It's almost impossible to read an article, open a book, visit a website, or hear an expert speak (who isn't an expert these days?) without being buried in well-intended and unsolicited advice. Advice that’s almost always intended for someone else. Make sense? Nope, I think not. The best kind of advice is almost always given to ourselves. Because you're the only one who knows what you really need. Of course, you’ve got to have an open mind and it takes some courage to do something with your own advice. That’s why we’d rather give advice to other people; it’s much better for our egos. But how can you advise others when you're not even capable of managing yourself? Would you take skiing lessons from someone who can't ski? Seriously. Just stop. Cut it out. Try listening for a change. You might actually hear something, make a connection, and earn more…. attention, respect, and money.
In order to back that up, I’d like to share a series of five articles featuring the 5² Life Hacks that I use as guidelines for myself. Isn't it comforting to know you don't have to take them personally? I’ve learned all 25 by trial and error, some by damage and disgrace. Anyway, this is the first of the series: 5 Life Hacks as a Salesperson. Wanna read it in Dutch? There you go. Cheers!
BE OBSESSED OR BE AVERAGE — There’s nothing as sad as a burned-out sales soul. Someone with a job and a mortgage for his townhouse who's quietly hoping that everything will remain just as it is. Anything wrong with that? For a whole lot of people I see around me, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with it. Salespeople who do everything, and I mean everything, in order to achieve their personal goals and sales targets – they’re the ones that break records. They go the extra mile. And who are always complaining about people with obsessions? Exactly, the ones without one. It takes a while to get used to them because they’re in the majority. The good news is that there’s plenty of opportunity to set yourself apart from all the rest. The only condition is that you really gotta want it.
WHAT GOT YOU HERE WON’T GET YOU THERE — There's a saying that you get what you always got when you do what you've always done. Doesn't make sense, of course. It's caused problems for many. Learning faster than others – and using this knowledge – is your unfair advantage. If you can’t figure out how to learn faster and better than the other guy, more and more clients are going to say 'no' to your so-called irresistible, unique proposition. According to current research, you need to call someone eight times to get them on the phone nowadays, while this was only three times ten years ago. Do you know why that is? Because you don’t adapt your fucking message, mate. And you’re the only one to blame. Learn, Unlearn. Relearn. Times are changing. You should follow. Get the picture?
CREATE VALUE. ALWAYS. — Once you figured it out, you can see it clearly: the difference between deliver and create value. Everyone claims to do the first one (yawn); the second is something clients didn't think of on their own, because they need your genius to get there. And that’s your holy grail of uniqueness. It gives you immunity. When I ask the average salesperson what they've contributed to their clients, he comes up with something on the spot. But value has only meaning when defined by the receiver. 64% of companies say they understand their clients well but just 24% of clients agree with that statement. Delivering value is a commodity. The big question is: what value do you create for – or cocreate with – your clients? According to your clients.
BE DIFFERENT — Why be different? Well, 'cause everything everyone else is doing doesn't get you to where you want to be. Or you should have made the conscious, passive choice to become the dead burned-out salesperson I mentioned before. Top salespeople with extraordinary achievements do this with something unique, something personal, something smart, something different. A former Bayer salesman once explained to me how he achieved over ten times his target. He hired free sales agents whom he paid from Bayer's generous uncapped commission scheme. He pocketed the entire annual retention commission for himself. Smart thinking. He's been living like a king somewhere in the Southern Hemisphere ever since. Ka-ching.
THE SECRET OF MULTIPLYING YOUR BEST CLIENTS — My very first mentor in the world of sales (I owe him forever) literally took me along in the success of scalable sales: getting loads of referrals. If every one of your clients is prepared to introduce you to potential new clients, you'll never have to spend time prospecting again. In order to help, he gave me a copy of Dale Carnegie's book How to Win Friends and Influence People, and the rest is history. What's this book got to do with it? Simple. Being introduced to people doesn’t happen by accident. You gotta treat the process the way a gold medal athlete would treat a championship. Still most salespeople I know give up at the first sign of defeat. That’s just not gonna cut it, amigo.