Workplace 101: A Profiles Global Business Blog

Is failure part of your vocabulary? Leaders must accentuate the positive in driving their organizations toward success, but a mythical view of leadership could be holding you back. Focusing only on your strengths keeps you from effectively dealing with your weaknesses. Heidi Grant Halvorson, a blogger for Harvard Business Review, argues that self-compassion may be a more effective path to success than having a high self-esteem.

“Salespeople are born, not made”- true or false statement?

According to a Harvard Business Review article by Steve W. Martin, 70 percent of top salespeople are born with natural instincts that make them successful, and the other 30 percent are self-made and must learn to be successful without natural sales instincts. Martin goes on to state that for every 100 people who enter into a sales job without natural sales traits, 40 percent will fail or quit, 40 percent will perform at an average level, and only 20 percent will perform at an above average level.

Natural instincts or not, born salesperson or self-made salesperson, success comes down to one thing…how much do you want it? Successful salespeople are successful because they work continually on eliminating the most common reasons for failure. When a sales person fails or quits it can normally be attributed to one or more of the following damaging behaviors:

Take a moment to think about a few of your most challenging goals. How confident would you feel if you had achieved all of those goals? How would it impact your self-confidence if everything you tried worked out positively, and every day brought about another success? Stop for a moment and try to imagine what that would feel like.