What does it take to be a successful salesperson? One of the best ways to unlock your real sales potential is to look at the traits of successful people in other fields. Whether it’s astrophysics or technology or sports, there are a number of traits that successful people share. Discover what those traits are here, and find out how you can utilize them to become the most successful salesperson you can be.

Passion

It’s nearly impossible to be successful in any arena if you aren’t passionate about what you do. It takes long hours and hard work to get to the top of any field. If you’re not passionate about what you do, it makes it that much harder to put in the effort. But when you love what you do, all those sacrifices you make for the job no longer seem like work. They feel worth it, because this is what you were meant to do.

Innovation

Innovation is one of the main traits of successful people that pops up in nearly every field. But how, exactly, do you tap into the creativity that leads to innovation? Try looking at the obstacles in your life. It may seem counterintuitive, but every obstacle has an upside. It provides you with a way to find a solution. Ideas are born from the combination of a need to accomplish a task and a fresh perspective. Keep your eyes open for novel solutions that others may not see. Keep your ears open to listen for obstacles that others might have. Ask questions that can uncover the root of the obstacle, and you’ll unleash your inner innovator in no time.

Self-Improvement

Think about your favorite sports figure for a moment. They are exciting to watch—thrilling even. You root for them and you’re disappointed when they lose. Now imagine if you found out they no longer showed up to training and refused to practice. It wouldn’t take long for you to find someone else to cheer for, would it? Self-improvement is a process that never ends. There’s always room for you to be grow, improve your skills, and become a more successful salesperson. There really is no such thing as a plateau, because there is always more to learn. Maintain a student mentality to avoid becoming complacent. Look for ways to further your education, your technique, and your motivation to ensure long-term success!

Self-Reliance

Successful people don’t become successful through luck.  Luck is merely means being prepared when an opportunity arrives. You have to develop your skills and position yourself in a space where opportunity exists. That way you are ready, available, and capable to meet your opportunities head on. Remember that a successful salesperson can thrive in any market, because when you are living up to your potential, you create your own success.

Provide Value

You’re never really selling goods or services; what you are always selling is solutions. Your clients have problems that they need resolved, and you have the means to resolve them. Listen carefully to your client, and ask them questions that get to the root of what their issues are. Then, you are poised to add value to their day-to-day life. Think about Martha Stewart. She mastered the skill of making a beautiful home, and in turn, she sold the solutions she discovered along the way to millions of people across the country and benefitted their lives.

Persistence

Failure is inevitable, and the ability to work through it and keep yourself dedicated to your goals is one of the defining traits of successful people. There are countless examples of this. Sir James Dyson created 5,126 failed prototypes before creating a bagless vacuum that worked. Dyson Vacuums is now valued at billions of dollars. Theodor Seuss Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss, had his first book rejected by 27 different publishers. Stephen King threw away an entire early draft of Carrie because he was unsatisfied with his product. His wife saved it from the trash and it eventually launched his career. Every failure is a chance to learn, to adapt, and to refine your approach.

Self-Control

A successful sales person doesn’t need anyone other than themselves to hold them accountable. Similarly, you are the only person who truly knows just how valuable you are to a team. While your manager will set certain expectations of you based on your potential, to really excel, you should set even higher standards for yourself. You know what you are capable of. You have the discipline to achieve success. You must answer to yourself at the end of every day.

Exceed Expectations

There’s an old sales saying, “under-commit and over-deliver.” But what happens when you over-commit and still over-deliver? Successful people do more than what is asked of them. They think of their job description as where their job starts, and then they look to add even more value to their team. In addition to proving to others that they are a team player, their work really stands out.

Goal-Oriented

Across all disciplines, it is a proven trait of successful people to remain goal-oriented in spite of any and all surrounding circumstances. The key to obtaining the goals you set for yourself is to approach them strategically. Differentiate short term goals from long term goals and prioritize your progress accordingly. Realize that long term goals are often made up of a number of more easily actionable short term goals. Tackle those short-term goals one by one, and soon you will discover you have achieved the success you deserve.

Be sure to check the Cydcor Blog regularly for more tips on how to become the successful salesperson you are meant to be!

The crowd falls silent as you walk out to the podium, and with hundreds of eyes fixed on you, you try to speak, only to realize you can’t remember a single word of your speech! This is the nightmare scenario so many of us play in our heads in the hours before we know we’ll need to speak in front of a crowd. The fear of public speaking, glossophobia, is one of the most common phobias, and many people avoid public speaking in order to escape their anxiety. But dodging the microphone or avoiding speaking in front of others can have career consequences that are worse than that temporary feeling of dread.

Public speaking is a great opportunity to demonstrate leadership, draw positive attention to yourself, and share your point of view. Avoiding public speaking invitations, simply because you’re afraid, is doing yourself a disservice that could stifle your career growth. You can overcome your fear of public speaking by approaching it with the right attitude and by calling on a few helpful tips and tricks.

Here are eight of the best tricks for keeping your fear of public speaking under control:

1)   Focus on Them, Not You: Public speaking anxiety often centers around feelings of insecurity about how you look and sound. By focusing on what the audience is getting out of your speech, you can take your mind off those worries about being judged. Remember that you’re speaking in front of a crowd to communicate something important. Are they absorbing your message? Are they connected? The more energy you put into conveying your main point, the less you’ll have available for self-criticism.

2)   Speak from the Heart: Public speaking can feel awkward because we may think we have to pretend to be someone else – someone smarter – more knowledgeable. Instead of playing a role, just be sincere. Use examples you know well, relate to, and about which you feel strongly. The audience will pick up on your passion for the subject. When you speak in front of a crowd about your own perspective, you’re more likely to remember your speech, remain calm, and be convincing and compelling.

3)   Breathe: It may seem obvious, but breathing properly is a proven technique for overcoming anxiety. Being deliberate about your breathing during a public speaking engagement can have multiple benefits. It reminds you to stay in the moment and get out of your head, and it slows you down, which prevents rushing through your speech and allows you to build confidence as you go. Breathing deeply also helps you control the sound of your voice, and it has a calming effect that prevents nerves from creeping up on you.

4)   Practice, Practice, Practice: The better rehearsed you are, the more confident you’ll feel on stage, helping mitigate any fear of public speaking. Focus on your delivery more than specific words, and practice reading your presentation aloud. If possible, perform your speech in front of an audience, even if it’s just a friend or loved one. If you plan to use cue cards or a PowerPoint, practice with those as well, and make sure you’ve designed your cheat sheets in ways that are simple and easy to read. Cue cards with huge blocks of text can be confusing. Instead, use clean bullet points, and make sure the cards are numbered so you don’t mix up the order of your presentation.  Record yourself via audio or video recorder and review your presentation as though you were an audience member. You’d be surprised how much changing your perspective can help you improve your public speaking performance.

5)   Take Pauses: When you’re nervous, it’s tempting to rush through your presentation, but taking occasional pauses can help to calm your nerves and improve your delivery. Pauses create a break in your speech, which gives the audience a chance to react and absorb your message. Pauses help to add emphasis and can force you to get back into the moment rather than obsessing about the next line you have to recite.

6)  Embrace Your Nerves: Don’t judge yourself for being nervous. Your anxiousness about public speaking is a sign that you care about doing well and you’re invested. Studies have shown that trying to stop yourself from being nervous is a losing battle. Instead, transform your nerves into another feeling: excitement. Use your nerves as a way of bringing energy to your presentation as you speak in front of a crowd.

7)   Start with a Story: When it comes to public speaking, what people will remember most is how you start and how you finish. Begin with a story, joke, or memory to draw the audience into your presentation right away. This also helps you put their focus on your message rather than your performance as a speaker.

8)   Don’t Memorize Every Word: It’s tempting to rehearse to the point that you know every single word, pause, and inflection by heart. This could backfire big-time if you happen to miss a word, completely throwing you off for the rest of your presentation. Instead, memorize the beats, the main points you need to make, and instead of focusing on the exact delivery, put energy into staying in the moment and connecting with your audience.

Public speaking doesn’t have to be painful. In fact, it shouldn’t be. Taking center stage to speak to a crowd is an exciting opportunity to share your voice and demonstrate your ability to motivate and inspire. While your instincts might tell you to get through it as fast as you can and to try not to think about what you’re doing, that approach will almost guarantee a poor performance. As daunting as it may seem, try to enjoy the moment. Remind yourself of the potential benefits of doing a good job, and remember that the people in the audience aren’t there because they want to see you fail. They are there to learn something and to hear what you have to say. Prepare yourself well and your ability to capture the crowd may surprise you.

Wouldn’t it be nice if we could just create new habits at the snap of our fingers? Wouldn’t you love to just wake up one morning to discover that your new morning workout, improved time management, or daily reading habit has already become automatic? Unfortunately, as we all know, adopting new habits just isn’t that easy. It takes commitment, hard work, planning, and consistency. That is why it’s so easy to go back to your old ways. But there are proven methods you can use to form good habits that stick.

Try these 10 tricks to build new habits that will last:  

1. Start Small: Instead of telling yourself you will never eat another carb, create a small, achievable goal like skipping the rolls at dinnertime. By creating a goal that’s almost ridiculously easy to achieve, you can set a precedent of success. Think of will power and discipline as muscles you’re trying to strengthen. By practicing with easy changes, you’re building the strength you will need to make even bigger changes in the future.

2. Take it in Bites: Let’s say you want to create a habit of reading for one hour every day. Instead of reading for a whole hour on day one, start with just fifteen minutes. Do that every day until you begin to feel that you’ve made room in your routine for the new behavior, then add a few more minutes each time. You’re much more likely to succeed if you build up to your ultimate goal rather than trying to tackle it all at once.

3. Take Your New Habit for a Spin: Many times, we don’t even try to change our habits because we don’t trust ourselves to stick with them for the long run. Take the pressure off by telling yourself that you only have to commit for 30 days. A 30-day test run is a much easier commitment than forever. Promise to adopt the new behavior every day for just one month, and withhold judgement about whether you’ll continue until those 30 days are up. What may surprise you is that after doing the same thing for an entire month, it suddenly doesn’t seem so hard to stick with anymore.

4. Recover Quickly from Slip Ups: People like to think of habits like links in a chain. If they break a link, they feel the entire chain is ruined. But, research has proven that small slip ups have little impact on people’s abilities to stick with a habit. What really makes a difference is how quickly you recover. So don’t panic when you make a mistake, and don’t punish yourself. Just get back on track as soon as you can and move on.

5. Link Your Behaviors: Studies have shown that one of the most effective ways to form good habits that last is by attaching it to another behavior you do automatically. For instance, if you’d like to become more proactive about daily planning, tell yourself that every day, while you’re having your morning cup of coffee, you’ll write a to-do list for the day ahead. Because you never miss that first cup of the day, you’ve now given your brain a cue: a reminder that connects morning coffee to planning your day.

6. Use the Buddy System: Being accountable to another person is one of the best and proven methods for keeping yourself on track. If you’re always forgetting to follow up on emails and phone calls, enlist a friend who has the same bad habit, and agree to check in with each other about any pending communications. Knowing your friend will be asking you about what needs to be done will put automatic pressure on you to keep better track of outstanding issues.

7. Remind Yourself: It’s easy for new behaviors to slip our minds, especially when things get stressful. To keep your new habit top of mind, leave yourself sticky notes around your home and office, and send yourself reminders through your mobile phone.

8. Eliminate Unnecessary Decisions: Forming a good habit requires as much brain-power as it does willpower. To lighten the load, reduce the amount of mental energy you expend on things that are less important, at least temporarily. For instance, if your goal is to start getting up a half hour earlier each morning, focus just on that. Eliminate decisions like which route to take to work in order to beat traffic. Instead, just pick one route that makes sense, and stick with it. Instead of spending time deciding how you’ll do your makeup each day, decide on a weekday makeup routine and save the flair for the weekends.

9. Be Patient: Creating new habits is a marathon, not a sprint. New habits take a long time to form, and it takes even longer before you can trust that habit to stick. Patience may be the most important new habit you’ll have to adopt.

10. Identify Your Why: It may seem obvious but if you want to be sure your new habit sticks, you’re going to have to be clear on why you want to adopt that habit to begin with. Without a strong “why” it’s quite possible you could adopt a new habit, only to abandon it a few weeks or months later. If you want to keep up the behavior, you’ll have to continue reminding yourself why it’s important. Why haven’t you ever stopped brushing your teeth? Because you know that if you don’t, your breath will smell terrible, your teeth will start to decay, and you’ll get stuck going to the dentist, which you hate.

Starting a new habit is pretty easy, but sticking to one is something almost everyone struggles with. Still, with a little organization, a strong sense of purpose, and by using the tricks above, you can give yourself the best possible chances of success. The most important thing to remember is to be patient, because after all, changing ourselves for the better is the most challenging new habit of all!

Distractions are everywhere! Sometimes it’s hard to believe anyone can get anything accomplished when friends can reach us at any time on our mobile phones, social media notifications nag us to check in, and a 24-hour news cycle means there’s always something new and interesting just one Google search away. But focus, like exercise, eating right, and flossing, is just another habit. It’s a behavior we need to constantly practice and hone, and it IS something we can train our busy brains to do better.

Here are eight essential tips to help you be more productive:

1. Minimize Multi-Tasking: It’s a buzzword mentioned in almost every job interview, but multi-tasking isn’t necessarily a good thing. Studies have shown that people who try to juggle more than one task at a time don’t perform as well as those who focus on the task at hand. Instead, allot specific amounts of time to each project according to its importance, and give your full attention to each task during its assigned time slot.

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2. Do the Complicated Work First: It might seem easier to get the simple tasks out of the way, but people tend to be most energized and focused in the morning, so use those most productive hours to tackle the projects that will require the greatest amount of concentration.

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3. Exercise Regularly: Your brain is a muscle, and what’s good for your body is good for your brain as well. Besides getting the blood flowing, exercise helps reduce stress, which can be a huge distraction when you’re trying to get things done.

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4. Prioritize: Not everything is equally important. Make to-do lists, with the most critical tasks at the top. Making lists not only helps you build momentum as you check off key projects, it also helps ensure nothing falls through the cracks.

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5. Take Breaks: Think you don’t have time for a break? Think again. Believe it or not, studies have shown that taking short, planned breaks actually improves concentration and focus at work. Taking breaks also helps avoid distractions brought on by boredom and combat our brains’ natural tendencies to worry about the things and people around us. This instinct was super helpful when we were cavemen in the wilderness – not so useful when we’re trying to meet a deadline at work.

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6. Practice Good Concentration Hygiene: Until you have trained your brain to withstand all of life’s most tempting distractions, set yourself up for success by eliminating the distractions ahead of time. Hide your phone in a drawer, turn off the radio or TV, and move to a quiet place where you can commit to the task before you.

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7. Stop Being a Perfectionist: There are few things more distracting than worrying about failure before you’ve even started. Commit to getting the work done, and avoid the natural instinct to overthink what you’re producing. You can revise your project as many times as you like, but you’re not likely to produce much of anything if you’re too busy telling yourself that everything you do is mediocre.

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8. Have a Plan: Before heading into the office on Monday morning, carve out a little time over the weekend to create a roadmap for the week ahead. Taking a few extra minutes to plan out your days in advance can help you be more productive throughout the week and save you the stress of sitting down and not knowing where to begin.

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Staying focused at work is something almost everyone struggles with. It’s not an easy thing when everything in our lives seems to be designed to grab our attention. But focus is something you can learn to do better. Start with the tricks above and take it slow. Even if you can only concentrate for five or ten minutes at a time in the beginning, just continue to work at it, and in no time at all, your brain will start to build the defenses it needs to banish distractions for good.