People get into sales for different reasons. Some people relate well to others, are outgoing and good at making connections. Others are goal driven and always ready to tackle the next quota challenge. Still others are in it for the potential to make big money. However, only a small percentage of the people who enter the sales profession truly make it big—depending on their goal.

Promotional Consultant Today shares the following ways to be a success at sales through one critical step: getting real with yourself.

Discovery. Honesty is the “Magic Bullet.” Most top salespeople are totally honest in their work. They’re honest with their prospects and customers, and they’re honest with themselves.

Numbers Don’t Lie. You’ve often heard that “sales is a numbers game.” One of the big differences between the top salespeople and the other 99 percent is they know their numbers. Top salespeople keep records of their sales activities every day, and they analyze their statistics every day.

Don’t Lie To Yourself. The biggest barrier to success for most salespeople is that they don’t know their numbers, and they don’t want to know. That makes it easy to lie to themselves. Except for the few top salespeople, almost all salespeople think and really believe that their closing rates are at least twice as high as they actually are.

Know Yourself. Most salespeople don’t know how to sell very well, but they think they do. If they knew their numbers, they would have to face the truth about their skills. They would have to change what they’re doing. Change can be very uncomfortable. It’s more comfortable to lie to yourself than to change what you do every day. That’s why most salespeople fail, and those who survive continue to struggle to make a good living.

False Prospects. Most salespeople spend most of their time with prospects that “have great potential,” but seldom buy from them. The average salesperson goes through all of the motions that look like selling, but fails to bring in much business. Average salespeople seldom truly qualify their prospects. They rarely disqualify their prospects, either. If they did, they would need to find new prospects—but they don’t know how to prospect effectively, efficiently and enjoyably.

Real Relationships. Real Selling. We know what top salespeople do when they’re selling. We know what works and what doesn’t work. We know what top salespeople do to eliminate the rejection most salespeople have to live with and suffer with every day. We know how they eliminate objections so they don’t have to “overcome objections.” We know how they close dozens of times during each sales visit without any pressure on their prospects or themselves. Top salespeople develop relationships of mutual trust and respect with most of their prospects—without any phony “rapport building.”

Do you have what it takes to be in the top one percent—to make it big in sales? We think so!

Source: Jacques Werth, president and founder of High Probability Selling, discovered his passion for selling early in life, and has enjoyed success in his chosen profession for more than 40 years. After four decades in the “sales game,” Werth has earned, and deserves, a comfortable retirement. But he continues to develop High Probability Selling to revolutionize the sales process.