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I was recently speaking with a manager at a real estate office about what makes some agents successful and others unsuccessful.

He told me, “John, I can sum up the difference between the successful agents and the unsuccessful agents with one quick example: during a major blizzard when everything is shut down and everyone is at home, my top agents are making phone calls to prospects because they know they have a captive audience, and the rest of my agents are posting pictures on Facebook of the cookies they’re baking.”

I’ve noticed a similar phenomenon when I speak. Afterwards it’s always the top salespeople who line up to buy my book. The mediocre and poor salespeople, on the other hand, always give me one of two excuses for not investing in the book, either that they don’t read or, that they can’t afford to buy the book.

Here’s another example that outlines the difference between success and failure in sales. Several years ago I worked for the largest banking equipment distributor in the world. The top salesperson at the time was a guy by the name of Pete. One day while Pete was out making prospecting calls, he got in a car accident. In fact, he totaled his car. Luckily, he didn’t get hurt too badly. He ripped his pants, got some cuts on his nose and forehead, but for the most part, he was okay. When the paramedics showed up and they insisted he go to the hospital and get checked out, Pete adamantly refused.

Regardless of the car accident, he was determined to get the rest of his sales calls in. After pleading with Pete for a while, they finally gave him some butterfly stitches to close the facial wounds and sent him on his way. Pete then jumped into a cab and completed his calls for the day.

While that’s a pretty good story on commitment, it doesn’t end there. Like most top athletes, and people who are among the best in their field, Pete was determined to find the advantage in wrecking his car, and he didn’t take long to find it. He remembered two hard-to-reach prospects that he simply could not get through to. He’d call, stop by in person, e-mail, send items through the mail, and use any and every trick and technique to get through, but he simply wasn’t able to get to these two prospects. He now saw the car accident, and his current condition, as an opportunity to change things.

Pete took the cab to both offices and when he arrived, he walked in, torn pants, bloody face, butterfly stitches and all, and said to each receptionist, “Hi, I’m here to see Mr. Prospect. You have no idea what I’ve been through today to see him.” Now these gatekeepers, who had bullet-proof teeth and had been shutting Pete down for months, instead of stopping him this time, were now off making a sale to the decision-maker as to why they had to see Pete. I can imagine it sounded something like, “You’re not going to believe this. There’s a guy out in the reception area with torn pants and blood on his face. I mean it’s not Halloween, right? You have to see this.” The result was that Pete got in to see both prospects that day. They both laughed as he told his story. The best news is that three months later Pete ended up getting one of them as an account and it became his fourth largest account.

While that’s a great story about commitment, there’s another point to be made here. Both of these prospects were owners of medium-sized businesses. As such, they undoubtedly have some slackers that work for them. You know the type, the ones who take every sick day, holiday, vacation day, family day, and look for every excuse to take days off and work as little as possible when they are actually there, and here’s a guy who got in a car accident, who had a perfect excuse to take the rest of the day off, and he’s still out working. Do you think that gives Pete some instant credibility? You bet it does. Do those owners know that if Pete says he’s going to do something, they can count on it? Of course.

Now let’s compare Pete’s story to that of a low-performing salesperson at the same banking equipment company. This guy showed up to the weekly sales meeting on Monday morning with a coffee stain on his shirt. I said, “Wow, tough drive into work, huh?” His response, “Yeah, luckily my appointment was able to reschedule.” I then asked what a coffee stain had to do with rescheduling an appointment. He said, “Well, obviously I can’t go out calling on prospects looking like this.” While missing an appointment because he had a coffee stain on his shirt was bad enough, also notice that he said ‘appointment’ versus ‘appointments.’ That one appointment was his one for the day, and probably his one for the week.

So, on one hand, we have the top sales rep who gets in a car accident and actually makes two more calls than he had planned on vs. the lowest-performing sales rep who uses a coffee stain as an excuse to make no calls. I think the difference between the successful and unsuccessful is pretty obvious. One is committed and determined to make the calls and do whatever it takes to be successful, the other is simply going through the motions and trying to stay on the payroll while doing as little work as possible. One’s all-in, the other, for all practical purposes, is out.

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