UNDERSTANDING YOUR SALES COMFORT LEVEL

A Sales career provides a unique opportunity to earn a large income based upon individual effort and personal production. Recently, Surgeons topped the list of salaried positions with an average income of $206,000. However, top Sales professionals often earn much more than Surgeons, Lawyers, Engineers, and other professionals. Another plus, many Sales positions are open to individuals from many backgrounds and education levels who display the right motivation, energy, discipline and entrepreneurial spirit!

 

As a Sales Professional, an ongoing challenge is balancing your production against your internal comfort level - the psychological point at which the sales and income you are producing meets all of your fixed and discretionary needs. The bills are paid and you finally have that car and nice house you always dreamed of. This is often the point that sales production drops or levels off because you have reached your internal comfort level. Unless you recognize this and make adjustments, you will never elevate your sales and income to the next level.

 

This plateau can present a real challenge, because your comfort level may not always align with your Manager's expectations. Top Managers recognize this and constantly work with their Sales Professionals to provide feedback, motivation, and training to hopefully bump individual and team efforts to the next level.

 

Recognize Your Comfort level. Complacency is one of the dangers of reaching your comfort level, and if adequate sales goals and metrics are not in place many Sales Professionals fail to recognize their own decrease in production. Many times a Friend, Spouse, Associate or Sales Manager will let you know before you even recognize the drop. It's important to know your numbers and have a system to check them at daily, weekly and monthly.

 

A good boss will provide training, motivation, and rewards but most sales professionals will become comfortable at a certain production level, and most will seldom move up or down more than a few percentage points during any sales cycle. However, the top 20% never seem to get comfortable, and when production flattens a competitive spirit kicks in that pushes them to the next level.

 

Conduct an honest self-evaluation. If you always find yourself in the middle of the sales pack yet you are completely satisfied with your level of effort and production, make a note that this may be your natural space. Accept that it's ok to be there, but make sure you communicate this with your supervisor because they may have other ideas on what your production levels should be!

 

Adjust - Take Action. If you aren't satisfied in the middle of the pack and want to break out of your current comfort level, consider the following suggestions.

 

Evaluate what motivates you and gets you fired you up. Is it money, recognition, material possessions, providing more for your family? Maybe you want to fund your child's college plan, buy your wife that new piano she has always dreamed of, or pay off your mortgage. Perhaps you just want to give more to your church or other local charity. Once you identify your primary motivators, set new goals linked to those motivators that are 'above the bar', then push hard to break out of your current comfort level. Whatever you decide, publish them for you and others to see so they can help to hold you accountable.

 

Enlist the boss! Top Sales Managers love to hear, "I want to buy a new house within 24 months, I need your help!" Ask your Manager to help refine your goals based on your motivators, to push you hard every day and to hold you accountable so that you can earn the money to buy that house! If you don't share your goals and set up systems to track, meet and evaluate your goals those goals will usually not be met.

 

Becoming a top producer requires hard work, dedication, consistency and a level of self-motivation that most others do not have. You may work for the best Company with super resources and have the best Boss in the world, but the responsibility to break out of a slump or move to the next level of production is yours alone.

 

The next time you find yourself feeling a bit too comfortable, do a quick self-check to make sure you are still on track to reach your sales goals and objectives. No matter what, always remember it's your plan and nobody else's, so work it to earn it!

 

Steve Tyson

steve@iBuilderguide.com

copyright 2009