The Best Sellers are a "Pro's Pro"

Selling is considered by many to be a tough profession. I don't disagree, but does it have to be? Certainly hard work is required to be successful in any profession but "sales" has some unique characteristics that not all people are cut out to do. For one, you have to be somewhat "thick skinned" because you are going to deal with some level of rejection along the way. All sales people get a lot of "no's" along the road to a "yes." The great sales people, what I call a "pro's pro", are adept at getting to the "no's" as quickly as possible. In other words, early in the selling cycle they are ferreting out the potential roadblocks and determining if those are showstoppers. They understand that their time is incredibly valuable and do not want to invest it on opportunities that are not a good fit. Not only is there a direct cost related to the pursuit of a sale, in terms of time and money for the organization they represent, but there is also an "opportunity cost" to working deals that do not end up closing and it is higher than you might have considered. Think about the analogy of investing in stocks as an example. Ten years ago if you invested $100,000 in General Electric stock it is now worth less than $50,000. If you took that same $100,000 and invested it in Amazon stock it is now worth $2.6M. Let's make sure, as sales professionals, we are investing our time wisely and getting to "no's" quickly.