Doctors and Sales People
It was 5:15 pm on a Friday night and all I wanted to do was get home in time for dinner with my wife and family. I was packing up ready to head home after a long week when it happened...
My top salesperson, (who’s absolutely hysterical) walks into my office and needs to talk.
There go the Friday dinner plans!
She was new to the sales game but had made some incredible progress in a short amount of time. She was head and shoulders above our #2.
Yet there she was...
Mortified.
Devastated.
Like my daughters just found out that Santa, the Easter Bunny, and Tooth Fairy don’t exist.
Lot’s of ugly crying.
Why was this epic meltdown happening in my office?
It had been a tough week.
Some sales fell through.
She missed some easy sales and things just weren’t clicking.
Anyone who’s in sales knows what this type of week looks like.
Nothing falls into place.
You start wondering if you’ll ever make a sale again. You curse the sales gods. You wonder if you could get into a different career like horse training or a helicopter pilot.
She too was questioning her decision to get into sales, and direction in life. This is someone who has been crushing her new role and was destined for great things.
She looked serious though. She didn’t like how hard sales were.
She was about to throw it all away until I explained the following to her.
I talked to her about the difference between doctors and salespeople/business people.
Hang with me for just a moment...
There are some major obvious differences between these careers most notably the fact that Doctors get a cool beeper, scrubs, and endless admiration from your parents.
But, here’s a not so subtle difference and the point I was trying to make to my sales wonder kid when it comes to business.
See when a doctor wants to be a doctor, they don’t just declare that they’re a doctor and suddenly they’re a doctor. How absurd.
But think of anyone in sales, business, or entrepreneurship.
They announce they’re one of the above titles, and magically that’s their title.
No 10+ years of schooling.
No rigorous testing from accredited bodies.
No late-night hours taking the worst graveyard shifts for weeks in a row just to graduate.
Long story short, and what I told my sales prodigy, is that you don’t haven’t been in the game long enough to even think you have mastery on the sales topic...and to think she was about to quit, she hadn’t even begun!
She barely had graduated from sales middle school.
There is no overnight success in sales or business. There are no shortcuts, and there are no cheat codes you can use.
The only way to get better at business and sales is to be like the doctor and actually do business and sales.
That means failing A LOT.
That means missing sales.
That means royally botching sales.
That means making mountains of mistakes.
So if you want to get your Ph.D. in sales and business, you need to put in the schooling.
You would never trust a doctor that didn’t get the experience their positions warrants. What makes you think business should be any different.
Have the courage to learn a little.
So what happened to my sales mentee...well she’s still in sales and from what I know, she’s crushing it. She reminds me of our conversation every time I see her.
Remember, you can’t quit, because most haven’t really started.