Successful Sales People Never Quit

One of my favorite, yet simple and profound quotes dealing with success states: “Success is not found in never falling, but rather in rising every time you fall.” There is no such person, as a salesperson who has never failed in his attempt to make a sale. Several years ago I was working with a group of people new to the world of sales. They had never sold before, yet they were anxious to learn and try their new skills. I told them that selling was a process and through applying the correct principles consistently, they would eventually improve their sales success and become the recipients of an excellent income. I reminded them that they would fall, but to just get up, dust your self off and continue. After the first day, one of the young men approached me and told me he was through. He couldn’t take the rejection and having fallen, was unwilling to pick himself up and move on. He told me, “sales is not my cup of tea.” I’ve often wondered what became of that young man, and “if falling and not getting up” became a pattern in his life.

If you only knew the trials and failures experienced by some of the greatest men and women of our generation and generations past, who despite troubling circumstances beyond anything we might ever encounter, chose to rise each time they stumbled and fell. Thomas Edison was one of those men.

Thomas Edison devoted ten years and all of his money to developing the nickel alkaline storage battery at a time when he was almost penniless. Through that period of time, his record and film production company was supporting the storage battery effort. Then one night the terrifying cry of "Fire!" echoed through the film plant. Spontaneous combustion had ignited some chemicals. Within moments, all of the packing compounds, celluloid for records, film, and other flammable goods had gone up in flames. Fire companies from eight towns arrived, but the heat was so intense and the water pressure so low that the fire hoses had no effect. Edison was sixty-seven years old, no age to begin anew. His daughter was frantic, wondering if he was safe, if his spirit was broken, how he would handle a crisis such as this at his age. She saw him running toward her. He spoke first. He said, "Where's your mother? Go get her and tell her to get her friends. They'll never see another fire like this as long as they live. At five-thirty the next morning, with the fire barely under control, he called his employees together and announced, "We're rebuilding. One man was told to lease all the machine shops in the area, another to obtain a wrecking crane from the Erie Railroad Company. Then, almost as an after thought, Edison added, "Oh, by the way. Anybody know where we can get some money?"

Virtually everything we now recognize as a Thomas Edison contribution to our lives came after that disaster. "Success is not found in never falling, but rather in rising every time you fall.” The world of selling provides one of the greatest opportunities for building character while at the same time providing one of the greatest opportunities to create wealth. Selling is not easy; it never was and never will be. However, no career will ever be as rewarding as a career in sales. One of my favorite poems speaks about discouragement, failure, perseverance and ultimately, success.

When things go wrong as they sometimes will.
When the road you’re trudging seems all up hill.
When funds are low and the debts are high.
And you want to smile, but you have to sigh.
When care is pressing you down a bit.
Rest, if you must, but don’t you quit.
Life is queer with its twists and turns.
As every one of us sometimes learns.
And many a failure turns about
When he might have won had he stuck it out
Don’t give up though the pace seems slow
You may succeed with another blow.
Success is failure turned inside out,
The silver tint on the clouds of doubt.
And you never can tell how close you are.
It may be near when it seems so far
So stick to the fight when you’re hardest hit
It’s when things seem worst that
YOU MUST NOT QUIT.

-Author Unknown

Turn failure and discouragement into success by not giving in to falling, but committing yourself to rising every time you fall. In his masterfully written essay, The Greatest Salesman In The World, Og Mandino reveals the sales wisdom of the ages through a set of scrolls. In the scroll marked III he reveals the ancient principle of persistence: I will persist until I succeed.” Scroll 3 starts with these important words. We learned growing up that if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. This is especially important in sales. As we all know, it is not easy to close every sales presentation we give. We must understand that every potential sale is a new and exciting opportunity to succeed again. This is important for us to realize so we do not give up if we happen to lose the sale. There is always another opportunity. “If I persist, if I continue to try, if I continue to charge forward, I will succeed.”

The third scroll also says that “the prizes of life are at the end of each journey, not near the beginning…success hides behind the next bend in the road. Never will I know how close it lies unless I turn the corner.” This statement lets us know that if we give up in the beginning, we may never truly realize success. It is vital that we persist through the hard times and we will find the success that we have been looking for. We might not always know what exactly lies ahead for us, but we will never know if we don’t keep moving forward.

“I will not allow yesterday’s success to lull me into today’s complacency, for this is the great foundation of failure. I will forget the happenings of the day that is gone, whether they were good or bad, and greet the new sun with confidence that this will be the best day of my life.” Too often, even if we are doing well in life, we get into patterns of behavior that keep us from moving forward toward greater success. We allow ourselves to think that we are at a place where we cannot possible improve, even though we know that constant improvement is the only way to truly realize success!

Your Bucket of Sales Opportunity

Salespeople are continually looking for new sales opportunities. Unfortunately, most salespeople must start over each month in finding new opportunities for that month’s sales. There are many methods for finding new business. For example, cold calling, leads groups, networking, referrals, industry publications, subscribing to bid lists, joining clubs and organizations, etc. One of the best methods for finding new opportunities is often overlooked and yet it stares salespeople right in the face. I refer to it as your “bucket of opportunity.” This “bucket of opportunity” is centered on every customer that has ever purchased from you or your company.

Several years ago I was working with a salesperson who mentioned to me that he was the sole supplier of a certain product to one of his customers. In other words, he was getting all the business he could with that customer. I knew the customer’s scope of business and ask the salesperson what the annual volume was with this particular customer. When he told me, I was shocked. There was no way he was the sole provider, with one hundred percent of the supply of his product. I suggested that the next time he called on this company he ask his contact person if there was anyone else in the company that was responsible for making purchasing decisions for his product. A few weeks later my client revealed that there were nine other divisions in the company that all purchased the same products that my client was selling. In reality, my client was selling only one tenth of what the company was purchasing.

Many years ago when I was in Graduate School at Thunderbird, I was making contact with various international companies looking for employment. Many of my classmates in their quest for employment opportunities were sending letters to the HR Departments of different companies. My strategy was to contact executives within the sales, marketing and international departments directly. I sent two letters to the M.A. Hanna Company looking for an employment opportunity. One executive responded with a note saying that there were no opportunities within the company, and the other executive eventually hired me. What if I had only made one contact? The point I am trying to make is that there may be multiple sales opportunities for the sale of your products and services within the same company.

The “bucket of opportunity” includes every current customer who may be looking for various products, which you could provide even though you may only be selling one product to them. It also includes selling to different departments or divisions of the company. The bucket of opportunity includes selling to all the buyers within a company that may be in need of your products and services. It also includes contacting past customers you have a relationship with, that for some reason are not currently purchasing from you or your company. The world is constantly changing and just because someone quit purchasing from you doesn’t mean they won’t purchase from you again in the future if you just continue to make contact.

Review past customer lists and assess their current needs. Contact every current customer and look for additional opportunities. Identify other divisions and departments that might have need of your products. Ask your current contact person for introductions to other people within the organization who might have the need for your products. The very best source of new sales opportunities is with your current or past customers. I’m reminded of the marketing campaign used by the Larry H. Miller Group. You see the picture of Larry Miller and the words say, “You know this guy.” Well, your customers and past customers know you and you need to build on that relationship. Remember, people buy from people they believe, like and trust. You have that relationship with your current and past customers, which gives you the advantage over every other sales person, to make more sales to your current and past customers.

Pay The Price In The Short Term To Receive The Reward In The Long Term

Success at selling is analogous to many of life’s situations. If you are willing to sacrifice early on, you will position yourself for the long term and greater reward. Paying the price early in your sales career is a lot like raising children. Spend time with them when they are young; teaching, training, guiding, directing, correcting, disciplining, and doing every other constructive thing ending in “ing”, and the day will come when the children will be self sufficient and an asset to the community. If you don’t attend to those activities when they are young, the children will be a burden to both you and society in the long term. You can pay the price now (in the short term) or you will surely pay the price later (for the long term).

I was doing some research the other day regarding the relationship between incomes and education. The results were quite interesting. According to the study (1999 data), a high school drop out could be expected to earn on average $18,900 annually. A high school graduate would earn $25,900 on average. A college graduate would earn on average $45,400 annually and a college graduate with a professional degree (medical doctor, dentist, lawyer, etc) would earn on average $99,500 annually. According to another survey, the average salesperson’s income for 2009 was projected to be $59,000. There was no mention as to whether the average salesperson had a high school or even a college degree. Salespeople who have been trained in the principles and skills of selling and who regularly apply those skills are in the top five percent of all wage earners. Two sales people I work with earn more than a quarter of a million dollars per year.

I’m currently working with one young man who was making $10 per hour last year working in a parts department. This year, having committed his time and effort to our sales training program, he is on tract to exceed the average $30,000 per year income of first year salespeople in his company by more than three times. Another young sales person who three years ago was earning about $31,000 per year will make around $138,000 this year. What made the difference with these two young men? Very simple, they took the time and put forth the effort to learn the principles and skills of selling. One seasoned (twenty-five years experience) salesperson I work with has increased his commission 636% after only one year of training. He has proven that it is never too late to learn and make a change. Imagine what his lifetime earnings might have been had he learned his trade as a young man.

All salespeople have a choice. They can pay the price of success now, later or maybe never. The world doesn’t care what people do with their careers, but if more people cared, and by caring, they paid the price for success, there would be a lot more salespeople making a six figure income instead of the average 2009 sales income of $59,000. I don’t know for sure, but I would guess that the average salesperson I train is earning $150,000 per year. Some obviously earn more and some earn less. Because these salespeople are willing to pay the price of learning, on average, they have doubled their income. What is the point of my message and what can you learn? Let me give you ten simple points of advice:

1. Pay the price in the short term for the long-term reward.

2. Just as the average annual income increases based on the years of college, so does the income of salespeople who submit themselves to training.

3. No matter what your income, you can do better.

4. No short-term pleasure is worth the loss of long-term reward.

5. You don’t have to be intelligent to make a great income as a salesperson, you just have to be diligent, committed and trained.

6. Work hard and smart and you will become a top income earner. The majority of salespeople don’t work hard and don’t make a great income.

7. As a salesperson you can choose your own income with no limitations.

8. Because of the nature of selling, salespeople enjoy a certain amount of freedom. Don’t abuse it or you will fail at selling.

9. Selling is a service industry. Focus all of your attention on meeting the customer or prospect’s needs and you will reap the greatest reward.

10. Your sales income will be in direct proportion to the application of your sales skills.

A Game Plan For Sales Success

Following a game plan is as critical to sales success as it is to winning in any sport. There isn’t a game that is played for fun or profit that isn’t first played and won in the mind. In other words, there is a specific and precise plan for victory that is planned, rehearsed and executed in order to deliver the intended result. Do you think that winning a baseball game, a basketball game, a soccer match, or even a football game is simply a matter of a bunch of players just showing up and doing their best? Winning is far from just showing up! Winning begins with an iron will, knowledge of the game, conditioning, practice and perfect execution of skills combined with precise obedience to a plan specifically designed to feature your strengths and conquer the opponents weaknesses. It is not by chance or luck that one team beats another team on any given day. It is a matter of who executes their game plan more precisely.

Selling successfully is no different than winning at sports. Every aspect of victory in a sporting event applies to selling and yet, how many sales people walk onto the field or court of sales total unprepared mentally, without the proper knowledge, out of shape, not having practiced their skills, with no game plan, blindly hoping to “land the sale”? As a salesperson do you really get it? Do you understand that successful salespeople aren’t successful just because they show up for the game? Success in sales, for those few salespeople who consistently perform at the top of the sales game, comes as the result of planning specifically what it will take to win a sale and then perfectly executing their game plan. If you believe that closing a sale is the result of just running out onto the playing field of sales and doing “stuff”, you couldn’t be more wrong!

Sales are made as the result of following a specific plan of action and executing that plan perfectly. What football coach would send his team onto the playing field without a game plan specifically designed to win the game if properly executed? What football team, basketball team, baseball team, etc., would compete without a coach to prepare them mentally and physically to execute their winning strategy? Jerry Sloan, Bronco Mendenhall and Kyle Whittingham would never put their teams on the basketball court or the football field without a game plan. Yet, every day salespeople walk onto the playing field of sales hoping to win without a game plan.

As a professional salesperson you need to prepare and follow a game plan specifically designed and executed for each prospect. Just as in the world of sports, where “scouts” report on the talents of opposing teams and players, salespeople need to “scout” their prospects through proper questioning. Sales people need to know the people they are selling. A game plan should include the following:

1. The nature of the business or individual (personality, products, market)
2. The decision maker and decision influencers
3. The specific needs they are looking to satisfy
4. Their budget and ability to pay
5. Their time frame for making the purchase
6. How are they meeting their need currently
7. Who is the current supplier
8. What do they like about your product or service
9. What concerns do they have
10. What are their objections
11. How will you continually emphasize what they like
12. What will you do to resolve their concerns
13. How will you overcome their objections
14. Who or what is your competition
15. What are your advantages and weaknesses
16. What are the advantages and weaknesses of the competition

All successful salespeople prepare and follow their game plan. They know that success in sales is the result of mentally winning the sale in their mind first and then physically executing their plan each time they meet with their prospects. Successful sales people don’t just do “stuff” hoping to win the sale, they know what to do because they have a game plan.