Do you choose to be a great salesperson? Great sales performance doesn’t come overnight, like most of the success. If you choose to be a great salesperson, you should definitely follow the guiding principles from Jim Collins’ masterpiece Great by Choice.
Jim Collins is not just a writer that comes up with an idea and starts to write a book. Jim Collins does extensive research before he’s going to start writing. After 6 years of researching, he wrote the book Built to Last, and after another 7 years of research, he had his breakthrough with the bestseller Good to Great. His most recent book Great by Choice (2011), followed another 9 years of study. Great by Choice analyses how the world’s best companies thrive in even the most uncertain and chaotic times. In this article, I link the results of the book to great sales performance.
So, what does the book say about greatness? While I recommend everyone to read the book, I summarize a few of the fundamental principles here.
Discipline is key to building a great company
In his book, Jim Collins used the anecdote about the two famous South Pole expeditions that both started simultaneously in 1910. One team successfully reached the South Pole and returned home safe, while the other team never made it back.
The winning team did one thing consistently; they walked 20 miles every single day, no matter how good or bad the weather was. Because of this, they conserved their energy and could manage their resources a lot better. They made consistently progress, while the other team did it with ups and downs. The losing team used all their energy on good days, and when the weather was bad, they had no energy left. They never made their way home, unfortunately…
In sales, you should follow the same guiding principle. Consistency is key. Don’t only do the right actions when you have a good day. Do the same when you have a bad day. Discipline habits are the key to any success in the world.
“Greatness is first and foremost a matter of conscious choice and discipline”
Jim Collins
Only innovate when the evidence supports it
Jim Collins says, ‘Great companies are innovative, but not just for the sake of being innovative.’ Do you see companies like Google, Microsoft, and Apple coming up with new big product launches every week?
Jim Collins calls it ‘First fire bullets, then cannonballs.’
In other words, when you want to do something new, don’t just radically change the direction of your organization. First, try to change with small moves, and when this works, go further. The same goes up to when you, as a sales manager, want to sell new products or when you tend to implement new sales strategies. Let some of your salespeople try to sell something new to see if it works. When it is a success, you could decide to further roll-out your new strategy. When it doesn’t work, you could try to do something else without disrupting your whole sales process.
Never rely on luck
For sales, I believe this an important one. When you are a great salesperson, I am sure that you have often heard that you must be extremely lucky. Great salespeople know better.
In Great by Choice, Jim Collins says that the best companies never rely on luck. They are lucky because they work extremely hard. When an opportunity knocks on the door, they are prepared. Great companies never just sit and wait to see what happens.
The same goes up for great salespeople. They work their asses off, and then they start to get lucky. They understand that success doesn’t come overnight, despite all the things you see on social media. Great salespeople create their luck.
What do you think of Jim Collins’ research in relation to sales? Let me know!
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