A sales career is about choosing to be in the world’s oldest profession, it can be and should be fun. By beginning with a sense of humour combined with self-esteem that allows you to laugh at yourself will play a significant part in the success of our chosen sales profession.
In sales, we face different kinds of treatment; treated rudely and avoided by friends and relatives. We are always facing whether to get out or get in but we can never get out of something we have never been in. New salespeople never get “in the business” due to poor information and poor preparation.
There is no free lunch in the world we are today. The majority of highly paid veterans in sales are hard workers. The best-paying hard work in the world is selling and the poorest-paying easy work in the world is selling. Applying ourselves to the job and absorb the training offered, our productivity will go up, and the stress and fatigue level will do down through the adoption of a time management and productivity system along with the training system.
We must be committed to the sales profession because a lack of commitment is a primary reason why the sales profession has earned the reputation for having a high turnover rate. Opportunity is born of independence handled in a responsible manner.
Many benefits await the person that enters the sales profession. Independence, opportunity, problem solving, security, family and communication. The attitude, discipline, willingness to work and organisational skills brings out a security that is not found when we are dependent on the whims of other people who are frequently incapable of making objective evaluations about our worth. Enjoying a profession where our success is specifically measurable and our performance is recognised based on results is tremendously satisfying. The profession of selling teaches us that people do things for their reasons, not yours. This principle helps us to be more effective in communicating not only with members of our family but with members of our community as well.
As salespeople, we encounter people at every emotional level – when they are happy, excited, and enthusiastic, and when they are irritated and down in the slumps. We learn how to deal with the extroverts, the introverts, the procrastinators, the optimists, the pessimists, the detailed oriented, the impetuous, the loud mouths, the big shots, the ego manics and a host of others. We learn to persuade people our way of thinking rather than order people to do the things we want them to do. Successful salespersons are also excellent managers. They have to manage time, territory, personal habits and life in general. The better they manage their lives, the better that will be able to manage their business.
(Adapted from “The Ultimate Handbook for the Complete Sales Professional – Ziglar on Selling”, Chapter 1 – You Made the Right Choice, by Zig Ziglar)