Salespeople Have to Invest Their Own Money in Their Own Sales Success

How much are you investing in your own sales success?Take a second and add up how much of your own money that you invested in 2014 in your own sales education. How many dollars (or Euros or whatever currency you use) of your own money did you spend to learn something new about sales that could improve your performance and enhance your sales skills? How many sales books did you purchase (and actually read?) Did you hire a sales coach? Attend a sales conference? Or take an online class to learn more about how to sell to your customers?If the total amount that you invested in your own sales success doesn’t equal 1% of your total compensation in 2014, then you have to ask yourself a single, difficult question: 'Am I really serious about my sales career?'How Much Are You Prepared to Invest?In working with thousands of salespeople over the course of my work, what I’ve witnessed is that the most successful salespeople are continually challenging themselves by expanding the boundaries of their knowledge about sales, sales skills and their customers. Through my own informal research what I have found is that the most consistently successful sales reps are those who invest their own money in their continuing sales education, with top performers routinely investing 1% or more of their total pay in self-improvementToo many salespeople seem content to wait for their employers to provide some sales training a few times a year. They think that it is solely their employer’s responsibility to train them to master their craft. Unfortunately, that is a losing strategy. By its very nature, sales is an entrepreneurial profession. It rewards those who take risks and those who have the discipline to constantly work on self-improvement.For example, would you invest $17.95 per month for the chance to boost your commissions by 20%? Or, to earn an additional $1,000 in 2015? Of course, you would. $17.95 to earn $1,000? It’s a no-brainer. $17.95 is nothing. It’s the price of three fancy coffees from your favorite coffee house. It’s about $.60 per day.What is significant about $17.95? $17.95 is roughly the average price of a sales book purchased on Amazon. There are dozens of extremely useful books on sales published every year that offer new insights and strategies for becoming a better salesperson. Would you set aside one hour per week to read one sales book per month if you could learn new strategies and techniques that you could put to use in your selling to help you win more orders and earn more money? Of course you would. Which raises the question: why aren’t you?Would You Sacrifice One Hour of TV Watching?Which leads us to another important question about investing in your future: What are you prepared to sacrifice in order to succeed? Would you be willing to forego watching The Bachelor, or any other completely forgettable TV show for that matter, to give yourself an additional 60 minutes of free time each week to read a sales book (if it would increase your chances of earning more money?)Take the first step. Turn off your TV and invest some time to explore the universe of free sales resources available for sales people that can help boost your career. Read a few sales blogs everyday, attend free sales skills webinars once per month, watch YouTube videos about sales, listen to a weekly sales podcast (there are hundreds) or download and read an eBook, about sales. I belong a group of roughly 40 sales experts and sales authors. We openly share all of the free content from these incredible sales leaders with our own audiences. Just follow me on Twitter (@zerotimeselling) and you’ll get access to all of the great content that these sales thought leaders and experts provide.Through your research identify two or three sales experts who you feel will challenge you to look at your selling from a different perspective and who will challenge you to break out of your mold and try something new. Investigate their available paid resources like sales books, online classes, mastermind groups and sales coaches.Then commit your time and money to put some skin in the game. Start small. Buy a sales book and read it. Or download the audio version and listen to it in your car. Put your own time and money at risk and I guarantee that you’ll instantly be more committed to wringing the maximum value out of that investment.Because, if you won’t invest $17.95 every month to boost your sales, and your commissions, then you’re not really serious about succeeding in sales.