Have You Got The “Right Stuff” To Succeed In Sales In 2010?

30 Years of Research

I’ve been training and coaching sales people and sales managers for 32 years now, across more that 300 industries and 12 countries. I’ve studied the “Top Guns” and I have noticed that they all have 10 key attributes that make these so successful.

Here are the first 3…

Get Serious

In business, in sport, and in selling, there are a great many amateurs and very few professionals. The amateurs in selling really have not yet decided to become serious about being a true sales professional. That’s why they will remain amateurs.

True Sales Professionals have been made a conscious decision to become professional, and have done, and continue to do, those things that have made them professionals. So what’s the difference between amateurs and professionals? Well firstly, amateurs don’t get paid very much. My friend and mentor E. James Rohn put it like this. “

“In business and in sales, we are primarily paid for the value we bring to the market place”.

Professionals deliver more value to their clients and customers than amateurs. They do this “on purpose” and are rewarded accordingly. Amateurs don’t have the “right stuff”. Their results are average and they rely on luck. Professional make their own luck!

Commitment

True Sales Professionals have at some point in their life made a conscious commitment to themselves to become extraordinary. The important thing here is to realise that it’s a commitment to themselves, not anyone else. Sure they are motivated by what they can achieve for their themselves and their family, even their sales managers Their sales manager may have asked them to make a commitment them, and their company. These things are great motivation, but nothing happens until they take 100% responsibility for their own outcomes in life, and make that 100% commitment to themselves.

Skills

The third attribute for a truly successful sales professional, is that they have consciously made a decision to develop their skills, and they invest every week, every month, every year in developing themselves and their skills.

I am private pilot and have owned 7 aircraft so far in my life. Flying was always a passion for me even as a child. Sadly one of my teachers told me that I would never become a pilot because I was no good at mathematics. For a while I believed them and got into sales rather than aviation.

I can fly and so can you

However in my 20′s I decided to GET SERIOUS about becoming a pilot.

I then made a COMMITMENT to myself to get my private pilot’s license. So I went out and bought my first aircraft. How’s that for commitment? I was not yet a pilot and I couldn’t fly, but I was serious and committed to achieving this goal. So what did I do? Can you imagine what would have happened if I’d gone out to the airport serious to fly and with all of that commitment to fly. Push my aircraft out of the hanger, start the engine, taxi out to the runway, and push the throttle forward and expect to fly like the professionals? That’s called being crazy! I most likely would have crashed and burned.

But isn’t this what most sales people do? They decide to try out sales. They drive their car out of their driveway, go to see some prospects, and because they have not had any skills training they make few or very little sales.

They crash and burn

Why on earth would any sales person do that? Why would any sales manager expect their sales person to succeed? But they do. I’ve spent more than 30 years now coaching and training sales people. I’ve helped thousands of sale people to develop these three attributes and realise their success. They have become “TOP GUNs” in sales.

All over the world

For the last 3 years, we have been training sales people all over the world through our on-line TOP GUN Sales Coaching Programme and TOP GUN Sales Manager Mentoring Progranne. The results have truly been amazing as you’ll see when you read their comments.