You Are Entitled to Succeed in Sales

1. You are entitled to qualified prospects, if you are willing to mercilessly disqualify anything less than your dream clients (and especially disqualify nightmare clients).
2. You are entitled to work with companies and people that are mature in their business relationships, if you are willing to walk to away from those who aren’t.
3. You are entitled to an appointment with your dream client, provided that your cold calling proves that you are a value creator, not a time-waster, and that you intend to make yourself valuable to them.
4. You are entitled to the relationships that you need to win your dream client, as long as you have built those relationships, listened to the needs of stakeholders two or three levels deep in the organization, worked deeply understand those needs, and together created a vision with them.
5. You are entitled to all of the commitments you need from your dream clients, as long as you establish a track record of value-creation and as long as you can explain to them the value for them in agreeing to those commitments.
6. You are entitled to sell something other than price, provided that you create value and present it in a way that moves the discussion from price to cost—even though there is resistance to this.
7. You are entitled to capture part of the value you create, provided you create so much value that no one would dare object to you keeping part of what you created.
8. You are entitled to have your opportunity move smoothly from target to close, provided you are willing to follow your sales process, and provided you are willing to think outside of the box and take action when your opportunity goes off the roadmap.
9. You are entitled to make your number each quarter, as long as you have done all of the work in the preceding quarters to have the pipeline of opportunities it takes to meet your numbers.
10. You are entitled to the best training and development that money can buy, provided you are willing to invest in yourself and understand that your personal and professional development is your responsibility first.
11. You are entitled to succeed in sales if—and, only if—you do all that success requires (and then a little more).