In my business partner Steve Siebold’s book, 177 Mental Toughness Secrets of the World Class, he lists and talks about the 177 differences in mindset between world-class performers and everyone else, and they apply directly to what separates the top salespeople from the rest of your sales team. This is the first of several articles in which I’ll discuss one secret at a time. In this article I’ll discuss secret number one and share how it shaped my path to becoming the top sales rep at three different companies in three completely different industries.
Mental Toughness Secret Number 1: The World-Class Operates from Objective Reality
“Amateur performers operate from delusion, pros operate from objective reality.” — Steve Siebold
One day early in my sales career, my dad, who had been in sales for almost 30 years at the time, asked me how my sales year was going. At the time, I was about halfway through the sales year. I responded with a sheepish, “Well, I’m at about 63% of year-to-date quota.” His follow-up question was to ask me if I considered myself a bad salesperson, great salesperson, or somewhere in the middle. My response was, “I consider myself a great salesperson,” to which he replied, “Well, at 63 percent of goal, your sales numbers don’t reflect that.” While my bruised ego gave him some pushback, he was of course completely correct. At that early stage in my career, the reality was that I wasn’t a great salesperson, in fact, I was pretty much where my numbers said I was.
That conversation stung, but it changed how I worked. From that point forward I graded myself as a salesperson based on the bottom line quota number. In other words, 63% was the same as 63 in school, an F; 70-79 was a C, etc. I used that as motivation to do the work necessary and improve my sales skills. As a result, by the end of the following year, 18 months after that conversation with my dad, I was at 117% of quota.
The truth is that many average salespeople think they are far better than they are. If I walk into a room of average salespeople, I promise the vast majority will rate themselves as either good or great salespeople. Yet, when you look at the numbers, reality will tell a far different story.
Top salespeople, on the other hand, usually err on the other side. In other words, most top sales reps don’t think they’re as good as they are. For example, when I asked the top insurance agent in Massachusetts, whom I coached for about six years, the same ‘bad salesperson, great salesperson’ question that my dad asked me, his response was, “Scale of one to ten, I’d say I’m about a six.” At the time he was at about 160% of his quota.
This isn’t just true of individual reps; it shows up across entire teams. When Steve assessed a Johnson & Johnson regional sales team that had been stuck between 12th and 18th out of 24 regions for ten straight years, 82% of the reps rated themselves “world-class,” and 9 of the 12 district managers said the same about themselves, despite results that said otherwise. Once that team learned to operate from objective reality, as part of Steve’s Mental Toughness process, they moved to #1 in the country, and then did it again the following year, earning back-to-back President’s Awards for the first time in company history.
Since that day about 40 years ago when my dad questioned me about my quota and perceived sales expertise, I’ve learned to operate from objective reality. What’s the bottom line? In other words, what are my actual sales numbers and what effort, calls, follow-up, etc., have I put in to get there? We have to have results that we can measure and then we’ve got to look at that information and be honest with ourselves.
What’s your quota and where are you in relation to it? If you’re at or above your quota, great. What can you do to maintain that and perhaps even increase it and get better? If you’re not where you need to be, why not? Are you making the calls, are you doing the activity you need to be doing? If not, you need to make the adjustment and put in the necessary time and effort. If you are making the necessary calls and putting in the necessary time and effort, where is your process broken? Do you need to change something in your process or do you need to improve your skills?
If you lead a sales team, ask the same questions of the whole group. How many of your people would rate themselves as great? How many have the numbers to back it up? The gap between those two answers is often where your biggest untapped revenue is hiding, and it’s usually the middle of your team, not the top or bottom, where closing that gap pays off most.
To be a top salesperson, follow mental-toughness secret number one in Steve’s book and look at your sales numbers from objective reality and then respond accordingly. As Steve puts it: “The world class is brutally honest with themselves, and they tend to look reality in the face. They err on the side of overpracticing and overpreparing. Champions know that to ascend to the top, you must first be operating from a mindset of objective reality. Self-deception and delusion have no place in the professional performer’s consciousness.”
And as Steve points out, the flip side is just as true: most average and poor salespeople are deluded about their effort and ability. They believe they work harder and are more competent than they really are. That truth is too harsh to face, so they convince themselves they’re doing everything they can. They’re not.
Here’s the action step Steve provides in his book: “Make a commitment to check delusion at the door. Be honest and ask this critical-thinking question: ‘Are my habits, actions and behaviors congruent with the vision I have for [my sales career] and my life?’”
Steve Siebold and I are partners who, cumulatively, have 69 years in the profession of sales growth and excellence. We have mastered pragmatic techniques to create dramatic growth in sales teams, from the under-performers to the all-stars. This work has increased sales by more than $3.2 billion for companies like Johnson & Johnson, GlaxoSmithKline, Merrill Lynch, Coca-Cola, and Toyota, among many others. If you’d like to discuss instilling this, and other mental toughness principles, in your team, go to www.completeselling.com or email me at johnchapin@completeselling.com.
John Chapin is a sales speaker, trainer, and coach with over 39 years of sales and sales management experience, a #1 sales rep in three industries, and author of the 2010 Sales Book of the Year, Sales Encyclopedia (Axiom Book Awards). You may reprint this article provided the contact information stays in place.