Successful Selling –

Why are some people so darn good at selling that they always seem to get the awards for top achievement?

The reason for that is they’ve copied someone  else’s people skills and they’ve practiced using them.  They practiced until it became so natural that it was as if they created the skills themselves.

Why are some field sellers so organized and so good at managing their time?

It’s because they’ve copied someone else’s ability to organize and they’ve practiced those organizational techniques over and over until they could apply them as if they had created the systems on their own.

Most successful people in the world create nothing on their own; they simply borrow what was already proven to work and then they put it into practice.

There is nothing new at all except what has been forgotten. – Marie Antoinette

If you would like to validate that statement you can take a trip to the library, travel to ancient lands or study artists, philosophers and builders of centuries past.  You can study old books on business, marketing and selling.  You will discover previously created ideas and genius that you didn’t even know existed.

That doesn’t mean that every new idea has already been created or that modern man is incapable of new ideas.  But it does mean that most ideas that seem new today are simply evolutions born out of original creations.

My Mentor

I spent 22 years of my career working with the same boss; his name was Keith Keltgen.  When I went to work for “Doc” 40 years ago, I didn’t  know much about the seed business; however, I was fortunate enough to discover that he was an awesome teacher.

He never told me to copy him—not once.

But when I watched him interact with employees, conduct business meetings and work a crowd of farmers, I knew I wanted to be like him.

And I knew the only way to be like him was to copy him.

I copied everything he did, almost word for word, until I could deliver it myself, in my own style.  I didn’t realize the importance of what I was doing at the time, but after 22 years of copying one of the finest seedsmen in the business, I found I had become successful, too.

To this day, I thank Doc for helping to launch me into an orbit I would never have achieved without copying such a great example.

Seed Sellers need to do the same thing.

The easiest and fastest way to succeed in this business is to copy those who are already successful.

When was the last time you developed a plan to copy the best seed sales person you know?

Have you recorded everything that person says on a sales call so you can practice repeating it word for word?  Have you copied his or her storybook and videotaped its delivery so you know how to deliver an effective sales story?

How willing are you to copy good ideas and make them your own?

It doesn’t matter if you’re a dealer or a territory manager; you probably had little experience selling when you started.  Despite this, many sales reps still try to create their own method of selling instead of copying someone who is already demonstrating success.

That is why 80% of them never achieve their actual potential.  Selling is one of those careers where, to be truly successful, a person needs only to copy those who are already successful.

If you’re afraid to copy, that’s too bad for you; your fear is holding you back from achieving your goals.

Top sellers are not born, they are made.  They are made through years of copying their predecessors and practicing their subject over and over.

To be successful, you don’t need a new program, a better product or a better price.  Instead, all you need to do is find that individual walking around out there achieving success—and you need to copy him or her.

After all, it’s all about creating a better you!

Happy Selling,

Rod