WHEN NOBODY KNOWS

I once heard a saying that went something like this, “Great Leaders Do What Is Right Even When No One Is Looking”. I really like this saying because it focuses on integrity.

I have my own sales version of this saying, “Great Sales Reps Do What Is Right Even When The Customer Doesn’t Know It”.

I know sales reps that have spent money, time and effort to do the right thing for a customer that never even realized they had done it. It could be as simple as spending time on the phone to help expedite an order for a customer or going into a customer’s store room to clean it up and straighten the inventory up. A great sales rep will do these things and anything else that needs to be done, not for the recognition but because it was the right thing to do.

I once worked with a rep that spent 3 hours every evening for over a month training a customer’s employees on a piece of equipment that the rep didn’t sell. For those of you saying that the rep sold product the equipment used, you are wrong. The rep had no link to the equipment at all except for the fact that he sold the same equipment at a previous job and was an expert with it. The customer didn’t find out about the reps help until almost 6 months after he had completed the training. The only way he found out then is because he had hired someone new and asked one of his people how they got trained and was told about the reps help.

This is doing what’s right, going above and beyond what is expected and doing it only for self-satisfaction. The sign of a GREAT sales rep.

There are stories similar to this at every company, with every customer, and associated with every region. Very seldom do these stories surface because the rep isn’t doing these things for recognition, they are doing them because they are the right things to do.

Ask yourself this question, when was the3 last time you did something without any anticipation of reward?

If you need to think back any further than a week you need to re-evaluate the purpose of your career.

Make it a point to do something tomorrow that is the right thing to do. It may take some of your time, energy, or even money, but it is what needs to be done. Look for opportunities to step up and when no one is looking and do the right thing. Pick a customer that you know could use some help and do whatever you can without them knowing to help them as much as possible.

If you do this just once, I know that the feeling you will get will be so rewarding that you will start to look for more and more chances to do it again and again.

Lorin