Article provided by Sales Guru
This saying “Diligence is the mother of good luck …”– attributed generally to golfer Gary Player, but allegedly uttered by Ben Franklin more than 200 years before – is way overused. But it’s also entirely true as anyone who has experienced a spot of good luck unexpectedly can attest to it. But would you like to know the simple secret to setting yourself up for major-league good luck? Try variations of the following:
Network. That’s where the people are.
People are amazing and that’s one of the key reasons people give for getting into sales in the first place. They get to spend more time with people. But a key ingredient in any really successful salesperson’s recipe is the fact that they take the time to network, network, network … and to follow up on the leads that they generate through that activity. Simply put: the more you’re out there, the more people you’ll meet and you never know who may be just around the next corner. That person who your colleague met who opened doors for them into that major client? That meeting may have been something of a fluke … a real piece of unexpected good luck … a bolt from the blue … but the only reason that bolt from the blue was able to happen was that your colleague was in the right place at the right time. And that required them to take some action and go and be somewhere other than in front of their TV at night.
Visit more customers. That’s where the decisions get made.
If you’ve been in sales for a little while you’ll know that customers can be weird. Some of them make decisions so quickly and so randomly that you can’t keep up. Some are more studious and structured and make decisions with cool calculation. Those ones you know how to deal with. But the others are the ones that provide what are colloquially known as bluebirds – pretty little deals that fly in through the open window when you least expect it. The thing about bluebirds though is you have to be in a position to grab them. I’ve seen this happen personally when an advertising salesperson walked into a media agency I was visiting and someone shouted “Hey Brian, good to see you, I’ve got R150,000 to spend. What can you do for me?” Would the guy have got the call if he wasn’t there? Maybe. But he was working his people by being there and as a result he was in the right place at the right time to receive that piece of good luck.
Pay more attention. Information is power.
Read the news. Pay attention to gossip (sort of… don’t be the person who spreads it, but listen to what’s going around). Information is everywhere. But if you’re sitting behind your desk, idly playing solitaire or randomly sending shot-in-the-dark emails, you’re not being open to the random pieces of information that could change your world. Ask questions. The more you know, the more ideas will come to you. Salespeople that operate in an information vacuum rarely put themselves in a position to capitalize on random pieces of good luck.
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