What It Takes to Be the Best…

People like Lee Iacocca or Fred Smith did not reach the top because they were just lucky.

Sales is the highest paid profession in America. In 1986, the founder and chairman of Federal Express, Fred Smith, was the highest paid salesperson in America. His income was just over $53,000,000 for the year. The next highest paid person was Chrysler Corporation Chairman Lee Iacocca with an income just over $22,000,000. The highest paid residential real estate salesperson, Romanian immigrant Nicholas Barson, a mere 4-year sales veteran, earned $1,100,000 in commissions selling homes in the Bronx section of New York for Century 21 Realty.

It takes a combination of six factors to succeed in sales:

1. Knowledge. You must know something about what you are selling. In addition, you must know a lot about what your competitors are selling and why they think they have a more persuasive story than yours. You are never out of school.

2. Attitude. You can’t succeed unless you think you can. It’s that simple. Someone once said…the race doesn’t go to the faster man, only to the man who thinks he can! The point is this your attitude determines the outcome of any endeavor no matter what it is. it’s important to know that attitude is located in the subconscious part of your mind and is a direct reflection of your past experiences. This record is coupled with your personal beliefs about you as an achiever in whatever activity you’re attempting.

3. Skills. You must acquire the skills necessary to become the best at what you do. No matter how willing you are to pay the price for success, you still have to be able to get from hello to I’m glad you’re a customer of mine. That takes skill, pure and simple, and skill comes from practice.

4. Enthusiasm. You absolutely must maintain a steady flow of optimistic, energetic, positive enthusiasm if you expect to succeed in the world of sales. It simply won’t work to come into the office worried about the weather, your car, your clothes, your personal relationships, your health, etc. Sure, your life is more than your career, but your career depends on a balanced life if you want to succeed. A customer can sense when you’re preoccupied with your troubles. However, even the toughest customers will do business with you if you are bright, cheerful, optimistic and empathetic.

5. Commitment. You absolutely have to be committed to achieving your goals in order to succeed in sales. There is no substitute for unbridled determination. So many wise sayings have been written about this subject. It would take books to write them all but here’s one that says it very well:

Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not. Nothing is more common than the unsuccessful men and women filled with talent. Genius will not. Unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education alone will not. The world is full of educational derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.

6. Organization. You must be organized if you are to succeed in selling. This means you must have a system for establishing your objectives within a given time frame. You must be able to write down your goals regularly and review them often. Then you must be able to create and write down your strategy for achieving your objectives. Finally, you must have a system for keeping track of your prospects and customers and your accumulating results. If you ignore this important consideration, or are not willing to adopt the system required by your company, you will create mediocre results in place of potential greatness.

Remember that sales is a numbers game. You must be involved in activity in order to generate business. There’s no substitute for old-fashioned commitment coupled with focused action. Mastering these principles won’t guarantee fame and fortune, but if you keep working on them, you will succeed in sales!