Not Yet Successful

My first sales job was with Northwestern Mutual. I was in college and accepted a summer job selling life insurance. As I recall, I made three sales: One to my dad. One to a family friend. And one to me.

After a time, I quit. It was not a success, but also not a failure.

I remember the key takeaway from that experience: Hated selling life insurance. Loved selling. In that regard, I did not fail. It’s just that I was not yet successful. One year later, upon graduation, a took a job with UARCO and started selling business forms. That lead to on demand printing, then presenting, then coaching, then The Sales Vault.

I recently read about a high school that did away with “F” as a grade. They found the impact of the label to be devastating. Kids quit trying and many dropped out.

So, they made a change.

Struggling students’ report cards had a new designation instead of F’s: Not Yet. The result was hope. Kids no longer felt as though they hit a wall. Suddenly, kids started asking for extra help. The heavy weight of perceived failure had been lifted.

If you are new to sales and feeling like a failure, change your outlook. Think of yourself as not yet successful.

If you are pursuing a client but getting nowhere, sell from an alternative mindset: they’re just not yet a client.

Failure is only failure if you accept the outcome, agree with the label, and stop trying. See, you didn’t fail. You simply have yet to succeed.

Bill Farquharson can help with your success. Join The Sales Vault at SalesVault.pro or call him at 781-934-7036 for more information.

The preceding content was provided by a contributor unaffiliated with Printing Impressions. The views expressed within may not directly reflect the thoughts or opinions of the staff of Printing Impressions. Artificial Intelligence may have been used in part to create or edit this content.