Work Harder on Yourself Than You Do on the Job to Win at Home Improvement Sales
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“Work harder on yourself than you do on the job.” — Jim Rohn
The Importance of Self-Improvement
One of the qualities that all successful home improvement salespeople and successful people in general possess is a commitment to self-improvement. They are constantly striving to get better. Tony Robbins calls this CANI: Constant and Never-Ending Improvement. This concept, also known as Kaizen in Japanese, is used by all successful companies. This approach has been pivotal in my journey from struggling to thriving in home sales. Self-improvement is the key.
Embracing Challenges
It’s not that the job is too hard; it’s that you are not good enough.
The job will never get easier; the only way to make more money is for you to improve your skills. You should also be grateful that it’s challenging, because generally, the harder it is, the more you get paid. Today, compensation is often tied to the difficulty of replacing you. If you do something anyone can do, like flipping a burger, you probably won’t earn much. Conversely, if you possess skills that are rare, you will be well-compensated. That’s why top home improvement salespeople can make hundreds of thousands a year. It’s not easy.
The Logic of Earning More
Doesn’t it make sense?
For you to make more money, you need to be better, and being better means knowing more. The people who earn more today simply know more. Successful home improvement salespeople understand the process better than those who don’t. Even if you are currently successful, stopping your learning process is akin to saying you don’t want to earn more money. You can always improve and, therefore, increase your income. Knowledge must be continually replenished because it’s almost as if there’s a hole at the bottom where it keeps falling out. How many times have you thought, “I used to do that” or “I forgot all about that”? If you are not getting better, you are getting worse. There is no such thing as staying the same in sales.
Sales as a Learned Skill
Selling is a learned skill; it’s not about being a natural-born salesperson.
In many cases, people might think it’s about having the gift of gab—translation: being able to talk a lot. However, that’s not what sales are about today, nor is it what customers want. Customers today are very savvy and naturally cautious, and what worked 60 years ago doesn’t work now. Yes, it helps if you can naturally talk to and relate to strangers, but if you don’t have that skill, you can learn it.
The Value of Continuous Learning
To earn more, you have to learn more.
We are in an information age, which means that our earnings are often based on how much we know. Unlike our ancestors in the industrial age, who increased their earnings by lifting more weights to carry more boxes, today we improve our income by learning more.
Methods to Improve
There are two primary ways to learn and get better:
1. Trial and Error
One method is through trial and error. You try something, and if it doesn’t work, you try something else until you find what does. In our business, this approach can be costly, as you are not making money while learning. Moreover, mastering each component of the in-home sales process, such as rapport building, understanding customer needs, selling the product, and closing the sale, can take a long time. This approach also includes learning all the product knowledge relevant to what you are selling.
2. Learning from Others
The other way to improve is by learning from someone who already knows how to do it.
You can achieve this by reading, listening to podcasts, talking to successful salespeople, and researching online. This method is more efficient because it allows you to compress time. By reading a book by an expert, you can gain knowledge that took them years to acquire in just a week.
Isaac Newton once said, “If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.”
Learn from the knowledge that others have accumulated through their hard work instead of figuring it all out on your own.
The Impact of Continuous Learning
If two people have equal skills and genetic makeup, and one person studies every day while the other does not, who do you think will make more money? The answer is obvious. So why aren’t you learning more? Regardless of how much money you make, you can always make more.
It’s also easy to incorporate learning into our line of work, as we spend at least an hour or two driving each day and have downtime between leads. If you dedicate just 30 minutes a day to listening and learning, it’s impossible for your income not to increase. After 90 days, your income will rise by a minimum of 10%, and if you are just starting, it could increase by 30-40%. What is that worth to you?
Advice for Sales Success
Whenever a salesperson asks me for advice on being successful, this is what I tell them:
I have given this advice to countless salespeople, and not one person has come back and said, “Ron, you wasted my time, and it didn’t work.”
If you don’t improve, nothing will change, and your life will continue as it is. I once heard that except for the books we read and the people we meet, nothing will change.
If you are just starting in this business, you typically have about 3-6 months to figure it out before the money doesn’t justify the effort and hours.
The Benefits of Self-Improvement
A side benefit of self-improvement is that your attitude will remain strong because you are getting better.
The best definition of attitude is “your vision of the future.” While you may not be where you want to be yet, you will feel yourself moving in the right direction. That’s the key. It’s not about being there yet but about moving in the right direction. If you’re struggling and see no way out, it’s very frustrating and can lead to a poor attitude. However, if you know you are improving and moving in the right direction, your attitude will be positive because it’s no longer a matter of “will you succeed?” but “when will you succeed?” There is light at the end of the tunnel. Your vision of the future is positive. There is a huge difference in how you feel when you know you are moving in the right direction versus wondering if things will ever change.
Learning from Mistakes
Don’t forget that you can learn not only from others but also from trial and error.
That’s why it’s important to review each missed sale or discuss it with someone else so you know what to do differently next time to make the sale. Never fall into the trap of saying, “Nobody could have sold that.” It’s a justification that losers make, and it’s not for you. I am very skilled, but just because I couldn’t sell them doesn’t mean someone else could not have. I am not the greatest salesperson ever to walk the earth, even though I tell myself that to keep my self-esteem high 😊. I believe that everyone can be sold, but I just can’t sell everyone yet. Get in the habit of learning from failure. Never waste a no-sale without learning from it. Sometimes you’ll figure it out yourself, but if not, seek advice from others. It’s essential that with every lead, you are either earning a commission or paying tuition.
Please believe me when I say that nothing is more important for your success than working on making yourself better.
