What I have learned from my 18 years of being in sales so far

I started my sales career working at flea market selling whatever the trend was pokemon cards, furniture.whatever the trends were. I paid for my high school student spending money by selling Cutco Knives to being in college waiting tables and selling door to door Verizon Fios.

I am now doing a much more complex sales with Fortune 500 organizations. I have done about 7 years of technology sales now.

Here are some of the things I have learned along the way.

1. Figure out your voice and sell something you are passionate about. People always chase the money which is fine but you should really enjoy what you do because you are going to spend most of your day and life is going to be spent doing it. I talk to a ton of people that try to follow the money and it isn’t sustainable most of the time if it’s a product you do not care about.
2. Be nice to everyone. There is no reason to be mean. There is really nothing positive that can come from it. Karma is real. Altruism is real. Check out Adam Grant’s Give and take if you want to learn more about how the top sales performers are all givers.
3. Learn from everyone and anyone. You will meet so many amazing people along the way with such interesting stories. Even people that I would never expect I would learn from. Actually helps me learn more about myself and my misperceptions on life and how I generalize people.
4. Read a ton. I read sales podcast articles,forums, blogs. Listen to a ton of sales podcasts. The learning never stops, The moment you think you are expert you should be careful. There is always something you can learn from someone else even in a different vertical than you.
5. Invest in yourself. The best thing you can do with your hard earned money is to double down on your education. Whether its take a seminar you always wanted to but you weren’t sure because none of your friends want to do it with you. Always invest in either attending mastermind groups or surrounding yourself with interesting people from all kinds of other fields. It will expand your horizon and you will be able to get along with a lot more different kinds of folks.
6. Have fun along the way. Some people take life so seriously. I was one of those people until recently. We spend so much time at work we should at least be having a good time and laughing about our mistakes or mess ups.
7. Make friends with people in other departments. You will have so many more interesting conversations.
8. Embrace your story. There is no good or bad. There is your own unique story. Embrace it with open arms. I was embarrassed about a lot of things in my life. How I grew up some of the awkward haircuts and funny pictures of me doing silly things. I wouldn’t say I complete embrace it now but I accept much more than I did even just a couple of months ago.
9. Eat healthy and treat your mental health well whether it’s a mediation practice or seeing a therapist/ life coach. Any job that requires a ton of mental power and people skills you really have to make sure you are healthy. You can be the best sales person in the world but if you cannot even make it into work. That’s really going to impact your month to month performance.
10. Take breaks every once in awhile. It is important to recharge so that you do not burn out. I feel so relaxed now after taking some time to do a ton of mediation, walk the highline, go sightseeing, walk the Brooklyn Bridge, central park, read a book at the park, and just taking a break from everything. It is important. We are all human after all.

I hope this was a helpful reminder for you all. Have fun and let’s connect if you guys ever want to chat about anything in particular.

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