How to Close a Million Dollar Deal

Every salesman wants to know how to close million dollar deals. I know the secret and I am prepared to share it with you. Do I have your attention? I thought so. What are the secrets? Well, the secret is that there are no secrets. I mean, it’s not as if the million dollar sales club has a private membership that you just have to know the secret handshake to get into. The “secrets” are all over the place. People are shouting at your from the rooftops! There are volumes of written materials that are yours just for the asking. Books, magazines, web sites. A salesperson just has to have a desire to learn and better themselves. Like anything else, there are no shortcuts. In his book, the Seven Habits of Highly Successful People, Stephen Covey talks about the “natural laws”. Natural laws are applied when only time can produce a particular desired result. The example that Dr. Covey uses is that of the farmer and his crops. If you want to harvest a field of crops, you have to start in the spring and plant your seeds. No matter how bad you may want to reap a bountiful crop in the fall, and no matter how hard you work in the fall, if you didn’t put in the work in the spring, you won’t get a crop. My personal favorite medaphor is about getting in shape. If you decide one day that you want to do 500 pushups a day, and up to that point, you haven’t done any pushups on a regular basis, You can’t just drop down one day out of the blue and do 500 push ups. You have to start small. You might start off with five or ten push-ups. After a few days or maybe a week or so, you can increase your count to fifteen or twenty. Depending on various other factors, as long as you are disciplined and continue working out on a daily basis, you should be able to increase the number of push ups regularly until you finally reach your objective of 500 push ups in a day. And once you get to where you are doing 500 push ups a day, it’ll show. Your arms and your shoulders will look and feel like rock. You’ll look great in those tight shirts and you’ll certainly feel better about yourself. Your self confidence will have improved tremedously because you know that you can accomplish just about anything that you set your mind to. But it doesn’t happen overnight. It takes a lot of hard work, a lot of determination and a lot of persistence. But mainly it takes the intitial step of setting a long term goal. That’s how it starts. You can’t finish something that you don’t start. And you won’t start working hard on any goal unless you focus on the long-term results. So if you want to close a million dollar deal, you need to start now, on all of your smaller deals, and work your way up. Start putting in the hard work and the discipline neccessary to become the best in your industry. Train, sweat, work-out, read, research, network, and educate yourself. You can’t fake these things because they are governed by natural laws. If you tell someone that you can do 500 push ups, you better be prepared to drop down on your hands and show them. The truth of the matter is that we all know what we need to do to get in shape, but not everyone is prepared to put in the hard work neccessary to do it. So one thing to keep in mind is that if you aren't willing to put in the hard work, there is always someone out there that will. Hopefully he won't be your competitor on your next million dollar prospect. You can cross your fingers, or you can start working hard. It's your choice.