Being exceptional revolves around your strengths! To be exceptional in Sales you have to engage your strengths.
Take a look at your last annual review. Chances are you and your manager circled several things that you are to work on this year in order to improve your sales. It would be a good bet that most (if not all) of the circles are around your weaknesses. Fix your weaknesses and you will be a success. Isn't this what we have been told almost from the crib? Your sales manager will most likely want to see improvement in your weak areas in the hopes of getting more sales.
This focus on fixing ones weakness in order to be successful has many false assumptions; the main one being that by fixing your problem-areas you can become a top producer. However, top producer are exceptional at what they do and no one becomes exceptional by fixing their weaknesses. Engaging your strengths is your only hope of becoming exceptional.
Key point engaging strengths equals exceptional!
fixing weaknesses equals competence. Do you want to be competent or do you want to be exceptional?
Engaging Your Strengths
Whenever you take a look at exceptional people, you will find that they get to do what they do best every day. You need to become an expert on your strengths so that you can do what you do best every day. If you do then you have a chance to be the best in the world at what you do. Imagine the kind of sales you would have if you were the best in the world!
The first place to start is to listen to your inner voice. For years, your inner voice has pushed you toward those things that you do best.
I worked with a client (lets call him Joe) whose sales manager made it a top priority for him to improve his cold calling. This was a weakness for Joe. Joe needed to learn how to manage his cold calling, but he was never going to be exceptional at it.
I had a discussion with Joe and asked him about what inspires him, what gets him excited. It was difficult, and we had to dig deeper and deeper to find out what really made Joe tick. For him, giving his clients an extreme experience, one they would talk about to others, really got him pumped up. So, we worked on that idea and came up with three extreme events for his clients.
One event was a luncheon at a local restaurant where Joe gave out exceptional client awards. It was a mini celebration for him and his clients. It was an exceptional event (working from strengths) that produced futures sales and referrals! referrals are always better than cold calling.
Key Point: Listen to your inner voice to find those areas that excite and inspire you. These are most likely your areas of strength.
Engage your strengths to become EXCEPTIONAL! |
