Are You Worth Another $100,000 per Year?
By Jacques Werth |
Equation Research recently published data indicating that the difference in
income between Top Salespeople and Low Performing Salespeople is nearly $100,000
a year! Where do you fit in?
Average Total Compensation of
Salespeople*
High Level Performers $155,055
Mid-Level Performers
$93,499
Low Level Performers $64,990
*Source: Equation Research:
Sales & Marketing Management Magazine, May 2005
About 10% of all
salespeople are in the High Level Performers category. However, within that
ranking, the Top 1% earn any-where from 5 to 15 times more than the average of
that group.
What accounts for these substantial differences in
performance and earning power? What does it take to earn that kind of money?
It's not working longer and harder, nor "working smarter." No one can
work 5 times longer and harder than someone who is near the top of the
profession, and no one is several times smarter. The Top 1 Percent are different
from the rest.
The Top 1% utilize a different sales process that is
radically different from the sales techniques that the other 99% use. The way
they do business doesn't even resemble what most people think of as "Selling".
The methods of the Top 1% are not a closely guarded "secret". Our book,
"High Probability Selling," describes how the Top 1% do business. It's been on
the market since 1993, and 100,000 copies have been sold, presumably to
salespeople and sales managers.
Why haven't most sales pros "gotten it"
yet?
David Wolfe, an expert marketing consultant in Reston, VA., offers
this explanation: "Our brains evolved to resist change, in the interest of
giving us stabilized connections to the external world. To do this, we simply
block out information that conflicts with past experiences and beliefs.
Psychologists call this behavior "denial."
Paraphrasing more of David
Wolfe's writing: Most intelligent salespeople recognize the conflict between
their beliefs and the new sales realities. They resolve these conflicts with
confabu-lations about why they must stick with the "tried and true." The
instinctive, subconscious part of their brains tell them that they have survived
by utilizing the old methods - and survival is the most powerful human instinct.
Philadelphia psychotherapist Dr. Wayne Diamond, who works with a large
number of salespeople, has observed this resistance to changing sales beliefs in
his practice. He describes it as "fear-based denial." Dr. Diamond notes that
most salespeople are in such deep denial that they even deny that they
experience any fear. They use words like "uncomfortable," "uneasy," "awk-ward"
and "anxious," which are all euphemisms for fear.
The cost of all this
avoidance, fear, and denial among salespeople
is well over a $100,000 a year
in lost income.
Can you find the courage to face and overcome your
fears? If you don't overcome your aversion to change, how are you going to
improve your earning power? What will it take? If you're not ready now, will you
ever be ready?
About the Author
Jacques Werth,
author of "High Probability Selling," is an internationally respected Sales
Trainer and Sales Consultant. HPS graduates are excelling in over 70 industries.
Visit http://www.highprobsell.com to read more articles, preview the book, or take our sales quiz.
Copyright High Probability Selling. All Rights Reserved.
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