• Entrepreneur and Shark Tank star Mark Cuban recently revealed that if he were to go back in time and tell his younger self one thing, it would be to “be a salesperson.” According to Cuban, “Once you learn how to sell, you can always start a business, [because] you’re an entrepreneur at heart.” You can read more about what Cuban said here. 
   
• The BBC recently ran a feature about some of the shady business practices of direct sales roles in the U.K, including stories of hazing, low pay, and exploitation, including the story of someone being slapped by a fish (?) for losing a sales challenge. While sales can be a rough gig, these people definitely took things too far. You can read the story here.

• Engage in positive self talk. (Think about the words you use when you speak to yourself. Would you let another person talk that way to you? If you knew how powerful your thoughts were, you’d never let yourself think another negative thought).
   
• Consume empowering sales media. (Might I suggest 30 Minutes to President's Club as a halfway decent place to start?) 
   
• Celebrate the small wins: Booking a meeting, nailing a demo (even if the deal doesn’t close!). You’ve gotta actively seek out reasons to be positive. 

Q. What was your biggest failure in your sales career? What did you learn from it?

I can distinctly remember getting burned on a deal that a buyer had committed to. The reason I remember this so distinctly: I was boarding an airplane to go on vacation when I got the rejection email from them! 

I’d sensed something was off for weeks, but had been too scared to call it out. My learning here was that if I sense something is awry with a deal, I’ve gotta call it out! 

Q: You have 30K followers on LinkedIn. How has this helped to improve your career in sales and what advice do you have for someone who wants to grow their LinkedIn audience?

I try not to pay much attention to the follower count. My high school wrestling coach taught me to focus on things I can control, not things I could not control. What that means for LinkedIn: I try to only focus on sharing valuable stuff that I’ve learned over my sales career (as opposed to followers)

Advice for someone who wants to grow their audience: Give freely. Spend less time promoting yourself and more time freely sharing valuable information. 

Q: If you could only give one piece of sales advice to every sales rep in the world, what would you say?

If you want to be a great salesperson, you’ve gotta be disciplined. The definition of discipline is doing what you don’t wanna do when you don’t wanna do it.