I am a salesman because I had to be, not because I wanted to be. Truth be told I HATED sales when I got into it.
I hear people say, “you are a natural salesman.”
Wrong.
I hated sales the first 8 years I was in it. I am the most unnatural salesperson you would ever meet. At the age of 17 on my first sales job in a clothing store my card said, “sales associate” and I hated it.
I hated talking to strangers, “is there something I can help you with?” I was awkward, often tongue-tied, scared to approach people, hated rejection and my results relied purely on luck.
A guy named Ray told me one day, “You hate sales because you don’t know anything about it. Listen to this tape.”
He gave me a cassette by an old sales trainer who talked about sales like it was a formula for selling step by step from the moment you met the customer to the close. It was amazing.
Within 30 days my production had doubled and, interestingly enough, what I had been hating on for eight years I now started to enjoy.
Within nine months I was in the top 1 percent in my industry and had fallen in love. Within five years I started a business where I would teach salespeople and sales organizations a new way to sell.
My point today is you don’t need to like sales — you need to understand your entire future depends on it and quit fighting it.
Very few people inherently like sales. Everyone I know who loves sales love it because they are successful at it.