in this country and abroad. They had the desire but not the training or the income. They came to the seminar. They learned the material. They used it daily. And then, all of a sudden, they not only had the desire and the training, but also had the income they wanted.
The highlight of my life comes when people take my training, go out with it and win whatever amount of success they need, and then tell me about it.
Now let me tell you about some of the Champions who’ve done that. Here’s a Champion whose actions may startle you. Until he was eighteen, Robert Burns worked on his father’s ranch. It was dependable work, but he wanted more from life than he could lift with a pitchfork, so he decided to enter the profession of selling. He took my training. When Robert celebrated his twenty-third birthday, his sales earnings were headed over the half-million mark for the year.
I don’t know any better word for it than excitement. It’s exciting to know that if you learn the material and then go out and do what you know you should do, there’s no ceiling on your income. People often tell me that they’re too young for sales. Robert Burns wasn’t too young. Today, he’s a major developer and multimillionaire.
And other people say they’re too old. Let me tell you about Gertrude Nunn. I met her years ago, not too long after her former employer had said that she was getting too old for the job and should retire. She walked out, puttered around for a month, and decided that she wanted to be where the action is. Gertrude had no background in sales but by happy accident she heard about our training and took it. At seventy-five years young, she was earning over a hundred thousand dollars a year.
Jimmie Walker is another Champion. He started learning about professionally selling insurance when he was sixteen. He dedicated himself to greatness in the field and succeeded. How many people do you know at any age—let alone their early twenties—who earned enough money to acquire a major professional sports team? Jimmie Walker did.
Our next Champion, David Bernstein, became one of the top four in luxury car leasing at a very young age. For years, I’ve preached the importance of sending thank-you notes, but I’d never seen anyone use this technique more effectively than David Bernstein did. Within a week of meeting him as a prospect, a member of my staff and I received four of these notes from Bernstein, all of them well-written, sincere, personal notes that made a solid impression.
David Bernstein is a true Champion.
Aside from being graduates of my training, what do all four of these people have in common?
The twelve characteristics of a Champion are what they all have. In the next chapter, we’ll take a careful look at these marks of the Champion.
CHAPTER 2
The Twelve Sources of Sensational Selling Success
I’m often asked for personality traits or characteristics of the top people in selling. Those new to selling or veterans wanting to boost their incomes are smart to ask about qualities they can develop within themselves in order to succeed. I’ve gathered a list of twelve that seem fairly common to those who achieve Champion status in selling. They’re interwoven. All twelve overlap. You can’t improve in one of these characteristics without helping yourself improve in all the others; you can’t ignore one of them without damaging your potential over the whole range. As we cover these twelve areas, think about how you would rate yourself in each area on a scale of 1 through 10 with 10 meaning that you’ve got it. You don’t even need to think about improving in that area. Any trait in which you’d rate yourself less than a 7 will need some thought and dedication to develop.
One. You know the Champions when they walk in the door. Whether they’re dressed conservatively, clad in clothes that are ahead of the latest fad, or wearing anything between those extremes, they project the unmistakable stamp of competence with their attire and grooming. Just by looking at them, you know that you’re in the presence of a powerful force—people who have a purpose and are ready to carry it out to the fullest. They reflect a sense of unique individuality and a solid consciousness of worth that’s far more impressive than mere good looks. Whatever nature gave them and time has let them keep, they’ve molded into a commanding, memorable appearance.
Two. The Champions we’ve trained take tremendous pride in the profession of selling and in themselves as human beings. They base that pride on the serious way they’ve met their responsibilities and capitalized on their potential. They are proud, not only of what they do for a living—helping others—but also of their companies, their products, and the service they provide. And they do this without feeling a need to look down on anyone who is less effective than they are. No one is a Champion without achieving an honest pride.
Three. Champions radiate confidence. If you’re new in sales, you might ask, “How can I be confident when I don’t know what I’m doing?”
I agree that you should be wary of feeling confident in any situation where you don’t have a clear idea of exactly what you’re doing. Overconfidence will float you down the river and over the falls nearly every time. If overconfidence is a challenge for you, a few hard drops will quickly put you in step with your knowledge. And there’ll be no real harm done; you’ll simply get some opportunities to develop your sense of humor and practice your techniques.
Coming down with a permanent sense of under-confidence is another great danger. Potential clients will sense your uncertainty and, even if you do a reasonably good job of presenting your product, buy from someone else. Every day, as you gain skill, you must practice being more and more confident. Remember that your clients and prospects look to you for only the very narrow area of expertise that thorough knowledge of your product or service represents. The people you come in contact with are moved by your belief, by the conviction and confidence you display in your offering. When you finish this training, you’ll have every tool necessary to help people make the yes decision, you’ll have faith in your worth, and you’ll radiate confidence.
Four. The top people close warmly. You may find that confusing, especially if you have any tendency to regard the profession of selling as essentially being the business of separating people from their money.
Let’s talk about this idea, because it’s out there, and it has some reality to millions of people. It arises from the actions of the minority of salespeople who believe that selling is purely and simply aggression. Eventually, all such vultures will be driven out of sales by the new breed of enlightened salespeople who qualify their prospects, care about their customers, and make sure their clients get benefits from their purchases that outweigh the prices paid.
The change is already in the works. Trained salespeople, who neither want nor need to stoop to unfair practices, are gradually taking the place of the get-’em-for-all-you-can crowd. Admittedly, it’s a slow process, and we’ll wait a long time to see it completed. But it’s happening. I’d like to enlist you in fighting the good fight for sales integrity.
We’ve all heard people say, “I used to sell, but I wasn’t pushy enough.” The ex-salespeople who say this don’t realize they never learned how to prospect, contact, and qualify professionally. In fact, many of them never even learned the sales meaning of the word qualify. So, in desperation, they tried to close prospects they knew in their hearts shouldn’t be closed on their particular product or service. That made these ex-salespeople feel like crooks. Because they were basically honest people, they had to escape the guilt; instead of getting into sales training, they got out of sales work.
Champions don’t have that problem because they never
