As a Sales Coach and Strategist I am often asked what are the secrets and techniques to sales success. After interviewing over 20,000 sales professionals, and hiring over 1,000 for some of the top corporate sales teams in the world, this is not only a topic I am very knowledgeable in but something I am very passionate about.
In today’s blog I’m going to break down the key skills you need to have success in sales and build a business that is profitable.
What Is Sales Success for Entrepreneurs – Is There a Magic Ingredient?
Let’s be honest for a minute shall we my fellow entrepreneur… entrepreneurs have big dreams and (we) often want to take the short-cut to success. Entrepreneurs all around the globe get drawn to ‘shiny objects’ they see online like a magpie, and can get distracted by every new sales strategy, sales funnel, or platform they see those (they view as) ahead of them using.
Now I do understand that there is great power from having a strategy so that we know where we are heading in our business, but a strategy alone will not achieve much. The easiest way I can explain it is to imagine you are off hunting for treasure in the jungle, your strategy is like your map that shows you where the treasure is located.
Now you might think it’s as simple as just heading off and following the map until you find the treasure… well just like in business, sadly not!
There are some other things that will ‘equip’ you on your journey to the hidden treasure (your sales success).
How to Measure Sales Success
1. How Fit You Are:
Hiking across the jungle is no mean feat, you’ll need to be in peak fitness – both physically and mentally. Overgrown terrain, rivers to cross, and wild animals to run from. Just like when you are hiking across the jungle, striving for sales success in your business will require you to be in your peak mental and physical state.
Things that will help you with this are:
- Having a daily mindset practice
- Ensure you take time for regular self-care
- Keeping your body fit, healthy and energised
2. How Well Equipped You Are:
When I went off traveling to Asia for 3 months I packed so many things ‘just in case’. My friends who lived in Asia did laugh when I turned up with more bags of stuff than they actually owned! But as I learned in my Brownie days a child “always be prepared”.
I will admit, I may have been too over-prepared, but if you are trekking across the jungle you would want the necessities to ensure you survive. The same goes for success in sales – you need the basic equipment.
Types of sales and business success equipment you will need:
- A product/service that people need AND want
- A way to engage with your potential clients
- A way to get paid
3. How Much Grit You Have
I just love the word GRIT! People with grit make the best salespeople and if I was trekking across the jungle I’d want to be with my gritty friends!
“In psychology, grit is a positive, non-cognitive trait based on an individual’s perseverance of effort combined with the passion for a particular long-term goal or end state (a powerful motivation to achieve an objective)” ~ Wikipedia
So what does sales success look like? Just like in your journey to the hidden treasure, your journey to sales and business success will be full of hurdles, challenges, and bad weather. Now, you may not be running from wild animals, wading through murky rivers, or hiding out during rainstorms in your business, but the challenges you face will have you feeling scared, stressed, and wanting to give up at times. Just as if you were on that jungle journey you will want to turn back and go home to comfort.
Your ability to keep going no matter how bad things get will directly correlate to your speed and level of business and sales success you achieve.
How to Develop Grit?
Like most things in life people either have or don’t have grit. Either from your genetics, upbringing or lifestyle. But if you are wanting to develop more grit (which totally is possible) I suggest the following:
- Read Grit the New York Times bestseller by pioneering psychologist Angela Duckworth that discusses grit and how it relates to achieving success.
- Learn about neuroscience and specifically the prefrontal cortex. This is the part of the brain which I call the “getting shit done that you need to do, but don’t want to do muscle”. It’s enlightening and fascinating (My fav go-to’s on this topic are Robin Sharma, Dr. Joe Dispenza and Bruce Lipton).
- Have a passion for what you are doing. Just like in your hunt for the treasure, you need to have a passion and determination that will keep driving your forward in your business. However, you find/get this it really doesn’t matter. But your passion MUST override your reluctance/fear in order for you to achieve true business and sales success.
4. The People You Have Around You?
Just like when I said I would want to be with my ‘gritty friends’ on my jungle journey, I’d also want to be with people who were fit, focused, supportive and fun to be around. I would not want to spend months trekking across the jungle with people who didn’t help me if I fell down/got tired, or who had a negative energy that in turn drained my energy (negative Nellies in the jungle – no thanks!).
I’d want to be with:
- People who were focused on our goal and kept moving in the right direction
- People who could see if I was getting tired, and offered to carry my bag (most likely so heavy from all my ‘just in case’ supplies!)
- People who made the journey enjoyable and kept my spirits up on those dark nights, and long tiring days
- People who were solution-focused and didn’t give up at every hurdle.
- People who believe in me and inspire me to be a better version of myself so I become healthier, fitter and more successful each day.
Each and every one of these traits and the same as the types of traits you want in people who you share your business journey with. Entrepreneurship can be lonely at the best of times and so creating a business network of powerful people (and go-getters!) around you is I believe hands down the most valuable currency you can have as an entrepreneur.
As they say, your network is your net-worth and that you will become the average of the people you spend most of your time with, so why not take care of ensuring your network of people is one that is powerful, successful and supportive?
One proven way to develop a powerful network in business is to join a mastermind. Put simply, a mastermind is a group of likeminded people who come together to support, encourage and stretch each other to achieve their goals.
I belong to a mastermind myself and last year we got invited to Necker Island by Sir Richard Branson where we got to mastermind with him. You can read more about what I learned on Necker Island here.
Another powerful way to develop your network and fast-track your business is to join an online community of like minded entrepreneurs.
There are a lot of online business clubs out there, so you’ll have to find the ones that suit your personality and meet your needs. Try a few to see if they are right for you. If those don’t work out, try a few more until you’re comfortable. Keep in mind that high member counts indicate popularity, but not necessarily quality. The only way to find out if a community is right for you is to spend some time within it.
If you’re an entrepreneur looking to access powerful support, create real relationships & develop new skills then have a look at our Freedom Business Hub – it’s a unique club for entrepreneurs that is a membership, mastermind and networking club ‘all-in-one’ to support you in growing your business to where you want it to be.
Jade *
P.S. See us in action masterminding and developing those strong and powerful relationships here: