I love reading books about the sales profession and topics that contribute to personal growth.

Why I read personal growth books.

If you are more aware of your personality and personal growth, you can know how to set expectations for yourself and modify your behavior to achieve them. I write a lot about how introverts can join the upper echelon of their career by being intentional with their actions. This development can be made more intentional by understanding what strengths work for the introvert and identifying obstacles that may be a hindrance.

Common obstacles introverts have:

• Rejection aversion
• Dislike the small talk needed to build rapport
• Becoming emotionally invested
• Lack of a roadmap
• Devalue persuasion
• Don’t understand the reasons sales are lost

Extroverts also have obstacles.

Even though extroverts easily engage their prospects and can, with apparently effortless ease, get their prospect’s attention and keep it, they also have obstacles. You’ll notice that the following nonexhaustive list is remarkably similar to introverts’ struggles.

• Overvalue their charm
• Engaging without a plan
• Overly dependent on small talk
• Lack of a roadmap
• Overvalue persuasion
• Don’t understand why sales are lost

When one learns about their personality tendencies and the personalities and behaviors of others, one can improve their skills.

Your skills are your tools; your prospects are the material you work with.

A salesperson is a craftsman. You work with tools. Your tools are your skills. The medium you are working with is your prospect.

• If you are a rough carpenter, your medium is usually a 2×4, and you are very unlikely to use a pipe wrench.
• If you are a welder, your medium is metal, and you won’t use a concrete screed.
• If you are a barista, your medium is a coffee bean; you won’t be using an extension ladder.

On the contrary:

• If you are a rough carpenter, ownership, and skill with a circular saw will be vital to your success
• If you are a welder, you’ll be proficient with a chipping hammer.
• The best baristas must expertly wield their grinder, or the resulting coffee may be undrinkable.

As a salesperson, your tools are your skills; some of those skills are the ability to understand your personality.

The Introvert needs to understand why they are rejection averse and plan for it.

The extrovert needs to practice problem-solving to succeed independently of their persuasive charm.

The introvert and extrovert need to draw, write or otherwise create their roadmap so they can navigate the sale and travel with their prospect wherever the trip goes.

The introvert needs to recognize that while they are emotionally involved in the sale, the prospect often operates from a place of fear that has nothing to do with you. The salesperson can develop word tracks to put the customer at ease.

The extrovert and the introvert need the knowledge and skills to reflect on both sales made and sales lost to identify where things went awry and what they could have done differently.

Skills are developed by working on yourself.

Your skills are developed by more than just reading or listening to sales books, although this is incredibly valuable. Your skills are also built by learning about human behavior; to help you identify how the behavior of both you and your prospect contribute to reaching your goals.

• Taking deliberate actions to improve yourself will result increase in your confidence.
• Taking deliberate actions to improve yourself will make you a better salesperson.
• Taking deliberate actions to improve yourself will give you a career path and a roadmap for success.

The obstacles you face are not insurmountable; they are growth opportunities.

Why should you work on improving yourself?

If you’re not growing, what are you doing?