Hunger Games and Sales - How to Make the Odds Ever in Your Favor
In the hungry and cut throat world of sales, you have to be smart about how you play the game. Being a successful inside sales rep is not only based on your phone skills, but also reflects your ability to utilize the tools, training, and support of your mentors and peers. The keys to success are the tools and support you must employ to find your opportunities. Open communication, and the ability to procure useful tools from your management team, will yield a higher success rate.
Like the rest of America, I recently read the Hunger Games Trilogy. While reading, it was very apparent to me that the only way to succeed in the “Games” was by utilizing sponsorship. For those of you who have not read the books, the heroine began the story cold and extremely unapproachable. Through her relationship with her mentor, she was able to evolve and become more relatable and likeable by the “sponsors” in the story. This relationship with her mentor was able to provide her with the tools she needed to succeed in the games. In the Hunger Games, a bottle of water from your sponsor can be a matter of life and death. In inside sales, a quality list or training and direction from your mentor can be the differential in whether or not you make bonus.
As an inside sales rep myself, I understand the importance of developing an open line of communication with my management team or peers and the impact it has on my success. When I am struggling because of my list or my messaging is not working, I know how important it is to gain insight from my mentors, or in my case fellow colleagues and managers. Communicating my needs properly and forming a good relationship with mentors and peers will result in the assistance I need to be a successful in inside sales.
Treating your managers as mentors rather than just your boss, will develop a relationship where success is easy to attain. Sponsors in the Hunger Games are looking for a victor; similarly, sales managers are looking for successful inside sales reps.
“May the odds be ever in your favor!”