In the land of successful selling, relationships are king. And in the sales profession, there are no shortcuts to building the most lucrative, long-lasting relationships. Therefore, to maximize your profits over time, you must understand the way that relationships work.

Consider the realm of dating. How many stories have you heard of men who invested a lot of time, energy, and creativity trying to captivate a beautiful woman and hopefully win a date with her? Those stories are fairly common, right? (And so are sales appointments). But if you asked the guy pursuing the gal if he thought he’d reached his goal by landing one date, he’d be quick to correct you. Getting her to say yes to one date is after all just the first step – albeit an important step – if the ultimate goal is a lasting marriage. Beyond that first date, important steps must be taken to grow the dating relationship, steps that will determine whether the two have the necessary chemistry to get married. Furthermore, once the two are married, that’s really just the beginning of their life together. Beyond the marriage vows the two must come to terms with all that is necessary to ensure the marriage’s success. And in the end, the man who wins the woman’s heart for good – and vice versa – is the one whose actions have consistently fostered the trust that was established on that first date. Something very similar must happen if you desire your sales relationships to reach their potential.

You see, the most profitable relationships mature over time. To be certain that you get this before we go any further, I want you to understand that we’re not talking about merely displaying tenacity and a never-give-up attitude. Those are certainly admirable qualities, but they’re not nearly enough to make a relationship last. You see, relationships that are fruitful and enduring are not comprised of parties that are committed to perseverance. (If that were all it took for a relationship to last, the national divorce rate wouldn’t be nearly sixty percent.) The most productive relationships are comprised of people who are committed to consistently adding value where value is most needed. In the world of sales, that means consistently adding value to a client for as long as you do business together, knowing that over time that will ensure that the relationship matures to fruition. Think about it this way: A girl doesn’t stay with a guy because she’s overwhelmed by his persistence. She stays with him because of the value that he adds to her life, and the value that she adds to his. The salesperson that adds value after the sale clearly demonstrates that the relationship is more important than revenue and the person is more important than profits. Successful selling is about using the long-term transference of value as your main client retention tool.

Let’s be honest, salespeople are notorious for landing a sale then never doing anything beyond that to sustain the relationship. Most give their one-time clients no reason to continue in a relationship with them, and they are therefore constantly stuck in an acquisition mode where the stress is high and the stakes are never certain. The truth is that many salespeople can “get” a sale if they want it bad enough. But the main difference between the mediocre salesperson and the highly successful one is how they treat their clients after a sale. The mediocre salesperson immediately moves on to the next victim after a sale, leaving the relationship with his last client to fester and eventually die. On the other hand, successful salespeople know that the most profitable relationships are a result of a time-honored investment, and they take the steps necessary to retain their best clients for as long as possible – the longer the relationship, the more lucrative it can be. And you must do the same if you desire to reach your selling potential.

Andrew Carnegie was a generous supporter of the New York Philharmonic Society, meeting its annual deficits in its early years. One year the society’s secretary came as usual to Carnegie’s mansion, this time requesting a subvention of $60,000. Carnegie was just about to sign the check when he paused and said, “No, I’ve changed my mind. Surely there are other people who like music enough to help with their own money.” He then told the secretary to go out and raise half the necessary amount, promising to match it with the other half when this had been done.

The following day the secretary was back at the Carnegie mansion, announcing that he had raised the requisite money. Carnegie commended the man’s enterprise and wrote out and signed his check for $30,000. As he handed it over he said, “Would you mind telling me who gave you the other half?”

“Not at all,” replied the secretary. “Mrs. Carnegie.”

(Adapted from Bartlett’s Book of Anecdotes, Fadiman and Bernard)

“God made us plain and simple,” wrote King Solomon, “but we have made ourselves very complicated.” How true that is. Life is meant to be simple, enjoyable, content – but we tend to clutter it up. We give time to things that are a waste of time. We invest in things that won’t last after we’re gone. We pursue things that don’t really satisfy our hearts. We accept less than the best. We allow the unimportant to become the urgent. And we constantly surround ourselves with people and things that rarely leave us a spare minute to relax in silence and solitude, which keeps us from coming to terms with how cluttered our lives really are. Yes, we do a fine job of cluttering our lives with things that don’t really matter – especially as sales professionals. And if we’re not careful to order our lives in simplicity, we’ll soon find ourselves overwhelmed in life and overworked on the job in a maze of inconsequential chaos.

Are you living a simple life? An easy way to establish your answer to that question is by determining what percentage of your daily compulsory activities are tied to your purpose in life. Are you eating whatever is available whenever you’re hungry or are you eating what is best for your body at specific times? Are you giving your body enough sleep or are you constantly burning the proverbial midnight oil? Are you filling your body with liquids that nourish it and give you lasting energy or are you drinking things that help you temporarily cope with stress and busyness? Are you more often working to catch up or to stay ahead? Your answers to these questions will help determine whether your life is cluttered or clean. But just knowing your answers is not enough. You have to do something about a cluttered life in order to simplify it. Knowing what to do to keep life simple begins by enlisting two disciplines into your regular routine.

1. The discipline of solitude. That’s right, you need to spend some time alone to both relax and reevaluate your life. Now, I’m not talking about locking yourself in the bathroom for two minutes at work so you can read the paper or a magazine. I’m talking about taking a half-day at least once every other week to get away by yourself to someplace peaceful and serene. You’ll find that during this time your values will become much clearer and solutions to problems will become more readily evident.

2. The discipline of silence. It’s true that oftentimes silence speaks louder than words. But the question is are you listening? In a society where everything around you is high-speed and seems to work against tranquility, it becomes necessary to shut out the noise from time to time in order to hear what your heart is telling you. The watchword of our consumptive society is an assertive more! Enough is never enough. You must have it faster, better, and newer than anything on the market. And why? Well, because they tell us we should. But it’s the voice of your heart that tells you what you both desire and need. It’s therefore with your heart that you must stay in touch, and not with the voice of society.