by Charles J. Hruska Jr., C.L.U.
Any man can be a good salesman if he will take the time to develop the two essential ingredients of success. Sales experience, a glib tongue, wide acquaintance…all these things may be as nothing, if a man does not possess these indispensable qualities. They have been called by many names—ambition, ego-drive, desire, hunger, stick-to-itiveness, and positive mental attitude, but the meaning is the same—determination and perseverance. With them, a man will be the best in any field he may choose. Without them, he will never quite measure up.
A successful man must have the determination to achieve something—money, independence, opportunity, service—and the perseverance to stay and pay any price until they are realized. One is no good without the other. We have all known the salesman who seems to have everything to be successful—a neat appearance, pleasant personality, knowledge of his product, the ability to talk and meet with people—but who never quite lives up to his promise. This is the man who moves from job to job, seeking utopia. He always starts out well, with tremendous immediate success, but in a few months becomes disgruntled and leaves for a new job which he feels promises more. This man has the first quality—determination. He wants to be successful, but he lacks the second ingredient—perseverance.
How often have you heard that successful people form the habit of doing what failures don’t like to do? It has become a cliche because it is so true. Any man of achievement does more things than are necessary, and he keeps doing them. The only difference between the man who achieves in sales and his counterpart in other fields, lies in the fact that the salesman requires so much more determination and perseverance because of the creative and active nature of his profession. He must create his own motives for getting up in the morning and going to his office full of the vigor of a confident man. He must be dedicated enough to see just one more prospect before going home in the evening. These ingredients are needed in abundance for real success in anything. But the salesman needs them in abundance for any success.
Does a man need a special background to become a good salesman? No. The ingredients for success exist in people in every walk of life, in all educational levels and backgrounds. Every occupation has people with and without them.
A man once came to me and asked for a job. He was a bricklayer, not the type of occupation that we usually think of as developing sales ability. However, this man was determined. “Let me try,” he said. “Let me work for you part-time and I will prove to you that I can be a good insurance salesman,” he insisted. I had doubts, but such earnestness seemed to deserve a chance. Between the two of us we worked out a minimum goal to be achieved in six months and an office training program to give him the necessary knowledge of our product. That man came, with his lessons prepared, to every training session. He called on people even though he had beginner’s call reluctance, as every new salesman has. He enrolled in a Dale Carnegie course to improve his speaking ability. He learned how to dress and how to conduct himself in an interview. In short, he did more than he had to do. In four months he achieved his six month goal and came to work full-time. Today, ten years later, he is happy and prosperous in his chosen profession because he had resolved to succeed and he persisted, doing what failures refused to do, until he achieved his goal.
Another man that I hired seemed to have everything going for him. He had been vice-president of a family business which he had left for personal reasons. He was young, bright and energetic. He could meet people easily and converse intelligently. He had a wide business acquaintance. He seemed to have everything, but he was not successful. He wanted instant success. He would not pay the price of study and work. He would not persevere.
You can understand, then, why I might say, “Show me the best ditch-digger in 1,000 and I’ll show you a better sales candidate than a poor salesman of intangibles.” When I look for a new recruit, I look for the man who is doing the best in his field. I ask, “Who is the best cosmetics salesman who calls on you, Mr. Druggist?” or “Who is the best campus leader you know of Mr. Dean of Fraternity Men?” It is not a man’s present occupation, be it dishwashing or sales, or his educational level, or his marital status, or his physical stature, or his looks, tongue or anything else. It is whether he possesses the ingredients of success that interests us. That will decide his success or failure. The man who is the best in his present occupation will probably be the best in anything he tries, because the qualities of success are always the same—determination and perseverance.
If a man wishes to do well, then, he must be sure he has these characteristics. Granted, some men seem to develop them more easily than other men do. But they are not God-given talents. Any man can develop the dedication and persistence needed if he will only try. Above all, he must realize that the ingredients for success must come from within himself. Even though I knew what was needed, I could not give the former vice-president the qualities he needed. If I had planned every moment of every day for the former bricklayer, he could not have made it if he had not developed the essential characteristics of a successful man himself, for sooner or later, every man must stand on his own firm foundation. No sales manager, no company, no organization can do it for him. If he fails to develop the ingredients of success, changing jobs won’t help.
What he must do is analyze himself. Does he have an objective? Is he headed in the right direction to achieve it? Does he tend to quit when the going gets rough? Does he offer excuses? An ambitious man must sit down and decide what he wants from his profession, what kind of life he wants to lead, what he wants to achieve and find the methods most likely to lead him there. Then he must resolve to reach his goal, determined to persevere, doing what lesser men will not do, until he is the best. With the ingredients of success at his fingertips, there is no limit to what he can achieve.
