I’ll never forget the first time I experienced the magic and power of commitment. One summer I was working on an offshore crew boat that serviced oil rigs. We were off the coast of Louisiana, and we used to sit around waiting for the rigs to call on us. When we weren’t actually working, we’d spend our time fishing off the side of the boat. On one particularly lucky day, we reeled in hundreds of red snappers. As we packed them in what little ice we had on board, I listened to the other crew members, who were planning to take their share of the fish home to eat.
For some crazy reason, I offered to buy up everyone’s fish with the idea that I’d go out and sell them. At the time I’d never sold anything and I didn’t know anything about fish sales. I didn’t even know to whom I was going to sell them. All I knew was that my gut instinct was telling me that someone would want to buy those beautiful fresh red snappers.
With hundreds of snappers piled in the back of my truck, I realized that I needed to create a market, find some customers, and figure out how to convince them to buy my fish. I had to think fast because the ice on the fish was melting, and I was going to lose my paycheck and my inventory if I didn’t move the product right away. As I thought about where I might find customers, I remembered how the Bible salesmen used to come knocking on the door of our home and how committed those guys were. It was getting late, and I decided that if the door-to-door approach was good enough for the Bible salesmen, it was good enough for me. As the ice continued to melt, I blasted through neighborhood after neighborhood announcing that I had fresh fish. Knocking on doors, I rapidly explained that these fish had been caught in the Gulf that very morning and they were the best that money could buy. After I’d covered the houses in the area, I went to businesses, where I found more prospects and sold the rest of the fish. And I did it all before the last of the ice was gone. I learned about the value of commitment that day. I had a fanatical, have-to-get-it-done-and-no-other-options level of commitment!
Commitment = Results = Happiness
I made more money selling fish in a few hours than I had made doing hard labor for two whole weeks, and it all came after I had made the commitment to sell those fish. I had put myself in a position where I did not have any choice. I had to sell them or lose them. It was a do-or-die situation. After that experience I was “hooked” on sales, but I did not become a professional for seven more years.
The first thing you have to do is to commit yourself to selling as something that is vital to your life regardless of your career (but especially if you are in sales). Commit right now and watch what happens. Commitment is like magic, and nothing great will happen until the commitment is there! Most people do not attack their projects with “I-have-to-get-it-done-now” urgency and therefore they do not get it done. Most people never commit like fanatics, and therefore they never become fantastic.
THE POWER OF PREDICTION
The moment I transitioned from an amateur to a professional (following my decision to commit and become dedicated to my career), I began studying the whole area of selling. I started taking notes on every exchange I had with my customers. I even recorded these experiences on audio and video. I would later study the material like a football team reviews playbacks of games. I didn’t know it then, but that was how I gained the ability to predict.
To predict is to know what’s going to happen next. I stumbled across this skill and found myself gaining the ability to accurately predict the outcomes of situations before they happened. I started to know exactly what I had to do every day to create a certain amount of income. I was gaining the ability to predict exactly how many people I had to get in front of in order to sell a certain amount. I then discovered I was increasingly sure of what to say and how the prospect would react to what I said. I was able to predict objections and handle them before they even surfaced. It was as if things had gone into slow motion and I knew what every player on the field was doing and would do in the moments to come. The ability to predict is the first thing that happens when you become a professional, and when I reached this level of ability, I knew I was on my way to great success.
Prediction is the great unknown—and very often unrecognized—asset of the professional. I’ve never heard it spoken about, but I know it exists. If you’ve ever read about any of the great athletes, they talk about this same phenomenon whereby they are able to know what’s going to take place before it even happens. Wayne Gretzky and Michael Jordan have both noted the experience of being able to predict where the play would move to and how it would turn out.