Working hard vs. Working smart

Have you ever heard the saying, don’t work hard work smart? We can look at this in many ways. I am a believer in working smart. However, with that being said, we have to look at what it is that we are working on and how far in we are on what we are trying to achieve. It does not matter if you are working hard or working smart because it takes hard work to work smart. So when I say I am working smart, its because I have worked hard and put in all my effort into simplifying what I do without cutting any corners. We need to put in 150% either way it being hard or smart.

Especially now a days with the economy being what it is. We have millions of people that are ready, willing, able and qualified to do the same thing you do. In fact they are ready to work harder and for less than you might be willing to. Now as the population grows and economy crumbles this number of people with your same qualifications keeps growing at an outstanding rate. Now there is a reason for all of this. However, that is a whole different topic and we will not be discussing that in this blog, but one in the near future.
 

Every time I hear a sales person tell me I don’t work hard I work smart, I agree with him/her. However, my mind is conditioned as a trainer to see the results of that sales persons remark. I immediately look at that sales persons numbers for the last and present year. Many times I already know them because it is one of the things I look at when I do a company assessment.

Now one thing that I have learned about sales people including myself through out my career in sales is that if we are new in sales we tend to work harder in the beginning and pay more attention to detail. After a couple of months we tend to lose care and try to put less effort and expect the same great results. Why? Because your mind becomes conditioned on its own without you even realizing it. We try to take the path of least resistance and become lazy. Now, we believe that we have it all figured out and we start prejudging and under qualifying our clients. We tell our self we are working smart.

Now how did this all happen? Well, let me give you one example of many, why this may happen. Our mind conditions itself with what makes you feel more comfortable. When you believe you have a great product and see people everyday inquiring about it, you are going to get clients that want and need your product. You will deal with about 10 buyers in most cases in a week. Out of the ten you might get 2 lay downs. A lay down is what we refer in the sales industry as someone who has no care on how much it costs. They just come in and say I want that, that and that. How much is it? Do you take cash or credit and the deal is done and paid for. You made a full pop deal which means you made the highest commission possible on that particular deal and it feels GREAT! Good job.
 

How much effort was put in? Maybe a good meet and greet. Then he or she told you what they were looking for and the deal was done. Now there is nothing wrong with this scenario. The problem is when you begin to look for the deals and start prejudging your clients. You might start telling yourself, this person is taking too much of my time and its a small deal anyways, I work smart and close big deals. In other words, I am too lazy and want to make easy money without putting any effort into the sales process.

The majority of sales reps do not realize they have a problem until it starts to hurt their pockets or even worst, they are about to be cut (fired) or sent to me for re-training. We will blame the world before we have to re-train and bring it back to the basics (reset). However, a true sales professional is always looking for ways to improve and new ways on how to overcome obstacles. They come to me even if their closing percentage are high. Maybe just to ask how they could have handled a situation that never came up before or go to seminars if they don’t have a training department. They may even look to their team leaders or share thoughts with top closers on their team. The idea is not to fall behind and always look how to continuously better yourself, not only as a professional, but as a person as well.
 

Please remember that we all have to work hard in order for us to be able to work smart. The harder we work in understanding how our mind works and conditions itself, the smarter we become in overcoming obstacles and become better problem solvers. We all have goals. However, we need to learn how to travel in straight lines and not take shortcuts that will take us further away from our goals.

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