3 Survival Traits for Every Event Pro

I'm eyebrow deep in research on characteristics of top-performing salespeople in complex sales deals. 

  • What was it that separated the absolute best from the mediocre?
  • Are top sellers born with personalities that make them successful?
  • Is it possible that some will never get good at selling their services?

I’ve read a ton of books and articles, listened to lots of podcasts and audiobooks, and studied the research generated by important studies. Here’s what I found…
 
Three characteristics kept appearing
 
Resiliency, adaptability, and confidence are common indicators of future success. If you have one of these traits, you’re more likely to be a good salesperson. If you have all of these characteristics, you’re most likely to be an extraordinary salesperson.

  1. Resiliency

Resiliency is the capacity to recover from difficult situations, to bounce back into shape after getting twisted and bent from external forces. If COVID-19 is a punch to the gut, resiliency is our ability to take the blow, recover, and keep on going.
 
Interestingly, when you dig a bit deeper you get a clearer sense of certain attributes and behaviors in resilient people:

  • Accepting of uncertainty
  • Highly persistent in achieving goals
  • Optimistic even after assessing tough situations
  • Comfortable with high degrees of risk
  • Consistent behavior regardless of external factors
  • Self-reliant in difficult circumstances

While these certainly sound like the characteristics of a good salesperson, they also sound like what’s needed right now during this pandemic.

  1. Adaptability

Adaptability is the quality of being able to adjust to new conditions. It’s like a sibling of resiliency. Take what’s thrown at you, reframe your understanding, and carry on toward your goal. Those who adapt:

  • Think creatively
  • Stay positive
  • Embrace newness
  • Ask for help
  • Welcome change

I want to be clear: These are all more than just being flexible. When you adapt, it allows you to overcome the obstacles in your way with both your heart and your head. You see change as inevitable, as expected, even helpful.
 
Through change, the adaptable person thinks, “This will help me grow…in a positive way.”
 
In times of stress, the adaptable person thinks, “How can I use this current situation as an opportunity for future success?”

  1. Confidence

The third characteristic I found was confidence, a feeling or belief that you can do something. What’s interesting about confidence is that sometimes it’s based on past performance. We’ve done something before and so we can do it again. With the pandemic, though, no one’s been through something exactly like this before.
 
Sure, people like me (and many, many other business leaders) have steered teams through the Great Recession and/or 9/11 - or other terrible crises in their businesses. Many have navigated storms in our personal lives when everything around us is in disarray.
 
If you’ve been through experiences like these you build on them when you face new obstacles.
 
While every challenge is different, they all remind me of “a widget is a widget is a widget.” What I mean is, while you can find differences between tough times, still they all share the same thing in common:
 
It’s tough out there
 
In challenging times, people who’ve been through them before go back to those situations and recall mindsets, decision-making criteria, principles, strategies, approaches, and activities that led them through that particular crisis. It’s like a trigger goes off and you know what you’re supposed to do all over again. A challenge is a challenge is a challenge…
 
But if you’ve not yet experienced tough times – if you’ve worked only during the Golden Age of Events (2010 through three months ago) – you have to believe confidence is not only based on past performance. It’s not even based on competence or skills or proven abilities. You know nothing you’ve ever done has trained you for this moment.
 
How could it? You just…believe you’ll succeed
 
Be now, do next, have later
 
Ram Daas made famous the “Be-Do-Have” model in the 1970’s. It’s a simple idea that communicates all the ways you’ll find success in life and in business - and the ways you won’t find it.
 
In three words said two different ways you find the one thing that separates successful small-business owners from those who’ll constantly struggle or go out of business in the coming months.
 
Be-Do-Have v. Have-Do-Be
 
Coaches have been using this model for nearly 50 years and it’s a good one to frame an understanding of the 2020 pandemic:

  • The “be” part is who are we, the values we keep, and the principles we live by. It’s our inner compass that we use to pick the direction of our life.
  • The “do” part is how we spend our time, what activities we pursue, what’s on our calendar and fills our schedule. It’s the path we follow day in and day out to get where we want to go.
  • The “have” part is what we want, what experiences, what things, what state of mind. It’s the place we want to get to with all the work we’re doing. 

Or said another way:
Be: Adaptable, confident, and resilient.
Do: the activities we suggest in our newsletter/blog/coaching.
Have: the kind of business that survives the pandemic and thrives in 2021.

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