What It Takes to Be Number One in Sales
What It Takes to Be Number One in Sales
Winning in sales is not a sometime thing; it’s an all-the-time thing. You don’t close a deal once in a while; you don’t do things right every now and then. You do them right all the time. Success is a habit. Unfortunately, so is failure.
There is no room for second place in sales. There is only one position that matters—being the best. If you settle for second place, you accept that someone else was better prepared, more persistent, or more skilled. I don’t ever want to finish second. There are participation trophies in business, but they don’t pay the bills. It has always been a mark of top producers to be first in everything they do—to win, to grow, and to dominate their market.
Every time a sales professional steps into a meeting, a call, or a negotiation, they must engage from the ground up—using not just their knowledge but their passion, confidence, and unwavering belief in their product. Some people sell with logic. That’s fine. But to be truly great, you must sell with your heart, putting your full energy into every pitch, every call, and every follow-up. If you’re lucky enough to find a client who buys with their head and their heart, you’ve got an ideal sale.
Running a sales team is no different from running any other high-performance organization—whether it’s a sports team, a Fortune 500 company, or an elite military unit. The principles are the same. The objective is to win—to close deals, to outperform the competition, to dominate your industry. Maybe that sounds aggressive or ruthless. It’s not. It’s business.
It’s a reality of life that top-performing salespeople are competitive. The highest-stakes deals attract the most ambitious professionals. That’s why they are there—to compete. They know the rules of the game, they set clear goals, and they execute with precision. The objective is to win. Fairly, ethically, but always to win.
And in truth, I’ve never known a salesperson worth their salt who didn’t appreciate the grind, the discipline, and the challenge of the game. There’s something in great salespeople that craves the discipline, the structure, and the thrill of turning a ‘no’ into a ‘yes’ through sheer persistence and skill.
I don’t say these things because I believe in the “brute” nature of business, nor do I believe success must come at the expense of others. I believe in integrity, in delivering value, and in doing right by the client. But I firmly believe that a salesperson’s finest moment—his or her greatest fulfillment—comes when, after giving everything, exhausting every effort, and pushing past every obstacle, they stand victorious, having closed the deal that others thought was impossible.
– Vincent Lombardi (Adapted for Sales)
