Staying Hungry and Humble
There is a truth in sales that must be accepted in order to be truly successful and to ensure that success is continued.
And that is that we never pass go. To use the Monopoly Board analogy, we may step on the destination but then we move beyond it…over and over and over again. Just like goal setting. We reach a goal but then what? We just set another, because it’s not enough to sit there forever. Nothing stands still. Not people, not business, not life.
So in order to be successful at anything I’d argue, but especially sales, we need to fall in love with the process. With the set of things that we do on a daily basis that lead us to achieve, then achieve beyond that, and achieve beyond that. When this happens, we find the key to satisfaction. Our goals are the measures of our progress and when we know that we’re making progress, we’re happy.
This is why I talk about staying hungry and humble. Together, they’ll enable us to stay focused and build on our success.
Hunger gives us the desire to continue to do the work, to strive and achieve. Humility is what makes it possible to continue to do the work.
Consider goals for a moment: when we achieve a goal, we have satisfaction but know that we don’t simply put on our bathrobe and retire from living. Thinking that we can rest on that goal’s attainment is naïve at best and arrogant at worst. So we accept that there is more for us to do and so we set ourselves a new goal. This is an act of humility for it is an act of saying that I haven’t achieved everything I’m capable of.
Hungry AND Humble.
As salespeople we must set ourselves goals beyond just sales targets. In 2020, I challenge you to strive for more. What could you learn about yourself by setting a different type of goal like:
“By the end of March 2020, I’ll be receiving emails from x client asking for my recommendation for something”, or “Achieve my annual target by x”. These goals require something different from you than what’s happening right now. The first is about gaining such depth from a client relationshlip that they see you as a trusted advisor in general – not just when it comes to sales related matters. The second is about a way of working that gets you the outcome faster: does it mean getting more sales from fewer clients or does it mean getting more clients faster? What needs to happen in order to achieve either of those things? And that’s why I urge you to think about what person you want to be by the end of 2020.
What goals can you set yourself that in the process of achieving them will enable you to become that person?