Why There’s No Second Place In Sales

[spp-player] Stop rushing to come second. In sales second place doesn’t count. Only one salesperson wins the deal. The flip-side? When you’re the best selling becomes easy. People will fly across the world to visit the best restaurant. People will wait in line for hours to get a piece of paper squiggled from the best athlete. When you’re ill, you don’t ask for the second-best doctor. You’ll shout, demand and pay way over the market rate to speak to the best. We all have limited time and so we intentionally narrow our choices to those at the top. If you’re not the best salesperson, you don’t exist. Our culture celebrates the best. It’s typical that the top salesperson in your industry makes 10 times more than the second best. Probably 100 times more than the 10th best seller. It’s a steep curve. There’s only room at the very top for a few people. That scarcity makes being number one worth something. Do you want to earn more money? Get more respect? Want to stop cold calling and have buyers throwing themselves at you instead? Then become number one. At this point you might be screaming in your head “of course I want to be the best”. But do you really? Where is the evidence? What have you gone through that your competition hasn't? What expertise have you developed that they don't have? What audience have you slaved away to create that they don’t have access to because they’ve been watching game of thrones instead? It’s easy being number one. It’s arduous work to get there. If you want to dominate the mind of your buyer, become number one. Not the number one generic salesperson in the world. There’s too much competition. Become the number one salesperson for your specific product, in your specific industry, in your specific location, for your specific ideal buyer. That’s doable, right? Being average is for losers. Being number one makes selling simple.