Seeking success in SALES? Live a life of passion(s).

As I sit and type this week’s blast, I have a huge grin and smile on my face from the weekend I just had.

Back story (there are two parts to this):

The gentleman you see in the above picture on the right, his name is Brent. He’s my longest-best friend. We’ve known each other going on 25 years (!!); Incredible!

We share passions for all kinds of music, socializing, sports, self-improvement, ‘doing the right thing,’ and forming & impacting what has become our wonderful group of close friends-turned-family over the years, and so much more.

As young, single lads graduating college in the early 2000s, we bonded over the vocal harmonies from the Country group Rascal Flatts. We went to a handful of their concerts together over the course of 7+ years. We’ve shared too many moments to remember, in a vehicle, together, belting out song after song from each album like memorized homework.

- - - -

The beautiful gal to my immediate right is my marvelous wife, Becky. When we met in 2011, the radio in her car knew no other station than the most popular local Country option.

Her favorite Country artist growing up through the ’90s was Shania Twain. But a close second, she’s always told me, would have been Rascal Flatts.

As we were dating to then being married, we would talk about how fun it’d be to get to a Rascal Flatts concert, together. And like many things in life, it all goes too fast.

In 2020, Rascal Flatts was set to go on what they were billing as their final tour, concluding a 20-year run of successes. And I was planning on finally getting Becky and I tickets. Then COVID happened.

The tour was canceled. The group disbanded with nothing short of a fizzle.

- - - -

Fast forward to last night, we had the opportunity to see Gary LeVox, former lead singer of the Rascal Flatts, who’s starting to tour on his own, in concert at a very intimate and low-key Ribfest concert series in a neighboring community.

AND IT WAS A BLAST.

95% of what he played were Rascal Flatts tunes. Old memories relived. New memories, formed.

All because a few close people in my life have a passion for what the Rascal Flatts accomplished… sounded like… wrote songs about… how they performed… and the ‘feelings’ they gave you when listening to their music or attending one of their concerts.

It was an unforgettable night with my wife, and one of my best friends, along with his wife, Brit, whose birthday was today; so we were also celebrating her last night as well! So much goodness. Such good friends. None of us wanted the night to end.

I’ll cherish the above picture and all the memories that will go along with it for a long, long time.

_{Do you follow Twitter? If not, I’ll post my “Sales Tweets of The Week” below, for more thought-provoking ideas, trends, or stories. Check them out below!}

Identify parts of your sales process that you love to perform.

What’s up homies! Hope you had a great weekend and are ready to put on your best show this week, for the people it matters to most.

Let’s talk about how identifying parts of your sales process as favorite elements of your job can lead to new passions, and successes, in business.

As my above tweet from last week mentioned, passion (for something!) can separate the best SALES reps from the average.

Here are three quick areas where I look to continually differentiate via passionate areas of focus.

^{Proposal writing; being able to tell a story.}

All the way back to high school, I was always the kid that much preferred to write an essay or paper, rather than take a test.

Throughout most of my SALES career, I’ve been able to flex that creative writing muscle through the need to generate and story tell through proposals.

• When I worked for really large organizations and struggled to be relatable to localized prospects, I would delete the bland, corporate-looking photos with local images and pictures to show and tell our prospects that we’re invested in the marketplace.

• SALES TIP: Include local names and faces in any of your proposals. People by from other people.

• I always have preferred to tell stories by using visual representations, not just text. Beyond the proposal, I would make sure any presentation I was a part of had incorporations of visually appealing and differentiating ideas.

^{Long game vs. Short game (which do you prefer?)}

Over the years, when I’ve had SALES roles that required meeting immediate monthly quotas or goals, I initially struggled more than in the roles where the production requirement runway was longer.

I’ve always had a passion for developing relationships. I’ve always enjoyed having a large circle of influence or being part of a larger group of friends, for example. That’s harder to do if you’re selling over short periods. When I’ve been able to sell in longer sales processes and/or cycles, my relationship-building skills, and passions, are able to come to the forefront to support the successes I seek.

• I want to be able to get to know a prospect’s family. Do they have kids? What are their favorite hobbies? Do they, too, like the Rascal Flatts?

• Relationship selling affords both short-term goal achievement and provides longer-term stability of revenues for tomorrow.

• Getting to know a prospect personally can also help you understand how they’ll ultimately make buying decisions.

If you’re working a SALES job where your success is tied to relationship building, and that’s not your cup of tea? Time to find a new SALES job.

^{Teaching vs Selling.}

I’ve long since had the teaching/coaching bug. However, one of my largest passions is consulting with a prospect or customer.

The SALES reps that are able to influence a prospect are the SALES reps that ultimately have the most success.

I prefer to take a consultative approach with prospects for a number of reasons:

• It is actually hard to be “salesy” when you’re educating someone.

• It is easy to be liked when you’re teaching a prospect something of value.

• You become a subject matter expert (SME) and “known” for your craft, which aids in referrals and repeat business.

^{If you find the Sales Homie newsletter to be educational, fun, and worthwhile, please comment, share, and like each blast!}

The moral of the story? Everyone has heard the age-old saying, ‘If you work with a passion each day, you’ll never work a day in your life.’

Take that idea a step further and understand that passions, just like in your personal life, are the building blocks towards fulfillment. I don’t know of anyone over my 21+ year career that stayed in a job for more than a couple of years if they weren’t getting fulfilled from … some part of their job.

That ‘some part?’ That’s your passion. That’s where you want to dig deeper and understand how you can do more of ‘it’ to both feel great and win along the way.

Sales Tweets of The Week!

If you found this content to be relevant and helpful, please hit the subscribe button below to receive my weekly blast. You can also follow me on Twitter and LinkedIn for more conversation and discovery!