Sales Success and Crossword Clues

Sales Blog for Sales and Sales Management

Sales Success and Crossword Clues

Posted by Tony Cole on Fri, Jun 04, 2010

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When we are not driving ourselves nuts with our sales development company, my wife, Linda, and I occasionally take the time to complete crossword puzzles. And as I do with movies and books, I look at clues in these puzzles and see connections to sales and selling. For you sales reps out there trying to figure what the title has to do with sales success, hold on to your seats; it's going to be a bumpy ride.

First a story about my track career at Hammonton High School. In my senior season during the regional championships, I finished with a personal best in the 880 yard run: 2:03:05. The school record was, and I believe still is, 2:03:00. Though it was my best, I still didn't do 'it'. 'It' being to break the school record. Additionally, I came in 5th in my heat and qualified for the state championship meet (I won't talk about my performance that day as it was less than extraordinary). Again, I didn't do 'it'. 'It' being that I didn't win my heat.

In one race, I accomplished two really cool things but 'failed' to win.

The clue in the crossword puzzle was "failed". The word that fit was "didn't". And so began my thinking about sales, selling and sales reps. Here are a couple of MUSTS in selling if you want to sell more, sell more quickly at higher margins.

Take ownership. There is a post at LIVESTRONG.COM about accepting personal responsibility. I didn't win the race. I didn't break the record. It was all about me and what I failed to do. There was competition, there were track conditions, there was my starting position, but in the end, it was all about me finishing the race and either winning or losing. I performed the best I ever had. I earned a chance to go to the next step. I still failed to accomplish the win.
Win the business. At the end of the day, in selling it is about winning the business. You may have performed the best you ever have and that is what is expected. But reward for selling is when you win business. There is personal reward in personal best but I don't think your bank will take that as a loan repayment.
SWN3 - Some will, some won't, so what, next. There is another race. Walt Gerano, my good friend and one of our sales development experts says, "Failing isn't fatal or final."

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