Sales Rep vs. Sales Pro | SOS Ep. 378

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We draw a hard line between a sales rep and a sales professional, and show how to run your territory like a business. Through real stories and simple systems, we map the habits that shrink dry spells, grow revenue, and put you in control of your career.

• defining the rep vs professional mindset
• treating your territory as a business
• action bias over excuses and waiting
• planning days, weeks, and months in advance
• choosing focused weekend or evening work intentionally
• service ethic and availability that earns trust
• examples from coaching clients Erica and Brendan
• preparing for layoffs and pivots with a live network
• managing pipeline from unaware to advocate
• reducing droughts with consistent prospecting

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Episode Transcript

SPEAKER_00 (00:00):
The Surviving Outside Sales podcast, hosted by
Mike O'Kelly, presented by SalesBuilder Academy.
The goal is to survive andthrive at all phases of outside
sales, whether you're gettingin, dominating, or getting out.
Surviving Outside Sales.
Now on with the show.

SPEAKER_01 (00:38):
And I was chatting with a couple of business owners
this week, and we were actuallytalking about uh salespeople.
And we were talking about whatmakes a great salesperson, what
makes a sales pro, and how fewsales pros there actually are in
the industry.
And it feels like as the days,the months, the years go by,
there are fewer and fewer andfewer.

(00:59):
So today's topic is thedifference between a sales rep
and a sales professional.
And if you have been listeningto the podcast, you have heard
me talk about this before.
If you're one of my coaching uhstudents or clients, you know
that I talk about this all thetime.
It is one of the biggest changesyou can make in your sales
career is elevate uh not onlyyour mindset, but how you think

(01:23):
about what you do and how itimpacts the people around you.
It's the difference betweenbeing an employee and being a
professional.
And those are not synonymous.
Just because you have a job andyou have a title and you have a
role that a company is willingto pay you for does not make you
a professional.
Okay.
To be a professional, you haveto think like a business owner

(01:47):
because you are.
If you are in the outside salesworld, you are a business owner,
you have a territory.
That territory is a smallbusiness within your company,
and you have to act like it.
You have to think as if.
Too many times salespeoplebelieve that they are sales
professionals because they goout and they make sales calls

(02:09):
and they close deals, what haveyou.
But a difference between a salesrep and a sales uh professional,
there are several bigdifferences.
Number one, a sales rep willalso always sit back and wait
for things to happen.
A sales professional will alwaysgo out and make things happen on
their own.
They will take massive action.

(02:32):
A sales rep will complain ormake excuses as to why they
can't be successful.
A sales professional willovercome.
I don't think in my entire salescareer as a post-enterprise rent
a car that I had a product or aservice that most people had

(02:55):
ever heard of.
In fact, a lot of the productsthat I sold, I had to introduce
them.
They weren't brand new to themarket, but I had to introduce
them to at least 40 to 50percent of my future clients, my
future buyers.
I had to introduce it becausethe previous reps did not do so.

(03:16):
And I didn't always understandwhat it was to be a sales
professional.
I had great coaches, I had greatmentors throughout the years.
And it really is once you canidentify what the makeup is,
what the process is to be asales professional, how to build
those habits, create thosesystems within your business.

(03:36):
It is amazing how much A, easierthe job is, and B, how much more
money you can make, how manymore sales you can make.
You know, a sales rep will wakeup in the morning and say, What
am I gonna do today?
A sales professional already hastheir day, week, possibly their
month planned out ahead.
They have used their quoteunquote free time to prepare.

(03:58):
And if you fail to prepare, youbetter prepare to fail.
A sales professional will notworry about work-life balance.
Now, I'm not all for workingnonstop.
Okay.
You need to have some breaks,you need to have some refresh
time, you can't work all thetime.

(04:20):
Uh, what's the saying?
All work and no play makes Mikea dull boy, or it's Jack a dull
boy, but Mike a dull boy.
It's true.
You can't just work 24-7.
You can't.
However, I know a lot ofsalespeople, and they are sales
reps, where if you ask them todo anything after hours, they
refuse.
If you ask them if they doanything on the weekends to

(04:41):
prepare, they refuse.
I don't need to do that.
I have I want my weekends forfree.
Well, sometimes you have to dothat.
Okay, you're gonna get newinformation.
You're gonna have to work on theweekends.
Um, I want to give it, I'm gonnagive a shout-out to one of my
students right now.
Um, she's halfway around theworld, she's in Australia.

(05:02):
Her name's Erica.
And Erica is willing because ofthe time differences.
A, she was willing to meet withme to do her coaching at 5 a.m.
local time.
And when that didn't work afterseveral weeks, we decided to do
Friday nights on the East Coast,Saturday mornings in Australia.

(05:26):
Erica is a sales professional.
She is going above and beyond tobetter her craft, and she's
doing what she has to do becauseshe realizes this is short-term
pain, long-term gain.
She's giving up an hour on herSaturday morning to better her
profession, to better her skillset.

(05:47):
I can't tell you how many peopleare not willing to do that.
Uh, locally here in Charlotte,I've got a student named
Brendan.
Brendan was willing to meet meout for uh coffee late night
from seven to nine and for us towork on various things because
he doesn't have the time duringthe day.

(06:07):
He really doesn't.
He's like, I am just jammed.
He's like, is there any way wecould do like late after hours?
I said, you know what?
Let's just get together.
We're both local here inCharlotte.
Let's just meet up for a couplehours and let's knock out about
three things that we had beenworking on.
He was willing to do so.
Now I am willing to do so.
I am a professional.
I will, I'm not one of thoseguys, you know.
I see a lot of guys on LinkedIn.
They're like, oh, you know, I'mI don't work on the weekends

(06:30):
because I get my work doneMonday through Friday.
Oh, I'm I'm great.
I'm grateful you can do that.
Congratulations.
Okay.
But I'm here to serve otherpeople.
And other people need to worksometimes at night, and I'm here
to help other people.
And sometimes that means that Ihave to do a Friday night after
my kids go down and be onto aZoom until 10:30 on Friday
night, East Coast time, becausethat's what my client needs.

(06:52):
And that's the help that I'mwilling to give.
That is being a professional.
And look, if you have some typeof work, if you have some type
of job, if you have a system, orif you are in some time, some
line of work that affords youthe opportunity to spend all
weekend with your wife, yourhusband, your kids, where you
can clock out at four o'clock ona Friday and you don't have to

(07:15):
think about it again untilMonday morning, fantastic.
I applaud you.
But denigrating other people whowork on the weekends, I'll tell
you this.
I work on the weekends.
And the reason why I work on theweekends is because I have a
business that's open seven daysa week.
And so I do have to work on theweekends.

(07:37):
I also, if I am working on mysales coaching business or my
consulting business, guess what?
If my kids are at home or mykids are with my wife, um,
sometimes my kids are up hereplaying in my quote unquote
office slash bonus room slashkids room.
If my kids are up here, um, youknow, they're usually playing
with things.
And I usually spend only, youknow, two to two and a half

(08:06):
because I have time in the daywhere I just can't get it done.
Okay.
So that's great.
I have not been able to do that.
Also, because of the nature ofmy businesses, I get 100%
uninterruption on Saturdays.
I don't have clients calling me,I don't have uh business

(08:29):
partners calling me, I don'thave my employees calling me,
nobody's calling me onSaturdays, nobody's texting me.
Monday through Friday, I can'ttell you how many times that I
have been recording a podcastepisode.
I've been on a client call andthere's been a 911 from my
business.
There's been something I have tohandle in real time.
I don't get that on theweekends.

(08:50):
I don't know why.
Knock on wood.
I hope it continues.
My point is do not take youradvice from other people.
Okay, you have to figure outwhat you have to do because we
have a limited amount of time inour sales career.
We really do.
We have to make hay today.
We can't wait and just say,well, you know, I'll get it next
year or I'll do, I'll get on thenext job or the next role.

(09:12):
We can't do that.
Being a professional isunderstanding that you may not
have tomorrow.
Tomorrow is not guaranteed.
You know, if salesprofessionals, whenever a layoff
happens or a downsizing happens,or it's a time to move on,
they're prepared.
A sales rep is not prepared.
A sales rep, unfortunately, yousee those poor souls on LinkedIn

(09:34):
just saying, oh my gosh, it'sbeen six months and I haven't
found a role.
I do, I've been in situationslike that early in my career.
Once I took control of mycareer, and once I took control
of where I was going, there'svery, very little downtime
whenever I need to look foranother role, find another role,
um, whenever I needed to pivot.

(09:56):
There's very little downtime.
And the reason why was because Iunderstood the game of sales.
And sales is a business.
I understood that.
Going back to you know, doingwhat you have to do, that's
being a sales professional.
Do what you have to do.
Sales professionals are going toearn the business because

(10:16):
they're willing to do what otherpeople are not willing to do,
not legally, ethically, andmorally.
Okay.
I'm not telling you to break anycode of conduct, break ethics,
break the law, break rules.
I'm not saying that.
However, it is willing to dowhat other people aren't.
And I can't even tell you howmany times that I have
interviewed people, I havechatted with sales
professionals, I have talked topeople, and they are unwilling

(10:39):
to do things that I think arebasic: basic customer service,
basic uh relationship building.
And that is because I have themindset of being a sales
professional 24-7, living itevery single day.
Does that mean I'm perfect?
Uh no.
Never gonna be perfect, but thestrive for perfection is real.
If you don't have that strivefor perfection, I don't know if

(11:02):
sales is really the rightindustry for you because sales
is a grind.
It's a long-term grind.
There's gonna be ebbs and flowsof great times, and there's
gonna be some lean times.
There's gonna be some times thatyou don't have anything to do,
or you know, nobody, there'sthere might be days or weeks
where people aren't calling you,that you're not getting any
orders.
You just have to keep trustingthe process, keep moving

(11:24):
forward, never giving up.
Because you just might be in alull where you closed a lot of
business and you're still tryingto move your clients through the
sales cycle.
So you might just have a lot ofpeople that just haven't been
pulled through the funnel yet.
And so you still got to keepdoing the same thing.
You still got to keepprospecting, you still got to
keep moving people down thatsales process from unaware,
away, aware, trial, user,advocate.

(11:45):
You have to keep doing that.
So, what happens is, and I knowit's happened to some people,
you know, you have those floodsof people coming in, and you're
like, oh my gosh, this is great.
And then all of a sudden youhave that drought, that dry
spell.
It happens to everybody, it'snatural.
Now, the goal is to make surethat you have that drought fewer
and fewer, shorter and shorter.
And the way to do that, you gotto start thinking like a sales

(12:07):
pro.
Stop thinking about what yourcompany can do for you and start
thinking about what you can dofor your company.
I thank you and reallyappreciate everybody who has
been listening.
Um, shout out to Erica andBrendan, two of my uh two of my
clients.
Uh, really do appreciate goingabove and beyond.
And if I didn't name you andyou're one of my clients, don't
feel bad.

(12:27):
You know, I just can't nameeverybody on the podcast.
So thank you all for listening.
I really do appreciate it.
If you have any questions or youwant to know how you can elevate
your game from being a sales repto a sales pro, um, give me a
call.
Or schedule a call.
Excuse me.
Schedule a call and reach out tome on LinkedIn.
So shoot me a DM.
Um, I think I got two or threethis week already.

(12:50):
Um, this is how most peoplereach out to me is through
LinkedIn.
Um, I will be redoing all myplatforms uh shortly.
It's just been very slow.
Uh my youngest daughter justwent to kindergarten, so I'm
adjusting to being a uhkindergarten dad.
And um so yeah, reallyappreciate it.
Everybody who has been uhlistening, if you know anybody,

(13:11):
you know, send this to anybodywho really needs help.
Um, like I said before, I'm hereto assist everybody in their
sales journey on becoming thebest version of themselves.
So thank you for everybodylistening.
Do appreciate it, and we'llcatch you next time.
Surviving outside sales.
Cheers.