Selling, no less than teaching or medicine or law, is a professional calling, and those who prosper in it are those with a handle on their own professional methods. They’re the people who have developed a conscious, planned system of selling steps that are visible, logical and repeatable… not magic or charisma or luck…. Tomorrow’s sales leaders will succeed because they think like, act like, and-most importantly-consider themselves toe be pros.

One of the things these pros will have in common is a special brand of persistence… the kind that top people show in working on their own selling methods.

If you want to predict the next sales representative of the year, the next star regional manager, the next national account executive, find out which salespeople are analyzing their own methodology, which ones are constantly reassessing sales strategy and tactics, which ones are looking for reliable, repeatable methods to improve their competitive edge.

All strategic professionals share one other profile characteristic: They’re never satisfied…. It’s the best who always want to do better.

-Miller & Heimen, The New Strategic Selling, 37-8.