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At this point in my life, I feel that I know at least as much about failure as I do about success. I have failed in sales, failed in business and succeeded in both as well. I have also worked with hundreds of sales professionals and business people as they endured the ups and down of failure and success. I have seen 3 things that cause failure over and over again, here they are:
#3 – Stop Learning. What have you learned in the last year, month or week? If you are not learning, you’re preparing to fail. Take time every day to learn something new in order to keep your mind fresh and your motivation high! Too often, we get “too busy” to learn and that is when we start the slide downhill.
#2 – Stop Working. If you want a guaranteed recipe for failure, just stop working, it is that simple. Keep in mind that working 60 to 80 hours per week doesn’t make you a better person than someone who works 40 hours per week, it is all about your ambition level. Don’t complain about not making big money if you are working 30 hours per week. If you want to be successful, work hard. If you want to fail, stop working hard. Make sure you listen to my podcast episode on this one where I talk about some struggles I have had in this area and tips on overcoming them.
#1 – Lose Your Patience. Constantly learning and working hard doesn’t guarantee success today, next week or even next year. If you read the biographies of successful people, you will see a story on failure after failure for years and sometimes even decades with mixed success and then, because they never lost focus on their long term goals, they experience success. The moment you get into “desperation mode” you are not going to make sales and the irony is that the more you focus on the short term, the worse you short term results will be. Have faith that your effort will pay off long term and keep your focus off of short term setbacks.
Have a great day!
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Most Prospects Are Not Really Prospects – Don’t Fool Yourself
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