Unlock the secrets to unparalleled success in B2B sales by mastering the key attributes of discipline and hunger.
The first attribute you should look for in a B2B salesperson is discipline. If I were interviewing you, I would ask you what time you wake each day. If you don’t wake up early, I know you don’t have the time to do things like exercising, reading, or writing in a journal. All of these things are important to success.
The second attribute you should look for in B2B sales is hunger. Hunger is the other side of comfort. If you hit the snooze function on your phone and sleep nine minutes three times, I know you prefer comfort. If you wake up, get out of bed, and get moving without hesitation, it may be because you are hungry.
Hunger does more than most things you might know. Hunger will cause you to get out of bed and start your day. It also provides you with an advantage over most of the people you know, including most of your peers and competitors.
Hunger provides intrinsic motivation. Without this most important form of motivation, you will look for someone to motivate you. You might decide to listen to Tony Robbins, but you would be better off adopting his hunger. If you need someone to motivate you, you will never reach anything near to your potential.
The Perils of Comfort in Sales
Comfort is dangerous. It will have you doing just enough to have what you need. When you believe you have what you need, comfort is more likely to cause you to lose the comfort you enjoy, and have you going backward towards being uncomfortable.
In work, if you are comfortable, you will need a manager to encourage you to do your work. In the post-pandemic world, a lot of people who were working from home, comfortable with the idea of not going into work, tend to be the first to be let go.
Comfort will do more to prevent you from unleashing your full potential than any other factor. You can have a high IQ and still be comfortable enough that you do too little with the gift you were granted on your birth.
Comfort provides you with low standards. It will have you doing just as much as you can get away with. The people around you will notice that you do subpar work, and too little, as well.
Worse than that, comfort is likely to have you resenting people who avoid comfort. When I was fifteen, I worked at a factory. The work was simple. I had to put the things they made in little bags. I was working as fast as I could to do the work. At the lunch break, a number of the employees cornered me, telling me that I had to slow down, and that I wasn’t being paid enough to do this much work. I ignored my workmates and did more work.
Transitioning from Comfort to Hunger
You may have wired yourself for comfort. This is a choice you made some time ago, without you knowing you made the decision to be comfortable. It is difficult to change from comfort to hunger. But this should not discourage you, as many others have successfully left comfort for hunger.
If I was your coach, I would tell you that you should want things that will improve yourself and your life. I would tell you that it is more than okay to want things that you have told yourself that you don’t need.
If I was your coach, I would tell you to start making a list of things you want now and in the future. I would advise you to make a vision board of the things you want in your life. I would tell you that you don’t have to feel bad for wanting things for yourself and your family. I would tell you to look at the vision board every day.
If I was your coach, I would tell you to make a list of goals that would motivate you to leave comfort for hunger. I would tell you to write down your goals every morning when you wake up and repeat this exercise before going to sleep.
Some struggle with this because they feel it is self-oriented. If I were your coach, I would tell you that the more you tap into your hunger, the more you will be able to do things for others. Maybe you would feel better by doing more to take care of the people you love and the ones who love you.
If I were your coach, I would counsel you to find hunger in your health, your relationships, your wealth, and your contributions. I would advise you to make a list of goals for each one of these important things in your life.
Conclusion
If you are comfortable, you need to do the work to get uncomfortable. Once you commit to being hungry, you can start changing your behaviors. Giving yourself time to make the behavioral changes will have you leaving comfort and finding the fire in your belly, the kind that causes you to take action your goals and your ambition.
