Recently I had the opportunity to sit in on a discussion of nationally-recognized small business owners. What made this group different is they were in the top 1% for their industry. Each of these CEOs/owners had over the years moved from average sized companies to ones that today are seen by their peers as being truly the best. Each one of these companies has a very distinct business model ranging from a very tight customer base in a geographic area of economic spectrum to truly global in nature touching numerous cultures.
For the sake of confidentiality toward the people in this group, I am not going to share with you anything more than that. The purpose of this post is to share with you an important list that came from the discussion. It is a list of traits they saw as the driving reasons for their own success. Here are the traits:
Highly focused
Passionate
Client / customer focused
Defined processes
Caring
Love to learn new ideas
Implementers
Innovators
Strong work ethic
Open-minded
Very good at what they do
Risk-takers
Actively seeking new ideas
Not afraid to experiment
Persistent / Resilient
Optimistic
Resource oriented
As you read the list, you’ll find the normal list of things you would expect from a group of successful over-acheivers. As the list was being developed, though, it got me to thinking about how I can use this list to benchmark how I’m doing.
If I were to score myself on the items listed above, which ones would I score high on and which ones would need work? It got me to think about how we set out to do our job each day. Some days we do our job in a reactionary mode, driven by what happens to us. Other days we do our job in a pro-active manner, driving our day accordingly.
Each of the successful people in this discussion I’m sure feel the same way. We have to stop and ask ourselves, “What am I doing each month to stay on task with each of the items listed above?” Notice I said month, not day. I do not believe we have to achieve each item each day. That would be futile. But over a period of time, we need to see in our actions each of the items listed above being carried out.
So take a good look at the list again. And ask yourself how you see yourself. Could you develop a similar list that would positively impact your sales motivation and selling processes… and move you further in the direction as a top sales peformer. Start today to measure yourself against high standards, not low ones. Start today to learn from successful and motivated people around you. Do this long enough and the sales motivation picks up momentum. And that’s what you want, right? Momentum. In the right direction. Toward success!
