“Never Stop Investing in Yourself or Retirement” – Jill Furtado, Berkshire Hathaway
As salespeople, we can get busy very fast. If our business is going well, we go with the flow and close as many deals as we can and as often as we can. If business is not so good, great salespeople find new ways to make deals and get those deals done. Unfortunately, what most salespeople don’t understand is the need to stay on top your game at all times– which means you need to constantly educate yourself on the changing industry trends and latest tools and technology that can be used give you the competitive edge. You also have to make sure you stay in tune with what is going on in the market you are selling in. Your sales could be doing very well for a while, but when you don’t pay attention to changes in the market, your sudden dip in sales will dramatically affect your business. It’s important to stay “in the know” and to be proactive.
- Never Stop Learning.
Top salespeople attend motivational classes to improve their personal and organizational skills. They listen to podcasts and constantly read self-improvement books. If you don’t stay on top of your game, someone else will be there right behind you.
- Don’t live beyond your means.
Next, great salespeople have to realize that there will be a time when their top production will begin to fall. If they are living a lifestyle that requires their top production results and those results start declining, it’s easy for anyone to get into financial trouble quickly. Great salespeople find other avenues of income so that if decline in their main sales production goes down, they have other sources to protect their needed base of income. That could mean investing in real estate or another business, invest in stocks, etc.–but if you don’t prepare for the eventual downturn of your business, you could put yourself in a bad economic position with little ability of time as well as effort to “steer your ship”.
- Plan for retirement while you’re young.
Young salespeople don’t think about retirement, for obvious reasons. It’s “too far down the road” to worry about now. Yet, the most successful salespeople start a strategy to invest right away. For instance, a great real estate model is to find a way to buy one house every year for the ten years. If you start at the age of 30, by the time you are 60 under a conventional 30-year mortgage, you will have your first house paid off completely by the office with one house paid off each year until you are 70. Then you will have ten houses owned free and clear and ten houses paying you rent.
The beauty of this strategy is that you can buy a house anyway. The houses don’t have to appreciate. All they have to do is remain revenue neutral and you will create high net worth and long-term rental income. Most salespeople will ask how I can afford the down payment. The first couple of houses will be tricky. You will need help in terms of partners or you will need to borrow the down payment, but if you believe in the system you will find a way. Educate yourself constantly. Invest constantly. And you will succeed constantly.
