The 8 Sales Prospecting Mindsets of Top Earners Pt 5: Never Surrender

By Jeff Shore

Prospectors never say die. Relentlessness is one of the critical qualities of top performers. There are just people out there with no quit in them. Surrender is not in their vocabulary.

There’s one thing six-figure sales professionals have in common, and that is they are relentless.

There’s a cleverly written movie from a couple of decades ago that I still watch occasionally. It’s called Galaxy Quest with Tim Allen. He plays the captain of this spaceship, and his line, recurring throughout the movie, “Never give up. Never surrender.”

It’s cute in the context of the film, but it’s true for six-figure sales professionals, also. They don’t give up. They won’t surrender. There is this concept of persistence that is critical day after day after day. It’s part of what they do. Now, that means that in the course of the day, they follow this mantra that my friend Jeb Blount loves to talk about.

He says, “One more call. One more call. One more call.” I love it. I love it. I love it. That’s the perspective. That’s the paradigm. Just one more call. It also speaks to the idea of spending the time needed to find the results. That means time spent constantly practicing our presentation and learning how to help people around us.

There’s an effort that goes into prospecting that many people don’t want to put out. They’re looking for shortcuts. It’s not what’s going to get it done.

Let me tell you quickly about a guy named Joe Pavelski. His nickname is The Big Pavelski.

You’ve probably never heard of him unless you’re a hockey fan like me. One of the things that he does really, really well is score goals, but the majority of his goals are scored from just a couple of feet in front of the goalie. Now you might look at and say, well, it’s easier to score, right, if you’re standing right in front of the goalie.

But here’s how he scores the majority of his goals. Somebody out on defense with a booming slapshot will take a shot toward the goal. Joe Pavelski is a master at tipping the puck at the last second. When the goalie thinks it’s coming here, he tips it with his stick, and it goes a different direction giving the goalie no time to react.

Joe Pavelski is amazing at tipping pucks. Why? Because he practices it relentlessly every single day. If the practice time is at ten in the morning, Joe Pavelski is out on the ice at 9:30 with one of the coaches. They are shooting puck after puck after puck, and that’s all he’s doing is tipping pucks.

That puck is being shot at 100 miles an hour, and he has a split second to tip it down so that it surprises the goalie and catches them off guard. I love that work ethic, and it pays off repeatedly.

We all want the easy way. We all want the shortcut. But professionals in any field will tell you that success comes through grueling, long, purposeful hard work.

Remove these thoughts from your mind that the six-figure sales professionals, well, they’re born salespeople, and they get all the right territories. They get all the good assignments. No, they work hard. And I want you to look at it from that perspective. You can’t be great in sales; you can’t join the elite if you’re not willing to roll up your sleeves and do what nobody else is willing to do.

This is especially true for prospecting. Never give up. Never surrender. Make one more call.

Until next time, learn more to earn more!