Live Happier by Owning Your Career

by

Peggy Klingel

We all want to have successful careers and lead happy lives. For many of us these goals are intertwined.

As a salesperson, I was taught to prepare better than my competition in order to win. That meant

anticipating how I could best serve the customer. By doing my homework before a sales call, I felt good

about the upcoming meeting because I had an idea of how it would go, and of course my vision was a

positive one for me and my prospect. If I didn’t prepare and “winged it” as I was walking in the door, my

vision was unclear and success was uncertain.

I learned early on that a positive attitude and expectation about my sales calls resulted in better

outcomes. I was more satisfied with my job, I lived with more energy and I had an infectious enthusiasm

which positively influenced those around me. This also meant I accepted responsibility for my career

and my happiness because it was all up to me.

Many of you may be nodding your heads right now. You don’t have to be in sales to understand the

power of owning your career. Hopefully we have all felt the magic of being surrounded by like-minded

positive, happy colleagues. Once we have experienced it, we all strive to recreate the environment

wherever we go. We analyze colleague’s motives, critique company culture and measure our success in

relation to others. I believe to recreate the magic, however, we have to start with ourselves and lead the

way.

In sales, much like other professions, we often hear that the top 20% of the salespeople are bringing in

80% of the revenue, or similar statistics. Why is this? Because only 20% of them are working at it. The

great salespeople study the profession, their industry, the competition and their customers. They read

books, research prospects and practice presentations over and over again. They do this so that they

understand and can articulate the value they provide to their customer. The top salespeople do this

because they genuinely want to help.

These sales professionals excel because they exist to help people solve a problem, whatever that may

be. They are passionate about their product or service and get satisfaction from watching a customer’s

business grow, take care of their customers and employees. These are the salespeople that have

accepted responsibility for their success and achieve the greatest satisfaction with their results.

Live Happier by Owning Your Career

We all have the ability to achieve whatever goals we set for ourselves. Whether it’s to be the best

controller the company has ever had, or the most motivating boss or a more empathetic friend. Our rate

of achievement is proportional to the amount of effort we put forth. I say “we put forth” because this

isn’t about waiting for the company to provide training or our friend to tell us what they need. It’s about

each of us taking the initiative to read one extra book each month or attend one seminar or sign up for

one class each semester to better ourselves.

This doesn’t have to be a big expense or commitment. Start with something small. There are plenty of

free resources online. Most good personal development and business books can be read multiple times

to glean all the pearls of wisdom within.

Begin moving towards becoming a better person. Be the role model in the company that everyone

wants to emulate. Surround yourself with positive people motivated by helping each other. If we all just

take a step in this direction, I believe we will achieve amazing results in each of our careers and lives.

About the Author

Peggy Klingel is a transformational sales and business development

leader with a record of building market value. Peggy has over

twenty years of successful leadership experience in sales, finance

and operations and specializes in leading change management,

turnaround and startup growth initiatives.

Email Peggy: PeggyKlingel@gmail.com

Follow Peggy: