Think about eating a healthy breakfast, organizing your desk, finishing projects on time, openly communicating with colleagues, reading bedtime stories to your kids, regularly working out at the health club. All of these are excellent habits that (hopefully) you’ve incorporated into a daily routine.
Success in personal selling – and business, in general – requires well-developed, good habits, too! Don’t agree? Think about this statement by Robert Ringer, the author of Million Dollar Habits:
“The world is saturated with intelligent, highly educated, extraordinarily skilled people who experience ongoing frustration because of their lack of success. Millions of others spend their lives working long, hard hours only to die broke. Success is a matter of understanding and religiously practicing specific, simple habits that always lead to success.”
In other words, a critical key to sales or any type of business success may be found in your fundamental approach to life. Here are five common traits associated with the habit of winning.
1. Winners are passionate about their work. Although passion itself is not a habit, it’s the foundation for everything else in life. Passion fuels us. It catalyzes self-discipline and makes work fun. In short, we can’t optimally succeed absent passion. When your work aligns with your passion, it really isn’t work.
2. Winners value the process of winning. People in the habit of losing seek the cheap thrill of victory and avoid the hard work that must come first. Winners understand that winning is a process – one that requires hard work and careful preparation. Said differently, winners find value and satisfaction in preparation.
3. Winners hone their strengths. Although it’s important to correct a “fatal” weakness, one that is blocking your potential, it’s far more important to cultivate your strengths. People who practice the habit of winning understand this. Everyone can be the best at something. Your job is to discover what that is! Stop obsessing over your weaknesses, or you’ll be clawing your way up to average. Remember, nobody pays for average … nobody wins with average!
4. Winners focus on the “inner” person. Winners inherently understand that a weak inner core will eventually cause the outer self to crumble. Strengthen your inner core by developing these three qualities:
- Trustworthiness: It’s impossible to win (sell) if you don’t earn trust.
- Discipline: Your disciplined mind must prevail over your undisciplined mind.
- Attitude: Believe you can win, and you make it possible. Believe that you will lose, and winning becomes impossible.
5. Winners persist. Success in life and business demands persistence, an unrelenting willingness to move forward on the right path. As Winston Churchill famously said, “Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.” Quit too early, and you will lose!
Most overnight success stories are either false or greatly exaggerated. To become a consistent winner over time, you must be passionate and willing to prepare, work hard, and persist every day. Success is an inner game that comes from developing the habits of winning. In the words of the great Vince Lombardi, “Winning is a habit … unfortunately, so is losing.”