Your sales career should be one that rewards your efforts, and gives you a sense of accomplishment. Too many people end up in jobs they don’t care about, doing work that seems pointless to them. Like most people, you’ll probably spend decades of your life working. You should spend that time working in a career that you feel good about personally. Creating your ideal sales career can help you build a connection with your work that makes it personally meaningful to you. Without that connection, you’ll spend years wishing you were doing something else with your time. You, and your customers, will get more out of your time at work if you truly enjoy and value the sales career that you’ve created.

Fall in Love with What You do

Very few people love their jobs from the first day. Some people learn to like the job, while others simply learn to tolerate the job as a way to make money. A few very lucky people actually learn to love what they do, and look forward to each day of work. Getting paid to work is nothing special. Getting paid to do something you love is incredibly special. Start by finding the things you enjoy about your sales career, and focus on increasing the time you spend on those things. For the things you don’t enjoy, look for ways you can improve or change them. If they can’t be improved or changed, look for joy in the challenge of overcoming those obstacles. Turn your liabilities into assets, and get more enjoyment out of your sales career.

Learn to be the Best

There will always be new things for you to learn in your sales career. New products and services will be added to your line and new sales techniques are always being developed. You can also study people and sales trends to learn how to better communicate with prospects. Don’t be afraid to approach other professionals, colleagues, and mentors for advice on improving your skills. The goal is to be happy and successful-the more knowledge you have, the easier it becomes to achieve both of those goals. Always remember to learn as much, if not more, from your failures. Customers are your ultimate source of objective assessment-if you don’t close the deal, look back over the interaction with the prospect and you’ll find a wealth of information to use for the next deal.

Press On

Unless your ideal sales career is a very brief one, you’ll frequently experience professional ups and downs. By persevering, and maintaining your focus on self-improvement, you’ll always be moving closer to your ideal career. The minute you give up, your ideal sales career will slip away from you. Whatever obstacles you may encounter, it’s up to you to find a way to overcome them. You’ll have help with some, for others, you’ll be on your own. Just remember, when you see a successful sales person working in their ideal career, you’re seeing someone who never gave up.