New sales reps often sabotage themselves by comparing their numbers to peers instead of focusing on what they control: how fast they learn, how hard they work, and how coachable they are. The speaker shares a personal story about wasting time on comparison and explains why pipeline generation and effort matter more than obsessing over who's ahead.
One of the biggest mistakes I made as a new AE is caring way too much about how other people were having success. Let me explain that. I was so competitive, but not in a healthy way. When other reps were having success, it wasn't me trying to figure out how they were so I could replicate them. It was me trying to figure out how they were having success so I could justify what why they were having more success than me. So I was looking to see, well, did they get more inbounds, do they have better customer accounts, where are they getting their deals from? And that was a massive waste of time. All that time that I spent trying to figure out how they were having success, I could have spent creating my own success. And I think a lot of newer AES fall into this trap. They're competitive, they want to do better than their peers, and it's okay to be competitive. But make sure that you compete in the right things. For example, with new reps. I am never stack ranking you based on how much revenue you're bringing in in your ramp, because the reality is a lot of short term revenue is a little bit outside of your control. Inbounds you get, customers you inherit. What I care about a lot more is how fast you're learning, how hard you're working, how coachable you are, how much pipeline you're generating, all things that you can control. And so for new AES, my recommendation is don't compare yourself for revenue to your peers. Compare yourself what you can actually control. If you focus on the coachability, you focus on the effort, you focus on the pipeline generation and consistency there, promise the revenue will catch up and eventually you will stack, rank ahead of time in the revenue. And then beyond that, don't do what I did. Don't get so caught up in comparisons and even jealousy in some situations where you're wasting your time making the comparisons. I know Teddy Roosevelt said comparison is a thief of joy. That's true. But I also like to say comparison is the thief of productivity. Because all that time that you spend comparing yourself to others is time that you're not spending improving yourself and that compounds over time.
That's it for today's video. I hope you enjoyed this topic and that it was helpful for you as you progress your sales career. If you're looking for more ways to improve, I've linked some free resources for you in the description of this video and in the pinned comment below. Simply visit that link, input your name, and tell me which email I can send this to you. And I'll get them to you immediately. And if you enjoyed this, please, like, subscribe and comment and I'll see you in the next video.
