Attention Inside Sales Reps: Stop Settling for Average Performance
I wouldn’t call myself a huge football fan, but I do catch games here and there, especially during this time of year comes and we get closer to the Super Bowl. Living just outside of Boston and working down the street from Patriots Place, clearly I tend to favor the New England Patriots. This morning, while catching up on some articles about yesterday’s game against the Baltimore Ravens, I read an interesting quote that Tom Brady made about his performance yesterday. 
He said, “You want to hit the open guys. You want to capitalize when you have open receivers. I wish I had done a better job of that today. In some ways, you always beat yourself up. I've been doing this for quite a while. I'm glad we won, I'm glad we're moving on. Hopefully, I can go out there and do better in a few weeks." Despite the win yesterday, Tom Brady still felt like he could have done a better job. Tom’s thoughts about yesterday’s performance reminded me of how inside sales reps should feel when they feel like their performance is just “OK” or “average.” It’s important to constantly strive to be at the top, especially when it comes to sales.
With this in mind, I happened to stumble across a post entitled: “What Separates Top Sales Performers from the Rest of the Pack” on salesgravy.com. The post highlights 17 best practices that top performing inside sales reps live by that separates them from everyone else. If you are asking yourself, “What is it that I can do better in order to be a top performing rep on my team?” I suggest you give this a read as it provides some great insight on how to be an all star inside sales rep at your company, and the qualities you should possess. Something that stuck out to me most while reading the 17 best practices was, “They set HIGH TARGETS and goals. Top performers don’t wait for their manager to issue an annual or quarterly quota. They set their own goals which are usually more ambitious than the corporate targets.” I could not agree more with these statements. For me, the top performer on my team is someone that always goes above and beyond the numbers I present to them. The rep that says, “I want to surpass my goal by mid month” on the first day of the month, is the person that always ends up making the most money, and is the best at their job. Even if you don’t end up being number one on the board at the end of the month, you have to be able to tell yourself that you at least tried your absolute hardest to get there. If it means coming in to work at 7am and not leaving until 8pm to call California, then so be it. The mindset you need to have is that you will do whatever it takes to meet and exceed your goals, and your manager shouldn’t have to remind you of this, you should want to do it on your own.
Tom Brady has found himself at the Super Bowl yet again because he is someone that goes to work each day striving to be the best, and gets upset with himself if he feels he did an average job during a game. If you feel like your performance has been “so so” as an inside sales rep, it’s time to do some serious thinking and take the necessary steps to be the top performer and not settle for anything less. Go get ‘em – and go PATS!