Sales POP - Purveyors of Propserity
Who Is In Charge of My Success?
Blog / For Sales Pros / Jul 27, 2017 / Posted by John Golden / 4597

Who Is In Charge of My Success?

0 comments

“To know oneself is to study oneself in action with another person” – Bruce Lee

I had a very interesting conversation the other day with a former colleague of mine, Bruce Wedderburn (who will be featured in an upcoming expert interview), and the concept of self responsibility in sales came up. And as I reflected on this, I considered how often we lecture sales managers on coaching and improving their salespeople–which is, of course is completely correct–but how often do we focus on how much investment do we personally make in our own development?

There is a trap that all of us fall into at times, and that is outsourcing our success and development to others–whether that is our manager, HR, the training department or that nebulous catch-all, “the company” (or worst of all “fate”). The reality is that our own personal success should sit squarely on our shoulders. Now I know pretty much everyone understands this, at least at a fundamental, logical level, but if you were to ask yourself honestly “What have I personally done lately to develop my skills?” what would the answer be?

So think about this for a moment. You likely have a hobby, sport or other past-time, and chances are you stay up to date with the latest developments in that area. If you want to be good at it, you likely practice on your own in your spare time. Now while our hobbies are great and a necessary release, they don’t put food on the table.

Let’s be brutally honest for a moment: there is no excuse for any of us not to be setting aside some time on a consistent basis to get better at our respective jobs. If that job is sales, there are many sites out there, such as Sales POP!, where free and powerful sales resources are available. Plus there are a host of sales books (many in our bookstore) with new ones coming out all the time, and YouTube is awash with helpful sales videos. On top of that there are simple tools that you could use to record your own sales calls and do some critical self-analysis. Maybe you interact differently than you perceive? In other words, the tools are at at our fingertips, and it is really all down to how much we care about our success.

Carl Jung developed the theory of “self” as the center of the total psyche, including both the conscious and the unconscious. It stands to reason then that “self-development” should be a major focus for all of us, and something that cannot be outsourced. Jung said “Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.”

How about today you go to your calendar and mark a recurring time every week to spend some time educating yourself and practicing your craft? I just did…

About Author

John is the Amazon bestselling author of Winning the Battle for Sales: Lessons on Closing Every Deal from the World’s Greatest Military Victories and Social Upheaval: How to Win at Social Selling. A globally acknowledged Sales & Marketing thought leader, speaker, and strategist, he has conducted over 1500 video interviews of thought leaders for Sales POP! online sales magazine & YouTube Channel and for audio podcast channels where Sales POP! is rated in the top 2% of most popular shows out of 3,320,580 podcasts globally, ranked by Listen Score. He is CSMO at Pipeliner CRM. In his spare time, John is an avid Martial Artist.

Author's Publications on Amazon

John Golden, best selling author of "Winning the Battle for Sales" presents "Social Upheaval: How to Win At Social Selling" to explain how every B2B salesperson can add social selling methods to their toolkits, and why it is so important that they do so without…
Buy on Amazon
FROM THE CREATORS OF SPIN SELLING―TRIED-AND-TRUE STRATEGIES TO ARM YOU IN THE WAR FOR SALES SUPREMACY "I distinctly remember my first VP talking about 'campaigns' and 'targets.' Indeed, successful salespeople have made learning from military tactics an important aspect of their careers. In this engaging…
Buy on Amazon
Comments

..
..
.
Sales Process Automation
.
This website uses cookies. By continuing to use this website you are giving consent to cookies being used. For information on cookies and how you can disable them, visit our privacy and cookie policy.