How To Develop An Unstoppable Drive To Sales Success

Salespeople and startup entrepreneurs all strive to have an unstoppable drive toward sales success; however, this isn’t an easy feat. There are hurdles to face before that success can be attained. How do you get the unstoppable drive to sales success?

Dre Baldwin was a professional basketball player. He graduated from Penn State and played overseas for nine years across eight different countries. He is now an author and speaker. Dre creates programs for both athletes and non-athletes and does coaching and consulting, among his many jobs. He is also considered as an influencer with YouTube views of over 40 million.  

The beginning of his basketball career 

Dre started playing basketball at the later age of fourteen. With other players starting out much earlier, many were better than he was and had a greater skill set. With this in mind, he knew the only way for him to get better and earn their respect was to do more than everybody else was doing. 

He practiced way before others were coming to the court. While people started playing when the sun went down, he started playing between 10 AM to 4 PM, when it was too hot for others to join him. He didn’t have a coach or a mentor so there was no one  he could ask for help. He had to drive himself to improve.  

Dre went on to college and tried out for the basketball team as a walk-on. Fortunately, he had improved enough to be recruited in his freshman year and by summer, he was invited to go to another Penn State branch that was a NCAA division three school.

Developing the drive 

Many success stories have a rags to riches origin story but that wasn’t Dre’s case.  He grew up comfortably with both parents. When you’re comfortable, where does the drive come from that pushes you to do better?  For Dre, it was seeing the success of people who’d truly had rags to riches stories, like 50 Cent and Jay Z. Dre’s favorite entertainer is the rapper 50 Cent who was shot nine times and almost died. 50 Cent ended up making it big in the industry, working hard to get out of the ghetto and into a glamorous life. Jay Z came from the projects, didn’t know his father, was selling drugs on the streets, and became wildly successful as a rapper. 

These people grew up in some of the worse situations but they turned their lives around. You might ask yourself how you can have the same success story by finding ways to motivate yourself to do better.

Having the force within

Many people have to find the drive within themselves to strive for better. You have to force yourself to find inspiration and get motivated. 

Dre works hard and keeps himself motivated to strive harder. He’s published books on self-discipline and he’s talked about it on podcasts and a variety of other platforms. Knowing that he’s created so much content himself, he realizes that information is available if you’re driven to apply it. How to move into success isn’t a secret.  Being successful is more about your willingness to show up and take action over and over again. 

The lies keeping you from success

The most common lie that keeps people from realizing success is I can’t do this because ________ and they fill in the blank with all kinds of reasons. The other lie is I need more information. This is something that we hear a lot. More often than not, people already have the steps and the training but they’re just not sure if they’re doing it correctly. This is especially true if they are looking at other people who are doing it differently. 

We need to understand that not everything works immediately. Starting the process doesn’t mean immediate success. In the same way that buying an SEO online course doesn’t mean that your website will rank number one within a week. You need to put in the work over and over again. Success is not a matter of what you’ve done or what you’re doing in the moment, it’s a matter of showing up and doing it repeatedly.

When you don’t see immediate success you don’t have to question all the information you’ve gathered and go back to information-gathering mode. You must take action and not stop.

Taking the leap

Dre’s basketball team in college got a new coach and he wanted new players. Dre was kept on the team initially but was eventually let go.  He didn’t play basketball the last year and a half he went to school. When he got his degree, he went back home to Philadelphia and his parents asked him what he was doing next .He told them that he was going to play professional basketball. At this point, his parents hadn’t gotten to him play. He was 22 years old with a degree in business but he was choosing to play basketball. It made no sense. 

When he graduated, Dre had no resume or experience  and that became his drive. He went to an exposure camp, where you bring your sports gear and play against other players. This is where you prove your worth in front of coaches, managers, agent scouts, power brokers in eSports, and other power players. Dre got a video from the camp and that became his golden ticket to professional basketball. He emailed every basketball agent he could find and he sent his video to those who replied to his initial message. Dre also uploaded the video on YouTube, beginning his YouTube career. He finally found an agent and this agent negotiated Dre’s first game in Lithuania. 

Explore social media platforms 

Dre was doing social media before it boomed and became the business it is today. There were no ads on YouTube then and wasn’t yet a platform where you could monetize your content. Dre’s videos were mainly uploaded for safekeeping but people saw his videos and kept asking questions.

Dre realized that YouTube was an underutilized resource. He decided to bring his camera with him to the gym and started filming everything. He then uploaded these to YouTube thinking his videos may help other people improve their game. It wasn’t about the money, it was about helping others. Viewers responded to Dre because they could see his genuine desire to help and he was authentic. He didn’t pretend to be anyone else in front of the camera.  Dre was himself and his viewers kept coming back.  

“How To Develop An Unstoppable Drive To Sales Success” episode resources

There are so many resources that sellers utilize. Social media is one of the most powerful ways you can increase brand awareness.

Whatever competition you may face, the one competitive advantage that can never be duplicated is your individuality. When you talk authentically with other people, you’re not only sharing your products and services, you are also allowing them to see you as a person and with customers, that goes a long way.

Dre Baldwin is in every social media: Snapchat, Instagram, Twitter, etc. Let us answer your sales inquiries. You can also talk to Donald directly via LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook about any sales concerns. 

This episode is brought to you in part by TSE Certified Sales Training Program. It’s a course designed to help new and struggling sellers to master the fundamentals of sales and close more deals. Sign up now and get the first two modules for free! You can also call us at (561) 570-5077. 

We have a new semester beginning on February 14th and we would love to have you and your team join us. Follow this link to apply to the program. 

We’d love for you to join us for our next episodes so tune in on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Stitcher, and Spotify. You can also leave comments, suggestions, and ratings to every episode you listen to. 

You can also read more about sales or listen to audiobooks on Audible and explore this huge online library. Register now to get a free book and a 30-day free trial. 

Audio provided by Free SFX and Bensound. Other songs used in the episodes are as follows: The Organ Grinder written by Bradley Jay Hill, performed by Bright Seed, and Produced by Brightseed and Hill.

10 High-Performance Habits That Lead To Success 

An article entitled 10 High-Performance Habits that Lead to Success by Justin Su’a is noteworthy. This isn’t a normal article.  It talks about 10 specific principles that, if practiced carefully, will help increase one’s performance and mental toughness. 

Justin Su’a is a former competitive baseball player and despite not having the physical prowess and physical ability like some other players, he was still able to gain success. His family trained him to face any adversity with a positive mindset. Their team also had a sports psychologist who spoke to the players about tools and strategies that were taught to Olympians. 

The principles taught by the sports psychologist resonated with Justin and ignited a desire for him to follow the same career path. These principles not only work for sports but can be applied by people of all walks to every aspect of life.  Here are the 10 high-performance habits that lead to success: 

• Win the morning
• Do hard things
• Embrace feedback
• Learn from failure
• Choose your attitude
• Do one more
• Have a purpose
• Recommit every single day
•  Be patient
• Fear no one

Win the morning

Winning the morning is all about starting strong. People complain they don’t have enough time in the day but the truth is, there’s not enough time because they’re not using the time they have. Instead, they’re wasting it.  All you need to do is to start the morning strong by getting up with purpose. Successful people and high-performers are able to do hard things. Sometimes one of these is to wake up early when nobody else does. 

Move towards your goal by telling your body to get up, even when it wants to sleep. This is you practicing to dominate your body. If you do that over and over again, you are going to be able to train yourself to do difficult things. When you don’t want to pick up the phone to make a sales call, train yourself by telling yourself to pick up the phone anyway. Make that first decision ad it will get easier. Winning the morning is important because it starts your day off with taking control. Tell yourself to do one thing and attack it. 

Regardless of whether you’re a night person or a morning person, your morning begins when you wake up. Wake up strong by doing it on purpose and with passion. Set up a routine, workout, eat right, fill your mind, and fill your heart. 

There are two things that people often underestimate when trying to achieve greatness: How long it’s going to take and how hard it’s going to be. Whether you set a personal goal or a professional goal, don’t underestimate how difficult it’s going to be or how long it’s going to take for you to achieve the goals. The danger in doing so is that you’re mentally unprepared when adversity comes. When problems strike, many would-be performers pull the plug and give up. High-performers, on the other hand, have the ability to do hard things because they have acknowledged beforehand that achieving their goals may be hard. They’ve prepared themselves mentally and physically for the hard things. 

Successful people didn’t realize their achievements overnight. Many hours, days, months, and sometimes years are spent working towards their goals. They win the morning and keep going.

Whatever time you wake up, win the morning. Wake up with purpose and attack the day! #SalesTalk

Little things matter

People tend to seek out the hard actions and don’t realize the tedious detail-oriented things matter just as much. Examples are reading for on-going education and taking notes during training.  Great performers don’t take these details for granted. The details that need to be executed will be different from one person to the next. The key is to find the details that apply to your success and whatever they are, do them. 

Learn from failures

The inability to learn from failure is the number one factor that destroys would-be performers. Many professionals from various careers and industries are afraid of failure.  It’s not necessarily even the failure in itself, but their interpretation of failure. They perceive that failure means they’re not good enough. These negative phrases that play over and over in someone’s mind lead to feelings of failure but you can train yourself to understand these feelings don’t reflect the truth of the situation. Instead of viewing failure negatively, It can be looked at as an opportunity to learn. Every successful entrepreneur has seen failure and fought against it. They overcome these adversities by using failures as a means to learn from their mistakes and get better. 

Sarah Blakely, the CEO of Spanx, was asked why she’s so good at her job. She attributed her success to the training that got from her father. Sarah’s father would ask her, “How did you fail today and what did you learn from it?”  She grew up learning from failure. Those who are willing to learn from failure will fear it less and those who fear it less are more dangerous because they know how to use it.

When you can wake up every morning, not being afraid of failure, you take the pressure off yourself.  You’re able to go after your goals and take chances you might not have otherwise. You will experience failure but when you do, you’ll know how to face it, learn from it, and overcome. 

A laundry list of failures 

Prepare yourself mentally for failure by listing all the ways you could fail. List them all no matter how simple, unlikely, or outrageous these failures could be. Once you have identified them, think of ways to respond to each of these scenarios and have a plan of action. Having a bounce-back plan gives you the confidence to take care of these potential adversities because now you know you have a course of action. This will save you from reacting emotionally and negatively when failure strikes and you will be less likely to give up. 

Keeping the momentum

We can start a new venture well but it takes the right traits and qualities to keep the momentum going. Typically, the problem isn’t about the lack of motivation or the lack of competence.  Oftentimes, the problem lies in the size of the list. 

Sometimes we have too many actions on the list and we become overwhelmed. It’s important to start small. Start with one high-performance habit and when you achieve it, motivation will naturally fall into place.

There are many elements to having mental toughness. The most important thing is to identify the one thing that keeps you from excelling right now and take on a new habit to defeat that mindset or situation. Hone in and develop the behaviors around that. Once you’ve automated that one habit, go onto the next one. It’s a continuous learning process. It’s continual growth and development until you become the successful person you want to become. 

Do one more

You can also develop mental toughness by doing something even if it’s difficult to do. Your body will go where your mind takes you. The ‘do one more’ principle means telling your body what you want it to do. If a typical salesperson has a goal of talking to 10 prospects in one day, then don’t be typical. Do one more. By making this decision, you’ve taken control.  Doing this over and over again will increase your motivation as you achieve your goals. This is one of the most powerful principles that you can develop.  

High performers don’t settle for average. They go up and beyond. They hit one more call, they read one more book, and they write one more email. That is the separating factor. 

Fear no one

Fear no one but be respectful to everyone. Treat everyone the same regardless of their social status and carry this mindset everywhere you go, regardless of who you’re talking to.  Everyone is important.  

Stop trying to read other people’s minds because that will plant seeds of doubts in your own brain and you defeat yourself.  You’re allowing other people to intimidate you because of the script you’ve created in your own mind. You may have a little trepidation but that’s normal. Everyone feels some fear but you still have the opportunity to be courageous by acting despite the fear. Remember, anyone can be beaten. 

“10 High-Performance Habits That Lead To Success” episode resources

Success is a choice. As a salesperson, always make the right choice. Contact Justin Su’a via Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. 

If you have more sales concerns, you can also talk to Donald about it via LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook for any sales concerns. 

This episode is brought to you in part by TSE Certified Sales Training Program. It’s a course designed to help new and struggling sellers to master the fundamentals of sales and close more deals. Sign up now and get the first two modules for free! You can also call us at (561) 570-5077. 

We have a new semester beginning in January and we would love to have you and your team join us. Follow this link to apply to the program. 

We’d love for you to join us for our next episodes so tune in on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Stitcher, and Spotify. You can also leave comments, suggestions, and ratings to every episode you listen to. 

You can also read more about sales or listen to audiobooks on Audible and explore this huge online library. Register now to get a free book and a 30-day free trial. 

Audio provided by Free SFX and Bensound. Other songs used in the episodes are as follows: The Organ Grinder written by Bradley Jay Hill, performed by Bright Seed, and Produced by Brightseed and Hill.

The Accidental Seller - Stephen Snyder

Welcome to the fifth episode of The Accidental Series. 

Some people are into sales because it’s their passion, while others were led to the industry because of their circumstances. We call them the accidental sellers. 

Stephen Snyder is a district sales coordinator for Aflac. Growing up, Stephen loved playing sports and he aspired to become a professional athlete. In his college days, he was fortunate enough to play baseball. He was good at it and his life revolved around playing the game. Despite that, he didn’t become a professional baseball player. Apparently, life had other plans for Stephen. 

Stephen realized that sports wasn’t for him after doing an internship during his senior year in college. He saw how tough it was to work in the field of sports marketing. You didn’t become the head of scouting just because you knew the game.  His job as an intern required physical labor from 7 AM until the end of the game. A sports manager had to be at the field long after the game was over to help with any tasks needed, including covering the field with tarp.Stephen thought that he could do more.

Becoming an accidental seller 

By the time Stephen finished his education, the economy was taking a downturn. Although he graduated with a degree in sports marketing and kept  looking for work in his field, most available jobs were all about sales. It seemed everyone was either selling a yellow book or insurance. Salespeople were often associated with the “usedcar salesman” stereotype so because of this, it took a long time for Stephen to consider sales as a long-term career. 

Stephen eventually reached out to his friend who had been working with Aflac. He decided to try sales until he could find himself a “real” job. Years later, Stephen is still with Aflac excelling as a salesperson. He realized the old stereotypes don't have to apply.  For Stephen, it was about meeting people and talking to them about the services provided by Aflac. 

The difficult part of selling

When he started with the company, Stephen was provided with a script. When a sale didn’t go through, he was made to think that it was because he didn’t stick to the script. Stephen is anl introvert and although he is comfortable with talking to people, he’d always kept a protective shell around him where he could remain comfortable. The challenge he was facing in sales was how to prospect in his own way. Like any other salesperson, Stephen was also afraid of rejection. 

There were many days  he thought of quitting sales but when he actually got to thinking about it, he found that sales could be fun too. As a former athlete, he found the competition he loved could be applied to sales too.  There was a scoreboard all the salespeople tracked their sales this brought out the competitive spirit in him. 

Seeing success in sales

Competitiveness and a good team atmosphere are great ways for an accidental seller to stay motivated. Salespeople thrive when they know that a mistake is made, they won’t be criticized, but instead, coaching is offered instead.. As a salesperson improves and starts setting appointments, he sees his actions cause a snowball effect . This results in good sales.  

Stephen’s first deal started with an elevator ride. He began talking to a man who turned out to be a business owner and the decision-maker in his company. They had a good-natured discussion and Stephen was able to land an appointment. 

That business owner decided to pay 100% of the voluntary insurance product for his employees. It was one of the best deals Stephen’s company had seen.. 

After 11 years, Stephen continues to work for Aflac.. Working for the company has given him so many opportunities and a certain level of success. 

A salesperson needs to consistently find ways to improve. A scoreboard is one  strategy to track success and stay competitive.

Even when you’ve found sales by accident, keep going because you will find success. Just put in the work, have a routine, and you’ll start seeing results. #SalesTalk

“The Accidental Seller - Stephen Snyder”

Contact Stephen Snyder via his email, stephensnyder2017@gmail.com or connect with him on LinkedIn. 

You can also reach out to Donald via LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook for any sales concerns. 

This episode is brought to you in part by TSE Certified Sales Training Program. It’s a course designed to help new and struggling sellers to master the fundamentals of sales and close more deals. Sign up now and get the first two modules for free! You can also call us at (561) 570-5077. 

We’d love for you to join us for our next episodes so tune in on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Stitcher, and Spotify. You can also leave comments, suggestions, and ratings to every episode you listen to. 

You can also read more about sales or listen to audiobooks on Audible and explore this huge online library. Register now to get a free book and a 30-day free trial. 

Audio provided by Free SFX and Bensound.

Helping Your Sales Team Perform Their Best 

I sat down with Fred Diamond at Podcast Movement 2019 to discuss the keys to helping your sales team perform their best. Fred is the host of Sales Game Changers Podcast and today he turned the microphone on me and allowed me to share the things I've learned during my career in sales. 

The Sales Evangelist

This podcast resulted from my own struggle as a B2B seller. Because of my own struggles, I wanted to help new and struggling sellers improve their sales game. I wanted to educate people who were in the same shoes and help elevate their performance. 

As The Sales Evangelist podcast grew, people in our community of sellers reached out to me for sales coaching. I started with one-on-one coaching for reps, and then those reps took their training back to their companies, and I started hearing from entrepreneurs and other business owners who needed to replicate themselves so they could scale their companies. 

I launched into the consulting side and helped businesses set up their sales teams. Eventually, that led to speaking opportunities and other things, so in 2015 I left my full-time job to do The Sales Evangelist full time. 

The podcast didn’t make money on its own, but it did generate leads and coaching opportunities and speaking and consulting gigs. Now, though, it generates its own income. 

Sales career

I got into sales before college, partly because my entire family was involved in sales. As a Jamaican boy, I grew up in a setting where everyone sold something. I didn’t see it as sales, necessarily. I simply saw it as the family business. 

I’m naturally outgoing, so people told me I’d be perfect in a sales career. That continued through college where I struggled to find a sales program. 

Eventually, I got a couple of sales jobs in timeshares and door-to-door that involved B2C selling. I made about $20,000 in three months selling door-to-door over the summer during my first year. 

When I transitioned to the professional world of selling, though, I struggled. 

Lessons learned

One of the things I learned selling door-to-door was the value of working smart. I saw people who worked hard but who weren’t effective, so they got burned out because they continued doing things that were ineffective. Those who hustled, on the other hand, worked efficiently and they practiced their messaging and they stopped doing things that didn’t work. 

I learned that I had to be willing to move on when a sale didn’t work out. 

Eventually, I moved into a BDR role in a B2B company, and I brought that need to work efficiently and plan my activities because it was a full-commission job. 

Time is money, and I needed to pay rent. 

During my time at the IT training company, Steve Hatch took me under his wing. He was the CEO of the company, and he taught me both the sales and the business sides of his company. In several cases, he did that by throwing me into the deep end. 

We were trying to work a deal with a local NPR station and he helped me learn to lead the deal and negotiate the deal. He helped me see who I could eventually become. 

Sales challenges

Current sales reps face a number of challenges that are unique to the kind of setting they operate in. Most of the ones I meet with struggle with prospecting, and with prospecting effectively. 

Many learn that cold calling is dead, for example, but they work for companies that were built by cold calling. Their leaders want them to engage in cold-calling but others tell them it’s ineffective, so they feel pulled in different directions. 

At the same time, many sellers struggle with the idea of social selling in which they engage with people on social media. They often don’t have the confidence to do it effectively, so they wait for inbound leads to come, and though they do often come, it simply isn’t enough. 

I constantly give training on how to use LinkedIn and how to take advantage of cadences and flow processes for outreach. 

Prospecting

Multichannel outreach, sometimes called omnichannel, matters the most in prospecting. When I work with sales reps, I encourage them to begin their interactions on social media. Make a genuine connection with people as a starting point. 

Understand that genuine connection doesn’t mean you simply “like” something that they posted or shared. Instead, engage with that person. If someone comments on something you share, take that conversation to the inbox next and tell him how much you appreciate his comment. Then, once you’ve built that connection, you can move the conversation to a phone call. 

Now you’ve created a warm, engaging connection. 

Then, for enterprise sales, you can even take advantage of snail mail to send them something to grab their attention. We created a Willy Wonka style ticket and invited them to join us for our demo. We sent sodas and snacks and a Starbucks gift card. We spent about $12 for each of three boxes and landed about $100,000 worth of deals. 

Sales tips

I read a lot of books in an effort to improve my game, and one of my recent favorites is Mike Weinberg’s Sales Management. Simplified. because he focuses on fundamentals. For me, mastering those fundamentals is the key to moving to the next level. Aside from prospecting, asking appropriate questions makes a big difference as well. 

Sellers who know nothing about their buyers our pipelines won’t matter at all. We’re skipping the discovery process and we’re missing a chance to ask meaningful questions and demonstrate our expertise. 

Related to that topic, time management presents a big struggle for sellers right now. I attribute my continued success to planning. In fact, I’ve created a selling planner because I couldn’t find one that I liked. 

I read a book by Kevin Kruse called the 15 Secrets Successful People Know  and another called The 12 Week Year related to time management. A lot of sales reps throw as many things as they can on a calendar in hopes that they can maximize their time. 

Instead, I break my day down based on categories to measure my effectiveness. I separate sales activities, marketing activities, and operations. I tracked those activities for a week to see where the commonalities are and which tasks I’m repeatedly doing. Then, I eliminated tasks that my team could do for me so I could focus on sales-related tasks. 

Preparation

Do a three-minute prep prior to each sales call. If you have a focused list of clients, consider hiring someone to do research on each of those clients. Find out the following:

• How does this company make money?
• What challenges do they have that they aren’t even necessarily aware of?
• What common challenges are they facing?
• How does this person I’m going to call help the company make money?

If you can help your customer achieve his goals, you’ll be so much further down the path. The process isn’t about you.

Discover what your customers are trying to accomplish for their customers. #Sales

Someone is going to solve your customer’s problem. Why don’t you figure it out first and be the first to provide the solution?

“Helping Your Sales Team Perform” episode resources

Connect with Donald on LinkedIn. Also, check out the Sales Game Changers Podcast.

 If you’re a sales rep looking to hone your craft and learn from the top 1% of sellers, make plans to attend the Sales Success Summit in Austin, Tx, October 14-15. Scheduled on a Monday and Tuesday to limit the impact to the sales week, the Sales Success Summit connects sellers with top-level performers who have appeared on the podcast. Visit Top1Summit.com to learn more and register! 

You can also connect with me at donald@thesalesevangelist.com or try our first module of  TSE Certified Sales Training Program for free. This episode has been made possible with the help of  TSE Certified Sales Training Program, a training course designed to help sellers in improving their performance. We want you guys to go out each and every single day to find more ideal customers and do big things.

I hope you like and learned many things from this episode. If you did, please review us and give us a five-star rating on Apple podcast or in any platform you’re using - Google Podcast, Stitcher, and Spotify.  You can also share this with your friends and colleagues. 

Audio provided by Free SFX and Bensound.