WHAT’S LEFT

It doesn’t matter if you are 25 or 65, a question that needs to be answered is, WHAT’S LEFT IN YOUR CAREER?

If you are just starting your sales career this seems like a silly question doesn’t it? Well it isn’t! As I said it doesn’t matter if you are 25 or 65, you only have a limited number of years that you are going to work, WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO IN THAT TIME? So many young sales reps start their careers without any real long term goals. Sure they want to be rookie of the year, and then they want to become the “BEST” rep in the office or the company. These are great goals but they are all short term goals in comparison to what I am talking about. How about 20 years from now? Is being the best in the company still enough to keep you motivated? Maybe you need to be the best in the industry or the best across several industries. You may want to become the “Legend” of the industry.

Can a goal like that be planned? Maybe not, but you can plan on becoming better every year. You can plan on breaking records. You can plan on expanding your sphere of influence within your company and industry. All of these goals can lead directly to becoming the legend you want to be.

Now let’s talk about seasoned reps. Reps that have been doing their jobs for many years. What’s left for them? Many of the same things. One of the best things about being a professional sales rep is age, education, religion, race, gender, or any other factor has no influence on how successful you can become. There are stories about the top sales guru’s in every industry that started with no education, no money, NO CLUE and rose to the top in their field. How many multi-millionaires started on a street corner or got their first job in the warehouse and worked their way up?

If you have only 5 years left in your career before you are going to retire there is still time to set goals and achieve great things. Don’t RIP (RETIRE IN PLACE) and just sail along. Go out with a bang! Who knows, you may start having so much fun you don’t want to get out at all.

If you have worked your entire life and want to retire and enjoy life, you deserve it, DO IT. But don’t do yourself the disservice of allowing yourself to dry-up on the vine. Treat your last years at least as enthusiastically as you did your first years. Use your knowledge and experience to set the bar in your company or industry so high that reps will be striving to reach it for years to come.

Each of us needs to look at ourselves and make the decision of how they want their next 5 professional years to look. I know that the years in front of me are going to be my best years. I want to do more in the next 5 years as I have in the past 5 and then even more the 5 after that.

I love sitting in sales meetings and hearing the names of reps who are just starting their sales career get recognition, but I love it even more hearing reps that have been selling for 30, 40 even 50 years getting recognition. I have seen 30 year reps have their best month ever. 40 year reps open the most new accounts for the month. 50 year reps break company records.

WHAT’S LEFT FOR YOU? As much as you want, you just need to go for it!

Lorin