12 Ways Extremely Successful Sales People are Different from Everyone Else

The Mystery of Sales Success

“Successful people have fear, successful people have doubts, and successful people have worries. They just don’t let these feelings stop them.” — T. Harv Eker

Sales success for some salespeople seems to be a bit of a mystery. They struggle to find a rhythm to put two great months in a row together. Month after month, year after year, financial security feels just out of their reach, while others seem to achieve significant sales success effortlessly.

What is it? What’s the difference between successful and unsuccessful salespeople? Is it luck, having the right contacts and leads, being in the right place at the right time?

Or, is it hard work, a powerful will to succeed, or some other measurable quality, like persistence or goal setting?

The following list represents 12 of the bigger differences I’ve observed over the last twenty-two years between those who succeed greatly and those who fail.

They Have a List of Whys or Goals.

“If you want to be happy, set a goal that commands your thoughts, liberates your energy, and inspires your hopes.” — Andrew Carnegie

Sales guru Brian Tracy says if you’re looking to become a successful salesperson, the way to start is by figuring out how much money you want to make. Set “clear income and sales goals,” he writes. “The decision to write down how much money you want to earn, and how you’re going to earn it, moves you much further down the road to achieving it.

Let’s say you’re a New Home Sales Professional at a company where the average sale is $500,000, and the commission is 2 percent, which would equal a $10,000 paycheck. You want to earn $200,000 per year. Simple enough: You need to sell at least 24 homes that year because some percentage of those jobs — let’s say about 20 percent — will fail to become revenue due to cancellations or financing problems.

So, now you know you need to sell 24 homes for 20 to clear for you to make the $200,000 you want to earn. Now you’ve got a real goal, that’s measurable, written down, with an end date.

Successful Salespeople use clear goals to motivate themselves daily and move them towards their goals. Also, they are continually measuring their performance (results) and looking for ways to make sure they stay on track to achieve their goals.”

They have a Daily Plan and Routine.

You will never change your life until you change something you do daily. The secret of your success is found in your daily routine. — John C. Maxwell

Here are six tips for creating a daily routine and plan.

1. Set your alarm to tell you when to go to bed and when to wake up.
2. Eat a healthy breakfast and drink water.
3. Switch yourself off at night — I use the “airplane mode” method.
4. Develop a morning routine that you keep even on your days off.
5. Have a written plan for the day before you leave for work, then work your plan.
6. Create daily priorities for each day
7. Celebrate your WINS!

They Have Daily Priorities

If you have more than three priorities, then you don’t have any. — Jim Collins

Successful Salespeople, before they go to bed, take a few minutes to write down the three most important things they must accomplish tomorrow. The three things that, if they completed them, will move them another step or two closer to achieving their goals.

You can do this as well.

Wake up the next morning and read over the three priorities you wrote the night before. Decide before you leave for work, that today these three things are getting done today. Decide that you’re not going home until those three things get done. Period!

Matt Sandrini, a high-performance coach, best selling author, and CEO of TimeZillionaire Says, “Progress needs a clear direction. When your destination is clear, setting priorities becomes natural.”

They Have an Extremely Positive Mindset and Attitude

“The positive thinker sees the invisible, feels the intangible, and achieves the impossible.” –Winston Churchill

Positive mental attitude (PMA) is a concept first introduced in 1937 by Napoleon Hill in his book Think and Grow Rich. In the book, Hill defines positive mental attitude as “comprising the ‘plus’ characteristics represented by words like faith, integrity, hope, optimism, courage, initiative, generosity, tolerance, tact, kindliness, and good common sense.”

Hill’s philosophy contends that having a positive attitude in every situation and circumstance in your life attracts positive changes and increases your potential for success.

Successful Salespeople use better words like, “I will, I can, or I am,” instead of words like “I won’t, I can’t, or I’m not” have a significant impact on their attitude (external)and their mindset (internal).

You must consciously create a habit of choosing positive words because your brain and subconscious are always listening and don’t know the difference between the positive things you say and the negative. Your brain believes the words you use. So choose positive ones.

Learn to appreciate and be grateful for what you have. Look around you and learn to take note of everything you have been given. People you care about, and your family and friends. Things that you have, career, home, food, and car.

My father repeatedly said to me, “You won’t be happy with what you want, until you’re happy with what you got.”

Associate with “positive” people. I suggest you partner up with several other positive people who are as excited and passionate about their future as you are yours, like a cheerleading mastermind group.

Harvey Mackay, seven-time, New York Times best-selling author, said: “Positive thinking is more than just a tagline. It changes the way we behave. And I firmly believe that when I am positive, it not only makes me better, but it also makes those around me better.”

They Understand that if You don’t have a Next Appointment, you don’t have anything.

If you can’t fly then run, if you can’t run then walk, if you can’t walk then crawl, but whatever you do you have to keep moving forward. — Martin Luther King, Jr.

I love this quote because it embodies what we do as salespeople. Every encounter you have with a customer must end with the next scheduled appointment. An appointment to move forward to the next step in the sales process or to wrap up the process.

If you don’t have the next appointment, you don’t have anything. Yes, I understand; it’s uncomfortable sometimes to push forward through the objection and close on the next appointment. 

However, I find that selling is a series of uncomfortable events followed by euphoria!

Successful salespeople push through the uncomfortableness of rejection when they get a no, and ask another better question. When you do, you’ll find out either they weren’t a fit for your product, or they really do have a time constraint keeping them from scheduling an appointment with you in the next few days.

In that case, go ahead and schedule an appointment out far enough that meets their calendar. Now you know that they’re an actual customer and you have a scheduled next appointment. Great job!

They use a Repeatable Process, a Critical Path.

“If you quit on the process, you are quitting on the result.”― Idowu Koyenikan

Success salespeople know that it doesn’t matter how talented you are, how hard you work, how good your B.S. is, or how much experience you have, if you’re not using a proven, repeatable process you won’t be as successful as you could be.

Without using a proven path for success, you wind up just winging it. When you wing it, you’re on the customer’s agenda, forcing you to acquiesce and let the customer take control. 

Stop this madness! You’re making your sales life harder than it should be for both you and the customer.

The sales process is a set of repeatable sequenced steps that you use to convert a prospect to a customer as quickly as possible.

If you stay disciplined to follow the steps in order, making sure you’ve nailed down each step with the customer before you move to the next one, when you get to the end of the process, it usually is a sale.

Successful salespeople will tell you that a proven process is the fastest way to a sale.

They Understand and Believe in what they’re Selling.

If you believe your product or service can fulfill a true need, it’s your moral obligation to sell it. — Zig Ziglar

More than ever before, customers are expecting integrity in the sales process and from salespeople, due to years and years of untrustworthy practices, and dishonest sales experiences.

We can no longer claim to be trustworthy; we must be trustworthy.

Having a complete understanding of how and why your product will change people’s lives and having real confidence in your beliefs about that product is now a must. It’s more than just being educated and having information about your product.

Successful salespeople understand that because of the internet, the customer has access to more information now than ever. It’s possible now that the customer knows as much about your product as you do.

Today you have to be more than just information regurgitators. You have to be able to give the customer insight into everything that goes into creating your product.

In other words, you have to know and have at the ready, insight about your product that you can lay on the customer, that they can’t find on the internet. 

This insight will be the reasons they buy from you.

They Connect by Truly Listening.

“The major dilemma is that we tend to listen to reply, while all we should do is: listen to understand and feel.”― Akilnathan Logeswaran

Connecting with people is more about how you make them feel. They want to feel understood. They want to believe that you get them.

In his book, The 7 Habits of Highly Successful People, Dr. Stephen Covey says, “Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply.”

Here are a few ways successful salespeople listen:

• As the customer is talking, they’re working on understanding not just what they want, but why they want it, i.e., their story.
• They listen to get a better perspective of who the customer is and what’s important to them.
• They pay close attention to how the customer feels about what they’re saying.
• They repeat back to them the words they use, verbatim if possible, because it lets them know they’re truly listening.

Every customer comes in with a problem they’re trying to solve. They want you to listen carefully enough to understand that problem.

Successful salespeople know that connecting with people is all about genuinely listening to understand them and their story, and what they’re trying to accomplish.

Once you know those things, the solution becomes much easier.

They Practice their Sales Skills

‘Success is nothing more than a few simple disciplines practiced every day.” — Jim Rhon

“Super-successful people aren’t the most gifted people in their fields. They just work, study, and practice more than the competition.” — Jack Canfield

When it comes to understanding expertise and expert performance, psychologist Dr. K. Anders Ericsson is perhaps the world’s leading authority.

His research is the basis for the “10,000-hour rule,” which suggests that it requires at least 10,000 hours of deliberate practice to achieve an expert level of performance in any given domain.

Extremely successful salespeople understand that focusing on what you want to learn and improve is the best way to practice effectively.

Focused practice on sales skills in usually one of the last things most salespeople think about. It’s typically the last thing on the to-do list. 

Jim Rohn said it best; Successful people do what unsuccessful people are not willing to do. Don’t wish it were easier; wish you were better.

Focused daily practice on sales skills is one of those things that Successful Salespeople do!

They are Honest and Genuine

Each time you are honest and conduct yourself with honesty, a success force will drive you toward greater success. Each time you lie, even with a little white lie, there are strong forces pushing you toward failure.” — Joseph Sugarman

Successful salespeople will tell you that people don’t want to be sold. They want to be genuinely helped and served.”

It means taking a few extra moments to truly understand their story, what they’re trying to accomplish, and what their goal is for their purchase.

Being honest and genuine means much more than not lying to customers. It means being forthcoming at all times with all relevant information the customer needs to make a great informed decision for themselves and their family, including any bad news.

They are not Afraid of the Word “NO.”

“I take rejection as someone blowing a bugle in my ear to wake me up and get going, rather than retreat.” — Sylvester Stallone

Successful salespeople expect rejection. They know that not everyone will say yes, in fact, many will say no. They expect a “NO.” They know that rejection is part of the game, and they accept it.

They've practiced and prepared responses for when they get a no.

They are never surprised by it. It is not something to be avoided but understood as moving you one step closer to your goal, another sale.

In truth, if the customer says “NO” and they’re still standing there, or they haven’t thrown you out, it’s not a “NO”! It’s a “NOT YET” They need you to push through the “NO” and give them more INSIGHT!

They are Confident in Who they Are and Where they’re Going.

“Inaction breeds doubt and fear. Action breeds confidence and courage. If you want to conquer fear, do not sit home and think about it. Go out and get busy.” - Dale Carnegie

Successful salespeople choose confidence over fear and self-doubt by taking action. Your mind believes what you say and what you do.

If you want to improve your confidence, stop complaining, and start taking action. Start doing some of the things you’ve just read.

The pain and the struggle of failure and adversity cause you to become stronger. It grows your confidence and perseverance muscles, making you able to grow and develop into your most successful self.

Conclusion

“The Future Belongs To The Competent. Get Good, Get Better, Be The Best!” — Brian Tracy

So, the truth is that there’s no mystery other than our own thinking. I think you have it in you. I believe you’re ready to join the ranks of the Extremely Successful Salespeople.

What do you think?