Sales is a great profession. Our society needs good sales people because marketing – as good as it is – doesn’t quite have the energy that the salesperson can provide to deliver the goods. Sales is also a good profession for people who enjoy the freedom to meet their customers’ needs and who are willing to stick with buyers with “issues”. Sales people are often given lots of freedom to meet their customers’ peculiarities. But with that freedom also comes the responsibility to hold their own feet to the fire when it comes to their activity.
In every sales organization that I know of, no two sales people have the same results. In fact, often the distance from the top performer to the lowest performer is double, triple, or more! Curiously, sometimes very talented, educated, and pretty people rank consistently at the bottom while seemingly unattractive or untalented sales people rank consistently at the top. What’s going on here?
Well the truth is that hard work brings good luck in selling. You can have all the advantages but unless you work hard you cannot be successful except in very rare circumstances. If you ease off your activity goals, your sales will decline. If you pick up your activity, your sales will increase. Not immediately, but soon. This is true for several reasons.
Being at the right place at the right time is golden. Sometimes you just happen to show up when the prospect has decided they want what you have to sell. And you are the person sitting in front of them. It’s seems like dumb luck. But undisciplined people rarely experience this. It takes lots of activity to be lucky enough to be there when prospects turn themselves into buyers! Early birds really do get more worms! Covering more ground puts you in this position.
Another reason that hard work brings luck is when you keep your activity level up, you become more attractive. What is less attractive than a lazy person or more attractive than an ambitious person? Create the habit of hard work and it will show up on your face and in your voice. People like to buy from ambitious person. They want to buy from the successful person.
Finally, hard work brings luck because when you’re working hard, you get more support from above. It’s rare when the owners and management make exceptions for the lowest producing sales people. But the top people just seem to enjoy (earn?) extra accommodations from management and they often ask for those accommodations for their customers. Do their customers like this? Yes! and sometimes tell 100 people! No wonder hard working people are lucky!
If you’re in sales, work hard. Your company is counting on you, your customers are counting on you, and your country is counting on you. Work hard and work smart. It’s really a lot less painful than you think and the rewards are bigger than you think. You will find that you will find better ways to serve your customers and get luckier all the time.
Bob Ramsey 