It’s what you do that others don’t.

Seth Godin has a defining post up today. It’s defining in that it crystalizes, in the simplest of terms, the difference between greatness and success and average and mediocrity.

Seth talks about the last 10% .

In most fields, there’s an awful lot of work put into the last ten percent of quality.

Getting your golf score from 77 to 70 is far more difficult than getting it from 120 to 113 or even from 84 to 77.

He’s right.

This holds true in sales. It takes ten times more effort to consistently be at 150% of quota than it does to consistently make quota.

I’m often asked what is the difference between good sales people and great sales people. I posted about the difference here a while back. After reading it I recognize much of what I talk about regarding the great sales people requires the last 10%. It’s a lot harder to know you customers business than your own products. It’s a lot more work to find dormant or latent opportunities than it is to respond to a customer request. In the future, when I’m asked what’s the difference between a good and great sales person, I’m going to say the last 10%

The last 10% in sales is HARD WORK, period. There are millions of sales people, all trying to win over your customers. The bar is already high. Sales is filled with Type A overachievers. This makes the last 10% in sales harder than in other fields.

The last 10% is the difference between good and great sales people.

The next time someone asks me what the difference between a good and great sales person is, that’s what I’m going to tell them. And then I’ll say, It’s the difference between good and great anything.