Elite Execution - Introduction

Introduction

Salespeople, Mutants, and Heroes

Elite execution in any vocation has requirements, a set of disciplines

and insights that if mastered will set you apart. You will learn them

and respect them and employ them or you will not become elite. This

book is for sales professionals who want to be elite—truly the best of the

best.

To begin, let me state a few declarations and assumptions. I have written

this book for experienced sales professionals. If you are new to sales, there

are other books you should read in addition to this one that cover basic

sales skills and behaviors. This book assumes that its readers have read

most of those books, and it also assumes that you found the psychobabble

sprinkled in between the gold nuggets to be less than helpful. Like me, you

skimmed those books and underlined a few good ideas, but just a few.

You don’t need me to tell you how to feel about selling. You don’t need me

to build your self-esteem any more than you need me to tell you how to

dress for work in the morning. This book is for salespeople who long ago

recognized that keen insights and hard work matter. This is a book for the

person looking for solid answers to real issues salespeople face.

A Special Word to Salespeople

Salespeople are a special breed. Let me share a little of my story.

I went to a small college in Western Pennsylvania in the early 90s. During

my senior year, I was a marketing/management major, and the school

offered its first Sales 101 class. I and thirty others took that class. At the

end of the semester, the professor surveyed the class to see if anyone had

an interest in pursuing a career in sales. I was the only one who raised my

hand.

At that time sales was not a profession with majors offered in college, like

accounting or engineering. Sales was for graduates who couldn’t find a

“real” job. Sales was grunt work you did on your way to a highly respected

line of work, usually management or marketing. It was the price you paid

to get into the corner office.

Commission was a dirty word! Everyone was looking for a salaried position.

The risks associated with commissions, especially 100% commission

compensation plans, made the position being offered look insecure, speculative,

shady, half-baked, shortsighted, and reckless.

Early on, I noticed I was selecting the path less traveled. I noticed I was

wired differently than my classmates. Maybe you have a similar story?

In my career I’ve never met a great salesperson who wasn’t cocksure: cocky

and self-assured. They had a component of their being that convinced

them that they were inherently important and that they would overcome

whatever life threw at them. Most of them had a success story early in life

that planted the seed of confidence that carried them to other successes.

Think back: What hallmark event in your life caused you to believe in

yourself? Sports? Becoming a spelling bee champion? Maybe a parent or

grandparent praising you for a minor success and making you feel special?

Maybe you rescuing someone?

Both during and after his presidency, Ronald Reagan talked about his days as

a lifeguard as the time in his life when he realized he was capable of great

things, propelling him to success as an actor, governor, and leader of the Free

World. For me it wasn’t just one thing; it was one thing that built upon

another and another and another, gradually building my confidence to do

bigger things and take bigger chances. For me it was also the unfailing love

and support of my father, who believed in me and took chances on me.

I believe in God-given talent and ability. I also believe in God-given experience.

In the Bible, there are several amazing stories about several remarkable

men and women. Moses was raised as a prince and a general in the

pharaoh’s army before becoming the leader of Israel. Joseph was the

administrator of Potiphar’s house and then COO of a prison before being

appointed governor of all the land, second only to the pharaoh in Egypt.

David fought a bear and a lion before he stood before the giant, Goliath.

When counseling friends or family about career choices, I always ask them

a series of questions designed to uncover God-given experiences. If those

experiences point toward the job they are considering, then I encourage

them to pursue it with confidence and reasonable assurance of success. If

not, I strongly encourage them to reconsider. A good resume should present

your story of God-given experience that has prepared you for the next

role. Those experiences give us the skills we will need to meet the next

challenge. In reverse, if you are anxious to do something new but are not

sure what, consider evaluating your story and see if your experiences aren’t

pointing to an opportunity you need to explore! Usually, it’s easy to see

from the outside. So ask a trusted confidant, mentor, or experienced businessperson

for their opinion.

Let me demonstrate what I mean by sharing with you how I got my dream

job. Out of college I interviewed for a position as a salesperson for a B2B

company. As I said, most everyone else in my graduating class had a negative

view of sales. I shared most of their concerns about the speculative

nature of sales. Being young and inexperienced, I decided to focus on

training. My questions in the interview were all about the syllabus: What

will I be doing and learning in two weeks, six weeks, six months? (Amazingly,

only Cintas Corporation came on campus with a syllabus, and they

presented me with a six-month syllabus! It made a huge impression on me,

and I used that level of detail and forethought to make a tremendous

impression on new hires in training classes I conducted. This becomes

more important later when we talk about painting pictures of the future

and casting a vision as leaders.) Then I went to work for a pharmaceutical

company selling allergy medicines, nasal steroids, and antibiotics with call

points on allergists and ear, nose, and throat surgeons. Then I went to

work for a medical device company selling a balloon that moved bone in

the spine. My next opportunity was working for a medical device company

selling sports medicine shoulder and knee implants for torn tendons. The

implants were implanted arthroscopically (using a small telescope connected

to a video camera through a very small incision). Then a recruiter

called and said, “I don’t know if you would be interested, but there is a very

small start-up company that has a balloon that moves bone in the nose

using the endoscope. The call point is ear, nose, and throat surgeons.”

? ENT

? balloons that move bones

? scope

Long story short, I got that job, and I loved it for a decade, enjoying

tremendous success and financial reward. I started on the front lines as a

salesperson and eventually rose up the ranks to a role that afforded me

the opportunity to work with the sales organization, globally traveling to

exciting places and working with a tremendous array of people. That is

the type of God-given experience I look for that leads to uncommon levels

of success. I was mildly successful in those other positions, earning my

stripes as a young man. But I was wildly successful when they came

together synergistically. And I was ridiculously happy and fulfilled with

the work!

In this book, we are going to point to specific disciplines of success. But

they won’t compensate for not being in the right place and doing a job that

matches your skills and experience. Look hard at what you are doing right

now. Look at your story.

Jerks

Right up front I want to connect with the vast majority of salespeople reading

this book. Some of you are blessed with an amiable personality. Everyone

has always liked you. You have found it very easy to make friends, so

people probably told you that you should go into sales because you were a

people person. God love you! On the Personality Plus personality tests you

have the advantage of being a mix of at least two of the four personality

types: sanguine, melancholic, choleric, and phlegmatic.

I want to speak, however, to the rest. Many of the students in my classes

(highly successful salespeople), myself included, are not a mix. We are very

hard-core choleric. As such, we are often misjudged on first blush as being

tone-deaf on the sensitivity scale.

The Powerful Choleric

Florence Littauer captures us perfectly in her bestseller Personality Plus:

How to Understand Others by Understanding Yourself (Baker Publishing

Group, 1992). In the book, she describes the “powerful choleric personality”

as “the extrovert,” “the doer,” and “the optimist,” adding:

Powerful Cholerics are compulsive and they must change whatever

they see out of place and correct whatever wrongs … rise

quickly to causes and campaigns for the right. They are never

indifferent or apathetic but concerned and confident. (p. 65)

She goes on to say:

Powerful Cholerics have a difficult role in life. They have the

answers, they know what to do, they can make quick decisions,

they bail others out – but they are rarely popular because their

assurance and assertiveness make others feel insecure, and their

ability to lead can easily make them appear bossy. … Powerful

Cholerics can run anything, whether or not they have any

knowledge … (p. 66)

Sound familiar?

I want to talk to this group of salespeople who often look back on their history

and notice they were and still are perceived as arrogant, simply for

being self-assured—because most other people are not. There is a sense of

bewilderment in non-salespeople when you are unfazed in or not empathetic

about tenuous situations. It causes fear or anxiety in others and is

unnerving to them when you respond to a crisis with inherent optimism

and a zeal to overcome the challenge.

Many times you have an uncanny sense of direction in the face of uncertainty.

Some people refer to this as drive, and it is usually demonstrated

when you are in a group. You tend to lead and be decisive in the midst of

indecisiveness. (If you are a woman, unfortunately, you have been called a

bitch many times, as you insisted on things being done your way—and

were almost always right.) The way just seems clear to you earlier than

everyone else.

Mostly, it is our unusual ability to accommodate ambiguity and feed off of

it optimistically while believing that we will benefit and win in the end. We

buy a lottery ticket and really believe we are going to win. We are genuinely

surprised when we don’t win, even at three-million-to-one odds.

We have “conditioned our minds for unlimited prosperity consciousness.”

Title of Chapter 11, Integrity Selling for the 21st Century: How to Sell the Way

People Want to Buy – R Willingham.)

On the other hand, sometimes we really do a lousy job of managing that

self-confidence and ambition. We lack self-awareness, and we really are

overbearing and offensive.

Our inherent confidence is completely baseless. Think about it: Most

salespeople should be suffering from an inferiority complex! Take medical

device sales, for example. For my entire career in medical device sales, I

was inferior to my customers in almost every way: I was younger, earned

less money, and had less schooling, fewer letters behind my name, less

experience in life, less experience in medicine, less authority, less respect,

less influence at the institution ultimately purchasing the device, etc., etc.,

etc. Yet it was my job to convince my superior in every credible way to

agree that what I was proposing was right in a winsome way. It was pretty

much the same when I sold B2B, cutting my teeth as a salesman fresh out

of college. This inferiority was more apparent when I ran a painting business

in college and competed against painters who had been in the business

longer than I had been alive. I was despised by them for being such a

novice and thinking for a second that I had a chance against them.

Yes, salespeople are a special breed. Salespeople have an inner confidence

that makes them successful in sales and gives them unusual resiliency to go

through the door the first time. It also gives them the courage to call on

someone who would never have been willing to see them a second, third,

fourth, or even ninth time. It’s what makes them (us!) dynamic in front of

a room full of people. It is what allows them to think clearly when everyone

else is stressed and myopic.

Sometimes it’s appreciated.

Sometimes it’s not.

Salespeople are a special breed.

Sometimes it looks like

inbreeding (see above photo).

Admittedly, the used car salesman

is hard to take and even

harder to respect, but the

stereotype is not just a caricature.

He really does exist! I hate

to be stereotyped as that kind of

salesman, but you have to give

the guy credit. What he lacks in

self-awareness, which would serve to correct his obnoxious persona, he

makes up for in confidence and courage. Not just anyone can make a complete

fool of himself and then brag about it and bask in it when his TV ad

comes on!

This book is not for those guys, but if you fail to understand what makes

the used car salesman stereotype so disreputable and scorned, you will

become one.

This book is for sales professionals. Not people who just sell things and wish

they were doing something different. This book is for true salespeople.

True salespeople never turn it off. They want to argue and debate their

point on a wide range of topics. True salespeople are gifted at hearing a

compelling message once and turning around and delivering it with astonishing

accuracy and passion. Consequently, they are persuading all the

time—friends, family, total strangers on an airplane.

If you are a true salesperson, the people who know you well should be able

to name three things you take seriously, because you talk about those

things frequently, vigorously, and persuasively. Salespeople have a passion

to see their perspective carry the day, every day.

Salespeople are a special breed. I was recently blessed with the very unique

opportunity of having someone in my class with business experience in other

departments but no sales experience. She really did stick out as a non-salesperson.

For two weeks, she tried to figure out the other tenured salespeople

in her class. They were different. But how exactly? How could they do what

they did? Why did she struggle in roleplaying and games designed to shape

thinking in a sales environment? Her question to me was “How do I become

like them?” The answer, as we will discuss later, was conviction.

Salespeople are people of conviction, not preference. A preference is loving

the Steelers and thinking they are the best, then decorating yourself,

your house, your kids, and your dog in black and gold. Preference is perfectly

content to remain personal.

Conviction is different. Conviction says, “The Steelers are the best, and

you need to agree with me for your own good. I’m going to help you see

that I am right, so that you take action and decorate your life with Steelers

gear. Yoy and double yoy!” (If that is your first “yoy and double yoy,” visit

Western Pennsylvania for an unforgettable Steelers experience in the fall

when the leaves are turning and the Terrible Towels are waving. Or find

a Steelers bar in a town near you.)

True salespeople believe in their heart that convincing you is really helping

you. See the difference? Preference is about liking something; conviction

is believing something must be shared.

Believing you can make the world a better place and feeling compelled to

share the “good news” is powerful—and companies are looking for people

who have that power.

Seller’s Commitment

As salespeople, it is essential that we “drink the Kool-Aid” and swear allegiance

to the cause, jumping in with both feet from the beginning. Without

commitment, the job is a grind like no other. Salespeople must be

devoted to the company and product or service such that we are blinded

and don’t realize when it is time to get out. (More about that later.)

Sales is emotional in a way that very few occupations can be. We have to

“fight” and doggedly pursue prospects and be convinced somewhere in the

corner of our minds that today is the day!

? “This time it’s going to go my way!”

? “If I can just get in to see him, I know he will agree!”

? “The fifth time is a charm!”

Some of the stories of persistence are truly amazing. Great salespeople

have an uncanny ability to learn from the past, quickly forget it, and

assume the future will be better. Great quarterbacks have this ability, too,

and it can be seen in how they react to interceptions they have thrown.

You must see your failures to succeed with a given customer as an interception.

It’s not the end of the game—or career. On the other hand, lesser

quarterbacks get canned and go on to become real estate moguls or successful

titans in something else, which really is the best outcome and the

one you should hope for, too, if you throw too many “interceptions.” Get

out and go do something you are good at.

No one believes until the salesperson believes. I often joke that someone

will someday cure cancer, and the next day that same someone will have to

hire someone like you and me to sell the cure to an incredulous world. It

will take years of creativity, persistence, passion, confidence, self-assurance,

and professionalism like the world has never seen, because so many

will not believe it and so many will fight it.

Yes, to some extent you must maintain a mental compartment that

houses an irrational belief in your own success in the face of seemingly

insurmountable odds. I like how Florence Littauer describes it in her

book Personality Plus. When speaking about powerful cholerics, she

writes, “I’ve never joined anything where I couldn’t see the possibility of

becoming president within the year” (pg. 66). The same is true when I

tackle projects. And the same was true with every sales job I ever took.

I truly expected to win every available accolade and make all the possible

money.

Salespeople are thrill-seekers at heart. Fire walkers are amazing! If you

have ever seen or heard about the trick to fire walking, it turns out that

crossing the coals without getting burned is accomplished by the protection

provided by the sweat the feet produce because of the nervousness

of the fire walker. The day he or she fails to get that rush, fails to

become nervous, and fails to generate that sweat … yep, he gets burned.

So, like firewalkers, it turns out that in sales a little nervousness is very

helpful.

Quotas are stressful and a good source of anxiety. Quotas are an interesting

dilemma for salespeople. Yes, we hate quotas. Yet we love to overachieve

quotas. It’s a love-hate relationship. The pride of accomplishment

would not be there without quotas. The stress to go higher, faster, better,

and walk successfully over the coals would not be there without quotas.

Yes, I want to strangle someone every year when my quota comes out. Yes,

every year I have felt that fist in my gut and felt that fear of a number

looming high, towering over me at the beginning of the first quarter. Yes,

I would track my daily sales and monitor my progress. Frankly, it was

really fun when tracking progress became counting commission dollars as

I reached 100% part way through a given month.

Sales is stressful, and the dirty secret is that we need it to be so. It’s the

juice. It’s the challenge we yearn for. It’s the measuring stick we want to

keep around to show people how well we can perform. Do you view quotas

that way? As a sales leader, how do you sell the quota each year? How

do you manage personal stress related to quotas?

My dad was a coal miner. He went down into a hole in the ground every

day. He and his crew pumped out enough coal to fill 300 train cars every

day. He and his buddies took great pride in that accomplishment.

We all need a measuring stick. We all need a quota to help us value our

efforts. Sales is one of a handful of wonderful jobs that comes with a scoreboard.

Every day I know where I stand, and I know when I have won. I like

pointing to the scoreboard. Like any great athlete, I celebrate every time I

win: monthly, quarterly, annually. It never gets old.

Finally, salespeople are a special breed in their ability to withstand and

overcome rejection. Many salespeople are approached by friends and

acquaintances looking to get into sales. They see how nice your car is, or

they like the neighborhood you live in. They hear about business trips or

some other perk that comes with the job that sounds alluring. My first

question to them is “How do you feel about rejection?” That is usually not

what they are expecting and not something they want to talk about. That

is a big part of the job, however. Very few accountants get rejected by their

computer when they show up to work. Very few lawyers get rejected at the

door to the courtroom. Very few coal miners are told by the elevator to

take a seat while it asks the coal if it is willing to be dug today. But salespeople

run into rejection every day, everywhere, in every form, from

everyone. What kind of person wants that job?

I have heard of thick skin, but this is different. This is sales.

I know I have made salespeople sound like the mutants from X-Men:

? special talents

? interesting pasts

? freaky self-confidence

? prickly social interactions

Did I mention that some salespeople are superstar beautiful or handsome,

and others make you wonder what planet they are from? (If you’re not giggling,

look around the room at your next sales meeting. You’re just not

paying attention!)

What I will say is that true salespeople share important qualities with the

characters of X-Men: They are special, unique, odd, and hard to profile (as

much as hiring managers try). Good salespeople are usually worth their

weight in gold for companies in need of growth. Like X-Men, the best

salespeople believe they are going to save the world from something—usually

their competitors.

So, what are you? Are you selling but are not a salesperson? Did something

I said earlier resonate and help you make the mental leap to pursue professional-

grade selling? Are you reading this book but are not in a sales

position? Or worse, do you look down your nose at the sales profession,

saying, “I am not a salesperson; I am better than that”?

Fine. That says a lot about your characterization of salespeople, which I

think needs work. At its essence, however, is your job to talk to people and

convince them to agree and act upon your suggestions? If I asked a sixyear-

old to follow you around at work, would they say that all you do is

talk to people and convince them to go along with your ideas? If the

answer is yes, then chances are you are a salesperson by title or by another

name—but you are a salesperson.

Now as I said, decide what you think about being a salesperson, because

you can’t be a great one until you embrace the idea that a good one is

happy, successful, and good for the world! That said, I want to share with

you some of my convictions about how to be an elite one!

“Anyone who has mastered a golf swing or a Bach fugue is a ritual animal:

one simply doesn’t achieve excellence otherwise,” explained college professor

James K. A. Smith. Over the course of my career, I have attempted

to capture the little things that appear to make a big difference. I want to

know what rituals make the difference. I call them “Rules for Winners.”

More or less, they’re an attempt to write down what I have found to be the

keys to success in this business. That is what led me to write this book. I

have been taking careful notes for over a decade. Here are my “Rules for

Winners” that I want to share with you. Make these mantras into disciplines,

and you will become a professional. You will experience the feeling

that comes with elite execution!