See a bright tomorrow through dark lens today to thrive in selling

It is difficult to see a compelling tomorrow when you cannot raise your eyes away from a trying today.

This is the predicament that those new in sales find themselves. The brightness of tomorrow is dimmed by the rejection of today. The message of a glimmering tomorrow is distorted by the lack of closes today.

The belief that they shall overcome like the successful salesman they admire fades quickly with every passing NO! It is difficult to see a compelling tomorrow when you cannot raise your eyes away from a trying today.

Seeing beyond one’s challenges is the beginning of success in selling (and life). Seeing beyond the rejection, the unending proposals, and continual pressure is the beginning of the transformation necessary for success.

Seeing beyond the trying today is the only way to get to the promised land. Yet seeing beyond does not imply being oblivious to; it means being driven by a gripping force of a dazzling tomorrow that is larger than the pressing one of a dreary today.

And it is this gripping force that sees the salesperson move quickly along the learning curve, accepting that the challenges come with the territory and finding solutions to them.

It is this conviction that determines whether the salesperson will stay on the path to Canaan or lose sight of it overwhelmed by the temptation of an easier life in Egypt.

The challenges the salesperson are only comprehensible to one who has undergone them. Dwindling fortunes despite giving it his all, continual negotiations with the landlord because of an erratic rent payment, waiting hours on end because it’s the only way to ensure that the cat and mouse game of the unscrupulous distributor ends and one pays up, eking out a living and being discriminated upon because you don’t fit in (by lending institutions for instance because of irregular income).

To see beyond these challenges, head held high and eyes set on the blazing sunshine and not dimming sunset is the mark of the successful salesperson.

One of the ways of keeping the inviting tomorrow in focus is through setting selfish goals. These goals could be as modest as buying a TV set or pursuing a degree and as grand as buying a house of building an estate.

This must start, however, after careful soul searching answering the question, “what does being in sales mean to me?” and finding the energising and emotional reason why you are selling.

Another way, institutions help salespeople overcome the temporary challenges of today is through effective and caring sales managers and mentors.

Why is it important to see beyond today? Because there is great reward in selling; in getting a sense of movement through life by overcoming the trials it throws at you; in enhancing your interpersonal skills as only the sales job does on a daily basis. And there is great reward in knowing that you can sell.

At the height of the credit crunch institutions downsized heavily and many of the staff that survived found themselves spending up to 40 per cent of their time selling, even if their job description read procurement. One can only imagine how much more difficult it was for these persons to see the compelling tomorrow through the lens of a trying today.

Finally, when you end up running a business of your own, you don’t want to be discovering then that it is difficult to see a compelling tomorrow when you cannot raise your eyes away from a trying today.

Mr Kageche is Lead Facilitator Lend Me Your Ears, a sales and speaker training firm. Email: [email protected]