How to take ownership over your sales career

by Ben Lai | Jul 29, 2019

Hi guys, it’s Ben Lai from Sales Ethos. Today’s topic is how to take ownership over your sales career. Too often, I’ve heard sales professionals blame other things for their lack of success. They’ll blame the economy, the market, the product, management. They’ll even blame the customers for their lack of success! This is certainly no way to lead a professional career in sales.

One of the problems with blaming other things, whether it be people or circumstances is that you are giving away power over your situation. You become a victim of circumstance if you blame others. So what are alternatives?

How to take ownership over your sales career tip #1: Stop blaming

The first thing that you need to do is to stop blaming. Take ownership over your circumstances. If it is to be, it is up to me. That should be one of your mantras. Take ownership over your problems and over your results. Rather than thinking about all the things that are working against you, focus your attention on what you can influence.

Before I go into the circles of influence model, just a quick offer to those of you who are sales managers or directors, I’m offering a one-hour complementary consult to handle one of your key issues. If you’re keen on getting some advice to help you out with your biggest sales issue, fill in the form below and we’ll arrange a time to meet.

How to take ownership over your sales career tip #2: Use the circles of influence

Now the last thing that I’d like to share with you is the circles of influence. Now the circles of influence has three circles within each other, so an outer layer, a middle layer, and an inner layer. In the inner layer of these circles of influence, you have direct control over these things. Examples of direct control include your sales activities, include the words that you say, the things that you do in your sales career.

In the indirect circle, you have some influence but not complete. So this is indirect influence. Sales managers predominantly work in this area. Now, if a sales manager tries to have direct control over their sales people, that’s called micro management, which is not a good situation to be in. So you have influence over these things but you don’t have absolute control.

In the outer layer are the things that we have almost no control over whatsoever. So global events, market events, we don’t have control over those things and so therefore, we should dedicate the least amount of time thinking about and talking about those factors. Talk more about the things that you have indirect influence over and spend most of our time on the things that we have direct control over.

If you do this, you will get much more control and you will feel in control of your career. Your sales results will improve as a result, and you can stop blaming others for your lack of success.

Conclusion

So there you have it. What are the things that you do to help to increase your motivation and your ownership over your sales career? Leave a comment below. Don’t forget to like and subscribe, and remember that integrity plus skills equals success.

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