I am often asked what separates the average salesperson from the perennial sales performer. My answer is always the same. Perennial sales performer know, understand and fully utilize their stories to engage, communicate and connect with their customers. Average salespeople do not.

Of course, this answer isn’t always easily understood at first. The surprised and sometimes skeptical expressions quickly go away, however, as I remind others not only just how often we all use stories in our personal and professional lives, but how easy sales becomes when stories are properly used and understood.

Stories, though, are not just important to sales success. Stories are the very fabric that runs through all human interactions, framing our perspective of the world we live in.

Stories uplift our spirit and stir our emotions. They awaken our soul and breathe hope into despair. Stories shape and define entire cultures. They teach and provide perspective. They build companies and grow careers. And nothing ever gets sold without a story being told.

Stories are at the core of our genetic makeup. Throughout history stories have been used to teach, entertain, honor spiritual beliefs, settle disputes, express love and they have been used to sell. Take for example the story of David and Goliath or the Boy Who Cried Wolf. They contain universal themes and messages that can be applied to any culture or situation.

According to the Kalahari Bushmen, recognized as the oldest living culture on earth, a person’s story is viewed as his most treasured resource. From our birth to our passing, stories serve as the backbone of our existence, both personally and professionally.

When it comes to selling, just as in life, everyone has a story behind what drives them. What’s your story?

We weren’t in the car for more than ten minutes and already the day was getting off to a bad start. The VP of Sales, who was riding along with me for the day, wasted no time grilling me about my poor sales performance.

Immediately I went on the defensive. No matter how much confidence I had in my talent, I firmly felt that the territory I covered was so bad that it was my biggest obstacle to becoming a perennial sales performer. I reiterated what was told to me by my hiring manager that the Los Angeles territory was one of the worst in the nation. It had always been that way and would remain that way. In addition to the bad territory, I felt there was a lack of support and guidance from my manager, which was also hindering my progress.

Of course the VP of Sales saw the situation completely different. He was steadfast in his belief that the problem was me. “Ja Marr, let me ask you something”, the VP of Sales said. “No matter how you try and pass the buck, at the end of the day, when it comes to your performance whose responsibility is it?”

I knew what he was trying to do, but I was not about to give in. In my mind, he was trying to get me to admit that the poor sales performance was all my fault and that would give him enough HR ammo to fire me. So as to outsmart him, and not dig my own grave, I was stubbornly persistent and continued to present my version of the truth. I repeated my earlier answers about how bad the territory is and lack of support. To his credit, the VP of Sales was not about to give in either.

He narrowed his focus on me and with a stern, yet measured tone and stated, “It’s your responsibility. Nobody else’s but yours. Everything that happens, in your territory, good or bad – is your responsibility. You have talent but you have failed miserably at taking ownership and owing up to your responsibility. Until you do you will not be successful here or any other company you work at.”

Our debate ended right there. Not because I immediately understood his point, but because I had nothing left to defend myself. For the next thirty minutes we drove to the first appointment in total silence. I opened up my mind and allowed for his words to percolate. Something about the line “you will not be successful here or anywhere” resonated. My perception of what was actually possible in my territory and the meaning behind taking ownership and responsibility started to actually sink in.

We pulled up to the office of our first physician. Before we got out of the car the VP of Sales turned to me once again and asked, “So who’s responsibility is it?”

I replied confidently, “It’s my responsibility.” For the first time in my career I understood what this meant. A clear sense of relief came over me.

The VP of Sales recognized the importance of this and said, “Good. Now I can teach you how to improve your sales results.”

Without the burden of anger, resentment or frustration hanging over me, I walked toward the physician’s office with a sense of relief. A major turn in my career had taken place.

For the first time in my career, I took full responsibility for my results. I realized that all of the time I spent blaming others could have been spent trying to improve myself and learning how to be successful.

Were there uncontrollable challenges in my territory? Yes. But was I helping or hurting the situation? I realized that I was actually hurting the situation by contributing to the problems with my poor attitude as opposed to finding solutions and focusing on what I could control.

Did the gripe sessions I had with other salespeople in the company help or hurt my situation? We all have a choice when faced with adversity in sales, and that choice is to change your attitude or change your address. I decided to change my attitude and it was one of the single most contributing factors to my success. And, as I continued to learn from and study perennial top performers, I found out that it was theirs as well.

Consider the answer to the following question:

Have you ducked responsibility in your career?

If so, make a comment to this post and describe the moment where you came to the realization that your performance was your responsibility.

Who or what played a role in you realizing the importance of taking responsibility and ownership with your performance?

If you have not fully taken responsibility yet what can you do, starting today, to take ownership and put yourself on a path towards perennial sales success?

When it comes to developing your story, one of the key components is identifying, assessing and fully leveraging the potential you have as a sales professional. Everyone has potential. It’s up to you as to whether you choose to recognize it, embrace it and fulfill that potential that exists within you.

My grandfather came to recognize the potential he had in him and chose to fulfill that potential by inspiring the lives of those he encountered every day. He knew early on, going back to his days in World War II, that the bigger the obstacle or the bigger the goal, the more important it was to have others who believed in you even more than you believed in yourself. This philosophy was put to use on the battlefields in Europe and again on the battlefields throughout some of the toughest communities in San Diego.

My grandfather leveraged his knowledge and skills and embraced his own potential by proactively engaging and inspiring others to do the same in their lives. Many of those he reached out to in his lifetime, beyond just family and friends, were hundreds of misguided souls who had lost the sense of who they were and felt they had no potential. Organizing a baseball league and instilling lifelong values and skills through his coaching, these individuals not only regained clarity on the potential they had lost sight of, but they also came to realize my grandfather believed in them more than they even believed in themselves.

Over several decades he set the framework and provided the guidance for dozens of kids and even adults to discover their innate potential and fulfill it. Those who genuinely wanted to change their lives followed my grandfather’s guidance and opened their minds to the possibilities of perennial success.

The results of having my grandfather believe in them more than they did in themselves were astounding. Hundreds of boys and girls who could have wound up in prison or dead in the streets were awakened to a new set of possibilities. Today many of those boys and girls, now full grown adults, serve as a beacon of hope to their own children and others for what can be achieved with one’s potential, no matter the obstacles.

Some questions to consider:

· Who do you have in your life that sees you bigger and better than even you see yourself? What kind of potential do they see in you?

· How does the belief someone else has in you affect your performance as a sales professional?

· Are you overwhelmed by the pressure and expectations they have of you? Or do you embrace that and use it to improve your performance?

· What level of potential do you see in yourself as a sales professional? Are you achieving this potential or wasting it

Stories provide customers a frame of reference for making decisions. Stories also shape customers perspective of the products and services they seek and the brands and companies by which they buy from. Because of this companies spend millions of dollars training their salespeople on the stories behind their products and services so that they can convey them to customers. Billions of dollars are spent on telling those stories to customers through marketing and branding campaigns.

What good, however, is the story of your product or even the story of your customers if your salespeople don’t know their own story?

For far too long I’ve seen well intentioned sales professionals, their confidence masked by insecurities they refuse to acknowledge, attempt to get by with antiquated sales tactics, strategies and yes, stories, that simply don’t work. This is especially true in today’s world. Customers are savvier as to when, why and from whom they make purchases. Choices as to where to buy and who to buy from are more abundant. Customer loyalty has become the exception rather than the rule. Customers simply do not tolerate average salespeople to the degree they used to.

Think about the customers you call on. If you’re in the medical device or pharmaceutical industry the doctors you’re calling on have most likely been subjected to hundreds of sales calls from reps. They’ve learned to anticipate your sales pitch because they’ve heard it at nauseum. The moment you show up at their practice their defenses go up and you get little to no clues about their story. The same is true with their staff. Without changing the patterns and experiences that form their story of salespeople, getting them to see past their perspective of who they think you are and making the sale will be an uphill battle.

Whether the stories they have told themselves about salespeople are distorted or 100% accurate, if they believe salespeople are unethical, rude and only out to make a sale, no matter how much you’re not like that, they will see you as the salesperson in their story. To change their perspective you will have to rewrite a new version of their story.

The first step is learning your customer’s story and then applying what you learned to create a smoother sale. When you listen and apply you will find yourself no longer having to force the close. Instead, you will find yourself facilitating your customers closing themselves. Before you can learn their stories, though, you must first understand your own.

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.