Mr. Bernstein's Lesson

by Graham Denton

When the reporter in Orson Welles's classic film Citizen Kane interviews the title character's old business manager, Mr. Bernstein, he learns that Kane was not always a happy man. Well, the reporter said, he sure made a lot of money. Mr. Bernstein is unimpressed. In one of the movie's many memorable lines, he tells the reporter, "It's not hard to make a lot of money - if all you want to do is make a lot of money."

Appreciating that quip may seem counterintuitive to most business people. Yet those who are most successful know that it's true. If you focus only on money, your potential achievement is limited: The best you can achieve for yourself is a large bank account. And we've all met our share of failures with large bank accounts. It's when you focus on something other than money that true success follows.

Money is the yardstick with which most of us measure our success. Yet if I think back to the hundreds of salespeople I've spoken with over the years, I can't think of one who was in this game chiefly for the commission checks. Every magazine survey and academic assessment of professional "motivators" bears this out. What fires great salespeople up is a cluster of nontangibles, ranging from competitive zeal to the kick you get from solving a customer's problem, from a passion for excellence to the pleasure of bringing other people satisfaction. When you're reaping these kinds of rewards, you feel positively driven and fulfilled. The dynamite commission check is merely a sign of that achievement.

Don't mistake me. No sales professional is going to keep producing at a topnotch rate without topnotch compensation. But the compensation is the result, not the cause, of his or her winning attitude.

This point has major implications for staying "up" on the job. Some day-to-day attention to your own personal bottom line is essential, of course: You cannot succeed in this game if you ignore your quotas. But focusing exclusively on the quota (or whatever other financial metric you use) can actually get in the way of your achieving success. It can deflect you from the very practices that will make you that quota.

You know the practices I mean. Calling on customers with energy, confidence, and enthusiasm. Answering their queries promptly, with the detail they demand. Keeping astride of the latest product developments, industry news, and customer requirements. Taking on their problems as if they were your problems (which of course they are), and staying excited about attacking those problems.

If you find these things a burden - indeed, if you find them anything less than a supreme turn-on - then you're not bringing the attitude to your job that will ensure success. If you're not getting tremendous satisfaction from the job itself, the biggest bank account in the world won't make you a success. That's ultimately the hard (and simple) secret of world-class sales mastery. The leaders in sales are like the leaders in every other form of business activity. For them, making money is important, but it's not all they want to do.

Take a lesson from Mr. Bernstein, and broaden your ambition. When your work itself is rewarding, you've got more than money in the bank. And it won't hurt you a bit that you've got that too.