Winning Sales Professionals
-by Shamus Brown
Successful sales professionals know this rule:
You Must Be Committed to Your Own Success.
You gotta make your own breaks in this world. The great thing about sales is that when you do, you get phenomenal rewards.
You can and should ask others for help. I don't mean to suggest going it alone. Trying to do it all by yourself is mistake too many salespeople and entrepreneurs make.
You must commit yourself to seeking out and getting the resources, knowledge, people, mentors and associates necessary to take yourself to the top.
You must commit yourself to constant self-improvement.
Read a book on sales. That's a start. Read 50 books on sales. That's an education.
Take a class on sales. Go to a seminar on sales, persuasion, or NLP.
Look at who you talk with, who you gossip with, who you share ideas with in sales. Do they have high-standards? Are they top-achievers? Take a good hard look at your sales network and upgrade it now.
Learn from the best
Seek out the sales professionals who are where you want to be. Make friends with them. Learn from them.
Find a sales mentor. Look for someone who's done it already. Someone with many years of experience, someone who is interested in seeing you succeed.
Look inside your company first. Find someone who has the time to teach you the skills, the psychology, and the attitude. Someone who can help you practice your skills. Do role play exercises together. Prepare for and debrief from sales calls together.
If you can't find one inside your company, or if you work for yourself, then hire your own.
Find someone who can help you develop your own rules for selling - your own personal sales system.
I occasionally offer private one-on-one sales coaching and mentoring programs to individuals who will truly benefit from it. Those who are committed, and are willing to take expert advice and guidance and do something with it.
I know what works and what doesn't. I have sold in the field, directly to customers making big multi-million-dollar decisions. I have worked with and sold for major Fortune 500 companies. I have also worked with and sold for small startup businesses that are just getting off the ground with less than 30 people in the company.
I have had a few great mentors myself. All of which I can count on one hand. A couple I found within the companies that I was selling for. In one case, I had an outstanding mentor in my direct sales manager.
This should always be the case. And unfortunately is rarely the case. One of the biggest worries I hear from Sales VPs today is the lack of depth in their management teams. All the star managers are leaving to become Sales VPs or form their own companies.
When I didn't have access to a great company mentor, I searched out, hired and paid for one out of my own pocket. I still do this to this day.
You have to invest in yourself. No one else is going to do it for you. When I started in sales, you had a year or more to prove yourself. Today you are lucky if you get 3 months.
I know that this has worked for me. I don't know if this will work for you. I don't know how committed you are to your own success, or whether or not you can accept expert mentoring.
Take Your Sales Performance to the Next Level
Take a look at whether any of my sales coaching and mentoring programs are right for you.
