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Exceptional sales professionals—however different their personalities, backgrounds and education levels—have one thing in common. They’ve mastered four steps necessary to be exceptional.
In the first stage, you adopt an attitude of learning that opens your mind to new ideas and behaviors that can propel your career. The hardest thing to teach people is something they think they already know. An attitude of learning wipes the slate clean so you can master the proper behaviors. You must be enthusiastic about new information and ready to understand how it will make you successful. It’s like the ancient saying, “When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.”
The next step is to develop an attitude of persistence. You must be ready to achieve your goals no matter what the disappointments. You must push yourself and drive the activity that will later create results. You must get up in the morning and say, “Today, I will make a difference. I will do what it takes to achieve my goal. No barrier, real or imagined, will deter me from achieving my goals.” At this step, you are also open to realizing when something is not working. You re-evaluate and continue the attitude of persistence with new strategies. The attitude of persistence is the most difficult step and the most critical.
“It was hard for me to admit I could learn something about sales from my son. After all, I have been a sales professional for a long time and have developed a significant book of business.”
The third step is consistent performance with an attitude of adding value that makes a difference. It makes your customers’ experiences with you unique and memorable. When mastering the third step, you must believe that you have to go further for your customers. You have to add more value to their experiences. You have to believe that their successes come before your success. You have to deliver so much value that you are unquestionably an asset to their businesses.
The fourth and final stage is about becoming one of the elite in your profession. And it carries with it an attitude of excellence. This stage is about becoming the absolute best. You need to realize that you must humble yourself and make yourself uncomfortable by learning new things. It’s about determination and an intense desire to break records and past personal bests. It is driven by the desire to become the best in the field and raising the bar for all others to follow.
These four steps are a brief overview from a book called: The 4 Secret Steps of a Sales Master, which has just become available on Amazon.com. The author is responsible for the development of more than 300 salespeople across the country. He has helped turn this group from a “reactive” group to a “proactive” sales force. The plan outlined in the book is being implemented with noticeable results.
The author also happens to be my son, Shane Riley. Of course I am proud of him and want to share this with you, but I have to confess that it was hard for me to admit I could learn something about sales from my son. After all, I have been a sales professional for a long time and have developed a significant book of business. But I want to continue to improve, and upon reading the drafts I realized that I can still learn a lot about the sales profession.
Our association offers many tools to improve yourself, including access to seminars and courses. But, like me, you need to start with the first step: Be willing to admit you don’t know everything and be ready for new information that can move you to higher levels of success. Like me, you will realize that the only thing holding you back is that person in the mirror.