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Dear Quota Team,
This is going to be my third year in sales. Before this, I was working as a laborer at an HVAC company, so, needless to say, this career has been an improvement. That being said, I still feel like I’m an underachiever, especially compared to the things I see online as well as the performance of my coworkers.
In these last few years, I’ve spent probably between fifteen and twenty thousand dollars on sales courses and mastermind events. I have enjoyed learning from the material and meeting people at the events and all that, but it really doesn’t seem to have made much of a difference when it comes to my performance.
Don’t get me wrong, I usually hit my quota, and I’ve never lost a sales job in my life. But I’m rarely at the top of the board and seem to be stuck around the just-under-100k-mark. Like I said, I am constantly investing in training and am appreciative of the job, I just don’t know how to level up. Any advice for how to break out of the middle?
Stuck in Dallas
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Dear Stuck,
It’s great that you’re appreciative of your career. Too many of us find ourselves achieving the things we once dreamed of only to end up taking it all for granted. Gratitude is a good thing.
It’s also good that you’re looking to improve. But it’s a bit curious that you’ve personally spent that much money on sales training and “mastermind” events without having gotten much out of it. Some of the people selling this stuff, of course, are nothing more than grifters, and it’s important to learn how to separate the professionals from the hucksters, otherwise your money is just going to some fast-talker’s Lamborghini lease payment.
How can you level up? Without knowing you or your industry or where you fall short, the best advice we can give is to start doing, and start adapting.
What that means is instead of spending days reading about sales on Instagram pages, start increasing the volume of your efforts. Research prospects instead of researching influencers. Craft carefully thought-out emails instead of crafting messages to “sales hustlers.”
And adapt. With enough focus, you yourself can figure out where you’re falling short. Is it in your prospecting efforts? Is it on the pitch? Or is it the follow-up? Use your managers and coworkers as a resource. They’ll have a better view of what you need to work on than some dead-eyes, spiky-haired scammer who targeted you with a YouTube ad. At some point, you just have to stop looking for answers online and start doing the work. Good luck, you can do it!
