you wanted? You determine the value of your time by how you spend it, and you have use of all the time there is. Time is like water in a flowing river and you are like a canoe. You can stand on the bank and watch the water flow by, or you can launch your canoe and flow with the water to all the places it can take you. If you don’t get in the water, the water continues to flow. You lose the opportunity to flow with the water and to travel where the water will take you. Time continues whether you use it for gain or for waste. If you use our time for gain, then it can be calculated to have some value. If you just let time pass by, you lose the value you might have gained. The choice is yours, time doesn’t care, it just continues to pass by.

Every moment of your time falls into one of four categories. These categories are defined using the words important and urgent. Important means that something must be done, and urgent means now or immediately! Category one is “important & urgent”. Category two is “important & not urgent”. Category three is “not important & urgent”. Category four is “not important & not urgent”. Most people think in terms of doing important things and they also interpret important things as urgent. This being said, most people spend their lives in category one, “important & urgent”. Everything they do must be done and done now. They don’t have time to do anything else because they only have time to do the now things.

I used to be a “now” kind of guy. I was always so busy doing the now or “urgent” things that I missed out on doing the “important” things in my life. There were times that I missed my son’s soccer games because I was doing urgent stuff. I went a whole year and never rode my mountain bike because I was doing urgent things. I spent a busy year doing urgent things and missed spending time with my family at our mountain cabin. I didn’t spend time with my two daughters doing father things because I was working on urgent projects at the office. My wife and I didn’t get away for any romantic weekends because I was dealing with the urgencies of running a business. No one ever spent more time living in category one than me.

Then, one day I figured it out. I didn’t want to live in category one any longer. I wanted to have a life filled with all that life can offer, and I wanted to have time to do the important things in life without all of the pressure of doing the urgent things. This is what I discovered. You can have it all, if you are smart enough to live and work in category two. Everything you do in category two is just as important as category one. So you are still doing important things, however, you are doing those things before they become urgent. So if they aren’t urgent, you can choose when to do them. They don’t have to be done now. You can spend time with family because what was once urgent has been taken care of before it became urgent. If you are working on a project that is important, but not urgent, and an unforeseen situation is now urgent, you can put the project you were working on aside, tend to the urgent situation, and then return to the important, but not urgent project.

You really do have a choice of which category you will spend your time. I have discovered ten important truths related to these four categories of time. Let me share them with you.

1. Working in category one is no fun. The stress and pressure is not healthy, and it will shorten your life and turn your hair gray or your head bald.
2. Most things that you spend your time doing in category one could be done in category two with a little planning and scheduling. If you are working in category two and an urgent situation arises, you have time to resolve it, and then move right back into category two.
3. You will find peace and happiness living and working in category two. Category two is the only place you will be able to accomplish those things that are really important to you and your family.
4. Salespeople who work in category one are never as financially successful as those who work in category two.
5. Salespeople who work in category one never have time to prospect, ask for referrals or work on networking to find the best new sales opportunities.
6. Salespeople who work in category one suffer from “category two envy.” They wish they could be like those salespeople that are successful in their careers and enjoy their personal lives.
7. Effective daily time management and planning is the key to living and working in category two. If you don’t plan and schedule your time every day you will never experience the success and joy that is waiting for you in category two.
8. Category two is the only place where you can know the value of your time and maximize your accomplishments.
9. You don’t want to spend your life living in category one, only to discover at the end of your life, that category two is where you really wished you had been.
10. When you effectively plan and schedule your time and experience for the first time the euphoria living and working in category two, you will understand what I have been trying to explain!

Goal Setting – The Formula for Greater Sales

The average sales person spends their day “stirring the pot of activity”, or as my good friend Gordon Wilson refers to it, “trying to boil the ocean”. A lot of activity and motion may keep one busy and tired, but it won’t necessarily produce sales and wealth. On a bright and sunny winter day, I can sit in my office with the blinds open, enjoying the gentle warmth of the sun. All that sunlight flooding into my office will generate a small amount of heat. However, if I were to pull out my magnifying glass and focus just a small amount of that light into a narrowly focused beam, I could burn a hole right through the carpet.

Sales activities are exactly the same way. Broad and general activities are like trying to boil the ocean, whereas specifically focused activities will burn holes in areas where other sales people couldn’t even create warmth. Goal setting provides a narrow focus of activity sufficient to achieve an objective. The goal dictates the direction of our efforts and acts as a beacon when activities become clouded and obscure. A goal can pull us toward the achievement we so desperately desire.

In the Law of Success, Napoleon Hill’s first book, he describes the insight he gained from his research into the power of goal setting. He said, “Any definite chief aim that is deliberately fixed in the mind and held there with determination to realize it, finally saturates the entire subconscious mind until it automatically influences the physical action of the body toward the attainment of the purpose.”

That statement is a profound insight into the power associated with setting goals. I don’t know that I truly understand how it works, but from personal experience, and the experience of the sales people I train and coach, I can testify that it really works. Let me share an actual example of this principle, in the words of one of my clients.

“I was short about $10,000 dollars when I met with my sales coach, and as he left he said to me, ‘call me when you reach your goal’. I thought to myself I’m going to do everything I can to make that phone call. What a rewarding feeling it would be to know that I gave it all I had and it allowed me to achieve my goal. As the last day of the month approached, I was down to literally the last hour of the day and I got a couple of phone calls from customers that I had quoted last year that I had forgotten about. I had to resend them quotations and didn’t think that they would purchase as soon as they did. Needless to say, I was able to make the phone call to my sales coach to report that I had made my goal and exceeded it by $1000 dollars.”

The power of goal setting is clearly established through a famous survey conducted at one of the leading business schools in America. In 1979 Harvard University did a study among the graduating seniors from the business school. They asked them, "What plans and goals do you have after graduation and have you written them down?" The responses were startling. They were very similar to the Yale study of 1953. The study found that only 3% of the people who were graduating had clear written goals and plans for their life. Another 13% had goals and plans, but they hadn't written them down. An amazing 84% of all graduating seniors had no goals at all except for graduating and enjoying the summer.

Ten years later in 1989, they surveyed these same people again. They found that the 13% of men and women who had goals and plans when they left the university, but who hadn't written them down were earning on average twice as much as the 84% who had no goals and plans at all. But they found that the 3% of men and women who had clear, written goals and plans, blueprints to follow once they'd left the university, were making on average 10 times as much as the entire 97% put together! The power of being clear about who you are and what you want in life is absolutely amazing.

Surprisingly enough, there are sales people who don’t set goals. They will work as hard as they can to achieve all that they can, but they refuse to set goals. Why would this be? The answer is simple. They don’t want to fail! They believe that by setting a goal, by creating a “have to” situation, they are setting themselves up for failure if they miss the mark. Nothing could be further from the truth. By not setting goals they will never realize the power that lies within them to achieve far more than they ever believed they could achieve.

A couple of years ago I had a client who set a company record for the most gross profit sales ever made by a sales person in a year. In thirty years of business, his sales were the most ever recorded! He was feeling pretty good about his efforts, having reached that plateau. He pondered long and hard about his accomplishment and then asked himself how much more could he achieve. He set a new goal, one that seemed nearly impossible, and began working diligently to achieve it. By the end of the year he had not only achieve his goal, but exceeded it. He made the comment that he was driven in his daily efforts by the fact that he had a goal to achieve. His personal sales were greater that year than what the whole company had sold three years earlier, and three years earlier the company had its best year ever.

Sales people without a goal, no matter how hard they work, will fail to achieve their true destiny. They will never be successful until they reach beyond themselves, until they challenge their very core. The world of sales is replete with sales people working hard, but successful sales people are those who work hard with their efforts clearly focused on a goal that pulls them towards success.