The Tim McGraw Guide To Sales Success
Nashville 2004: The secrets to being a successful salesperson were released by an unnamed government agency in the form of the lyrics used for a country music song.
The artist chosen to encode ” The Secrets “, Tim McGraw, son of the late Tug McGraw and husband to Faith, did an admirable job of encoding, so it’ll be necessary for me to decode and decipher.
I’ve done so below, but use ” The Secrets “ at your own risk. Any extra taxes you have to pay on the increased number of sales you make is your own problem.
When I’m here on this highway
Breathing diesel smoke
Driving hard for hours
Trying to make that Memphis show
People always ask me
“Son what does it take
To reach out and touch your dreams?”
To them I always say
Some of us in the profession of selling for a living have to ( or get to ) spend a lot of hours driving down the highways between appointments.
It can wear on you. Before the days of satellite radio and iPods, it was tougher. Here in 2008, I always have hours of mp3’s waiting for me in the form of podcasts, teleseminars and interviews. I learn more now that I ever thought possible and I do it in between cellphone calls, stops for BBQ and catfish and, oh yeah, sales calls.
But even then you have to have a little something extra to keep you moving towards the next sales call and to keep you from stopping to waste time in a mall, at a driving range or just sitting in a park or parked watching sailboats.
Are you hungry?
Are you thirsty?
Is it a fire that burns you up inside?
How bad do you want it?
How bad do you need it?
Are you eating, sleeping, dreaming
With that one thing on your mind?
How bad do you want it?
How bad do you need it?
Cause if you want it all
You’ve got to lay it all out on the line
Hunger is one of ” The Secrets ” that keeps you moving forward. Hunger for more.
More money. More recognition. More power. More territory. More whatever it is that works for you, but you need hunger.
How bad do you want to stand out ? How bad do you want to beat last month’s sales numbers ? How bad do you want that new whatever it is you want ?
You cannot go into a day without a burning desire to get everything out of it that you can get and hope to succeed. Won’t work. Ain’t no free rides in the world of sales.
I get to make my living
Doing what I love
Every night I give my heart and soul
Sometimes that ain’t enough
But brother, if you’re like me
Looking down that road
Be careful of that wild wind, son
Sometimes it don’t let go
I get to do what I was meant to do and get paid for it. I played in a charity golf scramble today and one of the guys paired up with me asked me what it is I do.
For me, the answer was short, sweet and simple - ” I sell. “
No adjectives were necessary.
After we had played about 9 holes and he’d been around me for about 2 hours, he said it was easy to see why I do what I do.
” You’re a born salesman, aren’t you ? “
I don’t think people are born to sell, but I believe some of us were hardwired at birth to have the ability to learn to sell … and love every minute of it.
Can you feel it?
Can you taste it?
Can you hear it knocking at your door?
How bad do you want it?
How bad do you need it?
Are you eating, sleeping, dreaming
With that one thing on your mind?
How bad do you want it?
How bad do you need it?
Cause if you want it all
You’ve got to lay it all out on the line
I think about selling all day and night. When I’m eating, when I’m driving, when I’m talking.
18/7/365. I do sleep a little bit and I don’t know how to control my dreams, so I can’t say I dream about selling, although I do every now and then.
You have to see how selling correlates to every, single thing you come in connect with.
If you don’t see a roadside sign and see how to make it better, you need a new profession.
If you go into a store and you don’t think about how you could have helped the person who waited on you, get a new job.
Why ? Because you ain’t eatin’, sleepin’, dreamin’ with that one thing on your mind.
That’s another of ” The Secrets “, single, minded devotion to your craft.
There’s always a price you pay no matter what you do
If you’re gonna climb that mountain to the top
It always comes down to
How bad do you want it?
How bad do you need it?
Are you eating, sleeping, dreaming
With that one thing on your mind?
How bad do you want it?
How bad do you need it?
Cause if you want it all
You’ve got to lay it all out on the line
If someone tells you they’re in sales and it’s really easy, they’re either lying or they aren’t really a salesperson, just an order taker in a product rep-type of position.
There’s a price to pay for success.
” Opportunity is missed by most people, because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work. ” ~ Thomas Edison
When you get up in the morning, you have to be ready to give it up all day.
” The Secrets “ are in the song, but every one of us will hear different ones, because we’re at different times in our lives, so you’ll have to listen to it yourself and then listen.
No, really, just listen.
Simple.
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2 Responses to “The Tim McGraw Guide To Sales Success”
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Mike,
That’s what’s great about blogging. It gives me an outlet for all that eating, breathing, living, with one thing on my mind, to get me to sleep—so the dreaming can hopefully be about something else!
I really liked this perspective. Well said.
Regards,
Kelly
Thanks Kelly !
Without a way to release all these ideas, sleep would be hard to come by.