Success in Finding A Job, Increasing Sales, and Growing a Business by Just Doing a Little Bit More

Business Owners usually begin as employees of some other business owner. Along the way, they improve their sales skills in selling themselves or a product until they eventually become a successful business owner themselves.

But for many, the stage from being an employee to actually owning a business and becoming a successful business owner usually takes a long time, even a lifetime. This is because many just go through the motions of becoming an employee, salesperson or even a business owner.

But even putting just a little bit more or doing a little extra effort have the tremendous potential of shortening the time it takes you from being just an employee to a successful business owner.

Here’s a small snippet from HubPost: “However, the same survey found salespeople have a 90% success rate on making contact with their lead on the sixth call. That means by making a few more call attempts, sales reps can achieve a 70% growth in contact rates.”

Most job applicants when turned down by a prospective employer usually just outright give up on finding a job on the company they applied with. They forget to ask the prospective employer if another job vacancy exists which they can apply for. Not asking if any other job vacancy exists could be understandable for a job applicant with specific skills and specific career goals like a rocket scientist for example but this is not understandable for someone who is applying for a generalist type job.

For example, a business administration graduate whose applying for an office clerical job might be turned down by an employer but might be accepted for a customer service, sales, public relations position and so on if they only asked the employer.

It is very rare that a prospective employer makes the first move and ask a job applicant if perhaps they are interested in the other job vacancies in the company. It is the job applicant who must take the initiative and ask the prospective employer for other possible vacancies.

This is a tip from an old acquaintance of mine. During his school days, he had to look for a job to support himself financially. Just like every job applicant, he created a resume and looked online for job vacancies.

He knew that he was still unskilled so he was targeting any jobs that employed low-skilled employees. He found a job opening as a service crew for a fast food restaurant. However, when he physically applied, he was turned down by the fast food restaurant.

So what did he do? He applied at all the other restaurants in the area within walking distance from the fast food restaurant that rejected him. He got interviewed on the spot by many of the restaurants until one eventually hired him.

If he had not taken the extra effort to apply at the other surrounding restaurants after being rejected by the first restaurant he applied to in the area, he would have stayed unemployed for a much longer time.

I also read a story where a job applicant instead of just going from company to company looking for a job also asked the company he applied for if maybe they can help him find another company to apply to.

Then there is the story of a job applicant who chatted the staff of a restaurant that he happens to be eating in if maybe they can help him find a job like by giving him a prospective person or company to apply to.

For example, Colonel Sanders of KFC (Kentucky Fried Chicken) recalled the early days on how he got a managerial job. According to him, he was just hitchhiking state to state looking for a job when a stranger offered to give him a ride.

Colonel Sanders didn’t waste time and chatted the stranger and told him his story including his need for a job. In the end, the stranger happened to be a high ranking executive in a petrol company.

Colonel Sanders so impressed this petrol company executive that this person offered a job to Colonel Sanders. The job was to be the manager of one of the petrol car stations of the company.

In a big way, looking for a job is like being a salesperson. In this instance, you’re not selling a product or service, but you’re selling yourself: your personality and technical skills. So the same thing applies if you’re trying to increase your sales.

If your company has a daily quota of 50 calls, then do it on your own to call an extra 10 or more prospective clients. But this advise is nothing new anymore. There are many sales professionals who don’t stop until they land a client.

And many don’t even stop after they’ve met their sales quota. They know that sales is mainly a numbers game so they make the best use of their time to make as many calls as possible whether or not they have exceeded their sales quota already.

I also managed to talk to a salesperson who after having a physical meeting with their clients in the client’s building also looks at the building directory to see if they can meet other prospective clients in the building they’re currently in.

These salespersons have no qualms in walking inside an office to introduce themselves to try to get some business from the company they just walked-in. I’ve met a few of them in my lifetime.

You might personally hate doing sales or marketing work, but if you happen to be in a stage in your life where you are now the owner of a business, sales and marketing skills are two skills you need to be good at least in order to make your business a success.

In essence, the business owner is not only the owner of the company but is also the main sales and marketing person of a company. So, the same thing we discussed about doing extra effort in doing sales and marketing applies.

But there’s more. Since you’re now in a position to directly meet the other owners and company presidents of the company you do business, you have a greater chance of asking these business owners and company presidents if they can provide more contacts to you.

These business contacts could be the clients, suppliers and even the competitors of your clients. But there’s more, you can then ask each of your clients as well as all their contacts if you can offer not only your own products/services but other products/services they may need.

If you can offer these other products and/or services then its all for the better because this means more revenue for you. But if you cannot offer the product and/or services, then you can act as a middleman at least and also generate a profit.

First of all, you need to be a hardworking person. This strategy doesn’t work for the lazy person. Doing extra work takes effort and lazy people hate doing extra effort no matter how small it is.

You also need to be thick skinned which is a prerequisite not only to be a successful salesperson or business owner but equally applies to everyone. The more important people you talk to, the more is your chances of success in life.

If happened to have reached a stage in life when you have met a few important people already, you would know that important people are different from normal people. They’re more succinct and usually demand the same to the people they talk to.

And lastly but might be the most important, you need to be “not easily discouraged”, in life, whenever you expend extra effort to do something, the more is your chance of greater failure than if you’ve never tried at all.

This is the reason why many people refuse to expend extra effort in whatever they’re engaged in: the fear of failure. It takes a truly special person to go with the blows and never give up no matter the obstacles. This special person is not born, but developed.

Often, the difference between success and failure in life is a thin line. Many people quit very early just as they are about to succeed. They refuse to expend the extra effort for fear of greater failure.

This is especially very apparent in the world of sales and marketing where it is usually a game numbers. It’s the more you call/meet the more your chances of success, and having good sales skills is an essential part of success in life.

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