As of this date, we have coached over 2000 sales people. I have personally coached over 100, with some of those now running their own sales and marketing companies based upon the principles and methods we teach.

To mark the advancement of another 2 into ownership of their own company yesterday, I wanted to take this opportunity to tell you the 3 most important qualities of the highest paid, the top 10% of sales people in our industry.

1. Top sales people, and top human beings for that matter, are AMBITIOUS. They have an intense desire to be successful. What does this mean in sales? It means you want to be the best. They want to be in the top 20% of earners, who in turn make 80% of the money, and if and when they get to that top 20% they want to be in the top 10%. In short they want to win and be recognised and rewarded financially for that achievement. Another thing about truly ambitious people is they genuinely admire successful people. They don’t criticise or complain like low performers do, they look up to, admire and aspire to be like those who are successful and who they perceive to be more successful than them. When I say “the top 20% of the sales people make 80% of the sales” my discovery was that everybody who is in the top 20% started in the bottom 20%. So if you are struggling at this stage you know you can up grade your skill set by constantly learning and applying new things but set yourself a goal. The goal of becoming one of the top sales people in your office and don’t stop until you do.
2. They learn how to OVERCOME FEAR. Fear is the greatest single obstacle to success in sales and marketing. When I say “fear” I’m referring to the fear of rejection. So here’s a little bit of a rule to work by in sales; Go For No. See out the word no as often as you can. Instead of avoiding it, or settling for it or accepting it as a punishment in selling, be aggressive about getting people to say ‘no’ because here’s what I’ve found; the more ‘no’s’ you can trigger by talking to people and introducing them to your brand or service the more ‘yes’s’ you’re going to get. There’s a direct correlation between the two because sales is a numbers game. Here’s a great exercise for managers and owners to use to help their people overcome the fear of rejection; set a small fun prize for the end of the day for whoever has gotten the most ‘no’s’ from their prospects that day. In order to win the prize the sales people will speak to as many people as they can to get 70,80,90 ‘no’s’ to win that prize, but what happens over the course of that month is that your team is speaking to over 100 people a day each. As we know, the more people, the more ‘yes’s’ they will get, and sure enough, their sales and confidence goes up and up and up and they sell without fear of rejection. A fun experiment to run as owners and managers during this month is the bet on whether the person with the most ‘no’s’ over the month will also be the same person with the most sales. Spoiler alert…it will be.
3. The third quality of the most successful sales people is that they make A TOTAL COMMITMENT to success. These are the people who dedicate themselves totally to being successful. Unfortunately the bottom 80-odd% say ‘well, I’ll try it for a while and if it works out I’ll stay and if I make some money I’ll give it a bit longer’. They always have one foot out the door. Successful people, though, make a 100% commitment to becoming successful and they work at it until they are, and you know what else? It’s inevitable. If you commit and work at it long enough you will be successful.

Have a great week everyone!