Sales is a career which can make your greatest dreams come true. 

But only if you are fully committed to playing the long game. 

Here are my top 6 tips for a long, successful career in sales.

#1: Live by this philosophy every day: HARD NOW = EASY LATER

This means doing the things you don’t feel like doing, every single day.  

Sales requires working on things that many of us don’t enjoy, such as Account Planning, phone prospecting, creating Powerpoint decks for meetings, internal planning calls, project management, and researching accounts to develop a specific, relevant POV that gets you in the door. 

Oftentimes we don’t feel like doing these activities because they are hard and there’s no immediate gratification. 

But they are the EXACT activities that lead to large deals and big commissions. 

When you can accept that doing hard things now will make your life easier later, then these things will no longer feel hard because you simply 

2. Focus on the output, rather than the outcome. 

This means rather than obsessing about hitting quota, obsess about executing the Revenue Generating Activities (RGA’s) that advance your deals or create deals. 

In sales, nothing happens with a meeting. 

That’s why we need to be setting meetings, preparing for meetings, doing meetings, or following up on meetings every day. 

Everything else is noise.

Focus on the 20% of activities that drive 80% of revenue, and ignore the rest. 

Perfectionism, procrastination, and people-pleasing are the 3 deadly P’s which will take you away from RGA’s, so be vigilant with guarding your time and focus. 

3. Be patient. For 14 years I averaged 200K-300K in tech sales. 

My last four years I averaged 750K, which enabled me to retire at 42. 

Trust that your time will come and it will all be worth it, if you continue to stay the course and have faith along the way. 

4. Invest in your own professional and personal growth. 

Strategic selling is hard, and that’s where the big money is. 

Not so much in transactional sales where deals are smaller and sales cycles are shorter. 

Strategic selling requires a whole different set of skills that grinding and hustling. These skills include having impactful conversations, developing business acumen, and deeply understanding the problems that your products solve so you can articulate your unique value proposition and empathize with your customers. 

Invest in yourself and surround yourself by the people who are performing at the level you aspire to. Join masterminds, hire a coach, and get mentored by the best. This will shorten your learning curve tremendously.

5. Get REALLY good at prospecting and selling to Senior Executives

NOBODY that I know has been successful in sales by getting handouts, and if you want to succeed in sales you must create your own pipeline.

Once I made the decision to target VP levels and above with my prospecting strategies, I discovered that the deal cycles compressed as opposed to bottom up selling. 

#6: Hang in there and keep the faith! 

Your time is coming, and it will all be worth it if you continue to show up every day and give your all, even when you aren’t seeing the results. 

And it will make it THAT MUCH SWEETER when you finally do arrive.  

Committing to sales today will allow you to live your dream life tomorrow, even if you still don’t know what tomorrow has in store. 

Oh yeah – and don’t forget to enjoy the ride along the way.

No point in riding the sales roller coaster if you are miserable and sick the entire ride. No amount of money is worth your health or sanity.