It’s been said that to succeed in sales you must possess a healthy sized ego. But what exactly does that mean? For most it means the bigger the ego the easier you will bounce back from rejection. The ego, though, is much more than just how highly you think of yourself or the amount of confidence you exude. When it comes to succeeding in sales, it’s not the size of your ego that matters, but how you manage it.

According to psychologists the ego is defined as “self”, which begs more questions than it delivers answers. Perhaps a more correct definition is to say the ego is the ultimate shape shifter. It changes how it wants to be perceived based on who you are interacting with or what you’re dealing with at any given moment. I call this our “sales self or sales ego”, which means who we are when we are selling.

From the stories we tell ourselves to the stories others tell us, our ego is behind how we interpret them. Whether the stories are helping or hurting us, they tend to get played repeatedly in our heads. The reoccurring themes produce a pattern of behavior. For salespeople, when the ego is involved, the pattern of behavior that results is both common and predictable.

Depending on the stories your ego has fed you about success, you may embrace it or you may be fearful of it. For many salespeople, when they experience success, they get so wrapped up in their accomplishments that they forget what they did to achieve that success in the first place and tend to lose sight of why they are selling. The end result is usually a crash landing into reality when they soon find themselves struggling and can’t seem to repeat their earlier successes.

If things are not going well salespeople are known to weave stories where they convince themselves and others that the negative results they’re getting is not their responsibility.

“I have a difficult territory.”

“Our products cost too much.”

“Our competitors have more advanced and innovative products.”

“A poor sales year always follows a good sales year.”

“My customers don’t like me.”

“My boss does not like me.”

“The compensation plan is no good.”

“Sales are always low during this quarter.”

“The products I have to sell don’t do everything they’re supposed to.”

Do any of these sound familiar? More than likely, you’ve either used one or more of these in your career. If not, you’ve certainly heard them from other salespeople and even sales managers.

If you only remember one thing from this bog entry, remember this; everything you do and everything your think each day is pulling you closer to your desired outcomes, or it’s pushing you further away from it.

The direction by which you choose to go is navigated by your ego. In order to move your ego out of the way of your sales success, you will want to start by rediscovering or possibly uncovering, for the first time, the primary reason why you sell. And it isn’t to make money.

Remember, making money in sales is a byproduct of whatever your why is. In this book you will learn through my own personal story and by uncovering your own story how to not let your ego get in the way of your sales success.