What’s the difference between a motivated salesperson and the rest of the sales population?  Is motivation enough to become successful?  What about skills?  Are superior skills enough to assure success?  If you have superior skills and motivation will that guaranty success?

Questions like these have been tossed around for years.  But most people don’t understand the nuances that determine success in sales. Today I’ll explain these nuances so that you can take the next step in your journey to sales supremacy.

A motivated salesperson is one whose goals are so compelling that they have the incentive to sell more and earn more commissions to get what they want.

A salesperson with superior skills is one who has the knowledge to effectively handle any situation that comes up.

What’s interesting though, is how many salespeople that are both motivated and skilled, but have only achieved mediocrity at best.  There are usually a number of reasons for this but they fall into two basic categories.

The first, and the most powerful, is commitment.  They weren’t committed enough to their compelling goals to consistently execute their plan each day. For most salespeople, that’s the least enjoyable component of selling yet it’s the most crucial.  When salespeople don’t keep their pipeline filled, they don’t have enough opportunities to close.

The second category is hidden weaknesses so powerful that they have the ability to neutralize all of a salesperson’s skills.  The other scary thing about hidden weaknesses is that when the commitment I just referred to isn’t strong enough, there is little incentive to overcome one’s hidden weaknesses.

You can learn more about hidden weaknesses in Baseline Selling.  All the hidden weaknesses that prevent salespeople from reaching first base, like Call Anxiety, Need for Approval, Fear of Rejection and many more, are fully explained along with ways to overcome them.  The various hidden weaknesses that sabotage success when attempting to reach second, third and home are also fully explained.

While most previous Baseline Selling Tips have focused on skills, the real secret lies in the commitment to identify and overcome the hidden weaknesses that sabotage your success and the commitment to consistently execute the daily plan.  In a comparison of skilled salespeople and strong (no hidden weaknesses) salespeople the strong salespeople outsold the skilled salespeople every time!  The baseball analogy would be what they calling an ugly win.  Strong salespeople may not know the most effective way to get the business but they usually find a way to get the business.  What are you waiting for?