Visualize this thing that you want. See it, feel it, believe in it. Make your mental blueprint, and begin to build.
Robert Collier
Tracy starts off by stating: “Nothing happens until a sale takes place.”
The only real creators of wealth in our society are businesses. Businesses produce all products and services, create all profits and wealth, pay all salaries and benefits. The health of the business community in any region is the key determinant of the quality of life and standard of living of the people in that area.
You Are Important
Salespeople are the most vital people in any business. Without sales, the largest companies shut down. There is a direct relationship between the success of the sales community and the success of the entire country. The more vibrant the level of sales, the more successful and profitable is that industry or area.
Salespeople pay for all good things that are vital to our standard of living. Schools, hospitals, libraries, parks, etc. Salespeople, through their sales and the profits and taxes created by successful companies, pay for government at all levels. Salespeople are essential to our way of life. We need salespeople.
The Best Companies
The very best companies have the best salespeople.
More CEOs of Fortune 500 companies have come up through the ranks from sales than from any other part of the company.
Many of the top companies in the world are headed by former salespeople.
High Income and Job Security
You can be proud to be a sales professional. Your ability to sell can give you a high income and lifelong job security. There will always be a need for top salespeople. Good salespeople will always be in high demand. By becoming excellent in sales, you can accomplish any financial goal you set for yourself.
74% of self-made millionaires in America are entrepreneurs; people who start and build their own businesses. Among entrepreneurs, the single most important skill for success is the ability to sell. Salespeople today are some of the highest-paid people in America, earning more than doctors, lawyers, architects and persons with extensive academic degrees.
Sales is a gainful profession. In sales, there is no ceiling on your income. Selling is the only field in our society where you can start with little skill or training, come from any background, and be making a great living in a matter of 3 – 12 months.
The 80/20 Rule in Selling
The Pareto principle, also known as, the 80/20 rule: “The top 20% of salespeople make 80% of the money, and the bottom 80% only make 20% of the money.” And the top 20% of the 20%, or he top 4%, earn 80% of the money in the top 20% of salespeople. In other words, 4-5 people out of 100 make as many sales and earn as much money as all the rest put together.
The mission is to decide to join the top 20% and then learn how to get there.
Never Worry About Money
A very good reason to get into the top 20 percent, then later to the top 4%: Never have to worry about money or job security. Never lose sleep over employment. The people in the top 20% or better are some of the happiest people in our society.
Worrying about money is not a good way to live. Worrying about the source of income.
Top People Earn Vastly More
The people in the top 20% earn, on average 16x the average income of the people in the bottom 80%. The top 4% earn 16x the bottom 80% of the top 20%.
A large American insurance company tested the 80/20 rule with thousands of agents and discovered individual agents were selling and earning more than 20-30 other agents although they were are selling the same products, to the same people, at the same prices.
Your goal must therefore be to get into the top 20% and then the top 10%, the top 5%, the top 4% and so on. The purpose of this book is to get you there. It is to take you from where you are today to one of the highest-paid people in your industry.
The Winning Edge
The winning edge is what distinguishes the top 20% from the bottom 80%. It is one of the most important management and sales ideas of the twenty-first century. The principle says, “Small differences in ability can lead to enormous differences in results.” The difference between top performers and the average or mediocre is not a huge difference in talent or ability. Often, it is just a few small things done consistently and well, over and over again.
Win by a Nose
If a horse wins a race by a nose, it wins 10x the prize money of the horse that loses by a nose. It results into a 1000% difference in prize money. That’s just the way that it is. The horse that wins by a nose is not 10x faster, but the reward is that much greater.
Salespeople have a disadvantage over horses. There are no consolation prizes. Selling it is a “winner take all” transaction. The salesperson who loses the sale gets nothing, no matter how many hours he or she has invested in developing the sale.
Become a Little Bit Better
In selling, you only have to be a little bit better and different in each of the key result areas of selling for it to accumulate into an extraordinary difference in income. A small increment of skill or ability, just 3-4% can give you the winning edge. It can put you in the top 20 or top 10%.
Once you develop this small lead, like compound interest, it continues to grow. As you use your additional skills, you get better and better at them. The better you become, the better results you get. You soon begin to pull ahead of the crowd by a larger and larger margin. In a few years or months, you can be earning 5 or 10x as much as others who are still performing at average levels.
Characteristics of Top Salespeople
There are certain characteristics that separate successful salespeople from average. These qualities have been identified through interviews, surveys, and exhaustive research. We also know: 1) No one is born with these qualities, & 2) these qualities are learnable through practice. You can develop the characteristics that will virtually guarantee an extraordinary quality of life for yourself.
Researchers discovered that there were people who started with nothing, yet ended up at the top of their professions
Starting from Nothing
New immigrants have so many disadvantages, but somehow they overcome every difficulty and have become leaders in their field.
In my seminars, I continually meet men and women from all over the world who came to this country with nothing and who are now top salespeople, highly paid, and even self-made millionaires. In every case, the reasons have more to do with what is going on inside of them than with what is going on outside.
Success is Mental
It is what goes on inside the mind of the salesperson that makes all the difference. Harvard University did a study of 16,000 people and found that the basic qualities that determine success or failure in selling were all mental. If a person had certain qualities, he or she would succeed, holding constant for everything else. If you develop these psychological qualities, they then form the foundation for your own personal sales success.
If you want to know how tall a building is going to be, you look at how deep they dig the foundation for that building. The deeper the foundation, the taller the building. In the same way, the deeper your foundation of knowledge and skill, the greater the life that you will be able to build.
Once you have built your foundation and have become absolutely excellent at selling, you can go anywhere and write your own ticket. And you can always build your foundation deeper.
Use more of your potential
The average salesperson is estimated to never use more than about 10% of his potential. Meaning, at least 90% or more potential left untapped. It is when you learn how to unlock this additional 90% of your own potential that you move yourself into the income categories of the highest earners.
Follow the leaders
If your goal is to be in the top 10% of salespeople in your field, the first thing to find out is who is already in the top 10%. Instead of following the followers, the average performers, follow the leaders. Compare yourself to top people. Remember, no one is better than you, and no one is smarter than you. If someone is doing better than you, it just means that he or she has discovered the cause-and-effect relationships in selling success before your have.
British philosopher Bertrand Russell once said, “The very best proof that something can be done is that someone else has already done it.” This means that if someone is earning 5 or 10x as much as you, this is evidence that you can earn the same amount if you simply learn how. Remember, everyone starts at the bottom and works his way up. If someone is doing better than you, find out how he got from the bottom to where he is today. Sometimes the very best way to find this out is to go and ask him. He will probably tell you. Top people are usually willing to help other people who want to succeed.
Here Tracy provides us with a foundation on the mindset we are to develop on the path to success in selling. He makes it clear that we are all capable of developing the skill of being a top seller; people need the proper training. The road to success has already been paved by the people who have achieved success already. Following in their footsteps will put us on the right track.
The difference between selling ability reaches a point where the advantage is of by just a nose. Developing what is known as the winning edge is what it takes to move up into a higher percentage group of top sellers. From the top 5% to the top 4%.
Remember that mind is everything. It is the mindset we carry that determines our success. The development of certain psychological qualities form the foundation of a successful salesperson.