Rich Christensen is the host, executive producer and creator of the drag racing reality show Pinks. I love what he says about his job:
"I sell tv shows for a living. There is almost a 99% failure rate doing what I do. I wake up each day with one goal – to fight as hard as humanly possible for that 1% opportunity. It’s that simple."
Rich just nailed it for every sales, marketing and business development guy out there. Direct Marketing (DM) guys send millions of catalogs, dreaming of a 2% response. DM consultants get paid six figures to boost response rates by a tenth of a percent. For guys in sales, it means getting told "no" a lot more often than closing a sale.
Sales and business development people are wired differently. They celebrate their wins, and consolidate their losses, with full understanding that it is a numbers game, as Rich explains so eloquently. It takes years and years of training to be a good salesperson, but this determination is the foundational characteristic of all great salespeople.
Links: If you haven't had the chance to catch an episode of Pinks, here is one that was uploaded on YouTube. The winner in a best of 5 series of drag races takes the loser's car home! The negotiations and emotions involved are simply amazing: part 1 part 2 part 3
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