How do you feel about your sales career so far? Do you feel exploited, disappointed, or even depressed with your current situation. When you took your job, at first, did it feel like an opportunity to get ahead, get to that next level, but now it seems less than. On the other hand, possibly you feel you’ve never really received any breaks, any opportunities, in your career. You’re stuck with a job… a means to an end for a paycheck.

Candidly, I believe everyone has had some sort of “break” or “opportunity” presented to them at some time in their lives. In some cases multiple times. So why do some of us feel we’ve had none? The answer is actually pretty simple. We don’t fully understand what an opportunity is! Let me explain.

“Spend eighty percent of your time focusing on the opportunities of tomorrow rather than the problems of yesterday.” -Brian Tracy

Perception of Your Opportunities

Here are two typically negative experiences where both of these people didn’t see it that way. Why?

Example 1: After letting a sales person go she commented to me that she felt thankful for the opportunity I had given her.

Example 2: After closing a business the parent of one of my employees wanted me to know that their son had felt thankful for the opportunity my company had given him.

It’s much more than just seeing the “glass half full”. These two understood what most don’t. Any experience is an opportunity if learned from and taken advantage of. I have found this to be true in my personal life as well.

One of the advantages of getting older is you get to see your life’s path. Decisions, directions, and actions, that may have made little sense at the time, become a road map of sorts. You start to see how opportunities played a critical role in your life. While not all my opportunities were successes necessarily… they did offer life/business lessons. Lessons that I applied to other opportunities which did indeed become successes. I took advantage of my later opportunities by being better prepared.

Become Lucky

Bill Gates once said that yes they were lucky… but the difference was that they prepared/positioned themselves to take advantage of their luck. (paraphrased) They not only took advantage of the opportunities (luck) presented but more importantly they understood what they were and their value at some level. Have you taken advantage of your opportunities?

Some of you might remember A.L. Williams. He was a football coach that started a revolution in the insurance business by marketing “term insurance and save the difference”. I remember one of the key motivators to get new “converts” was to talk about their job. Are you tired of your job? Start a career! They were offering an opportunity to get ahead. Build a foundation. Leave a legacy.

“Opportunities? They are all around us… there is power lying latent everywhere waiting for the observant eye to discover it.” -Orison Swett Marden

While I’m not advocating that everyone start selling life insurance… I do feel they had a point. There were many that “caught the vision”, shed their mediocre jobs, and took full advantage of the opportunity. They worked hard… understood at every level what this opportunity could do for them and did it! Those that had not become successful typically felt these folks were simply lucky. You know what… they were! They understood the opportunity and they made their own luck.

Do You Understand the opportunities of your current position?

Somewhere and at some time you made a conscience decision to work for your current company. Why? I would guess that you thought it was an opportunity. What happened? Has the company changed or have you?

Take some time today and re-evaluate your current position. Start looking at it as an opportunity again. Will it make you lucky? I think you’ll be surprised at the potential. If not then start looking for new and exciting opportunities. I promise there are always plenty… even in a down economy.

Regardless of whether you need to change jobs or re-evaluate your current position it’s important to understand the opportunity offered. Become prepared to take advantage of the opportunity when you do find it. By doing so you will become the next lucky person.

Chris Lott

Chris has over 15 year’s Sales Management experience including Business Ownership, Product Management and Web Design/Marketing. He’s a national sales team strategist and trainer. Chris is the designer of the popular totallysales™ sales playbook with thousands of copies downloaded. He’s a nationally syndicated author with his articles on SalesBlog! rated as a “top must-read” on consultative selling.