With 2 years experience in frontline position and 3 years in developing pitching deck for customers, there are rules that are clearly emphasized to me, such as “ignore the #littleman”, “stay focused” and “Don’t complain. Look for opportunities”. It doesn’t mean that the other rules are unsubstantial, it is simply I have been opposed to them. and I still find it useful every now and then.

I came across a colleague who told me to give up on my idea that turned out to be accepted by the board due to its profitability and feasibility. The idea was to revamp a company’s website in order to bring a new breeze to its branding image which resulted in both adopting the advancement of the Internet marketing and customer association. It is vital for a successful salesperson to have a sense of “dare to be different”. Jack Ma wouldn’t disrupt the banking industry and get those payment processors hot under the collar if he had let the criticism influence his decision on developing Alipay. By building up strong belief and ignoring the #littleman, salespersons will be able to self-motivate and commit to get works done, as well as achieve outstanding sales performance.

Stay focused embraces the commitment that salespersons must have to fulfill their roles. Without focus, they are likely to enter the door of mistakes and failures. Despite the wide range of responsibilities such as finding new business, taking care of existing clients and administrative tasks, salespersons need to develop a time-management plan in which a set of priority tasks must be organized wisely at a certain time to limit multitasking. In other words, salespersons need to separate tasks from one another to ensure the appropriate time, attention, and focus on one area at a time. Next, to achieve a big goal, they need to come up with mini goals and accomplish them one by one. These can help them to stay focused on what needs to be done right now to make sure they are making progress toward the long-term goal. Then, recording activity will help them to stay focused by planning ahead of what need to be done for tomorrow after tasks that have been done to date. This will provide clarity as to what you need to do to improve sales performance.

A positive sale person anticipates happiness, health and success, and believes he or she can overcome any obstacle and difficulty. For some people, life is a path of rose, but some will receive challenges of life. To succeed in a chaotic environment, a salesperson should not complain for unexpected things because as the old saying goes, “Every cloud has a silver lining”. Being strong, optimistic, and relentlessly finding opportunities, instead are the ideal traits of a successful salesperson. In my way of thinking, there are a few exercises for complainers to get around the bad habits: such as practicing resiliency, developing thoughts and words that lead us toward a solution, raising the energy within instead of draining it, and being grateful with what we have.

Ending with a few final words; there is nothing easy about any of this. But the only thing that can stop you from success is you. We only get one shot at this life. Nothing is set in stone for any of us. We have to live fully, stay focused and be a champ.