In 1988, I was entering my ninth year of professional selling. I had become one of the top salespeople in my company but was still striving to improve. So I decided to attend a Tom Hopkins seminar that a co-worker had told me about. Little did I know, that day would be one of the most significant days of my career.

During the morning break of the seminar, I managed to corner Tom Hopkins on his way back to the stage and I told him that I was very inspired by the seminar. Then I said something that changed everything. "Tom," I declared, "I want to be a speaker." The cat was out of the bag.

"Why don't you see me after the seminar is over," Tom replied. "We can talk about it." I didn't know it then, but that moment a foundation of leverage was laid that would dramatically change my career.

After the seminar, I approached Tom and as we shook hands he looked me in the eyes and said, "So you want to be a speaker, do you?" With confidence I said yes. Then his eyes turned serious and with an earnest tone he inquired, "So, when are you going to be one?" I blew it. I wasn't prepared for that question. As a result, I blurted out something stupid like, "I don't know." Then, with calm certainty Tom said, "If you don't know when you are going to be a speaker you will not do the things today that will help you become one tomorrow." I was both staggered and inspired in that same moment. "Pick a date," he continued, "and put it in your planner. Then write it on the back of your card and give me your card."

Just like that, the hammer had fallen. The moment of truth had arrived. With little certainty I selected a date, wrote it on my business card, and handed it to Tom. He looked down at the date then said, "If you don't call me by this date to tell me you are a speaker, I will call you and ask you why you have not held to the commitment you just made to yourself." That was leverage at work in my life.

Leverage develops when you share your goals with the right people. That's important to understand. The people with whom you share your aspirations must be the dream stokers in your life, not the dream soakers. They must be people who have hearts for seeing you succeed and hands for helping you do so. They can be sales manager or spouses, friends or co-workers, mentors or professional coaches. But what's most important is not what roles they normally play. What's most important is that you have confidence that they care about who you are and who you desire to become. You see, leverage is a result of sharing your dreams with people whom you know will help you reach the top. Think of it this way: Utilizing leverage in the sales profession is like throwing a rope up the mountain of your career and knowing that people are there who will secure the rope and help pull you up the mountain.

The fact is that you cannot reach the peak of successful selling by going it alone. No one climbs Everest solo and lives to tell about it. To be successful and satisfied in your sales career, you must surround yourself with people who will push, pull, drag, and drive you to greater heights. "Good company on the road," as someone once said, "is the shortest cut." And my story is testimony to this.

I was three weeks away from the date I had written on my business card some four months earlier when I remembered that Tom had said if I wanted help, to give him call. I wasn't going to meet my deadline, so reluctantly I dialed the number of his company's office. I was somewhat relieved when Tom's assistant told me he was on the road conducting seminars. But she assured me that she would give him the message and that he would try to call me back as soon as he had time. Two days later, Tom called me from Atlanta's Hartsfield International Airport, and for forty-five minutes helped me fill in the missing pieces to make my career transition from salesperson to sales trainer.

After hanging up with Tom, I knew I had to act. And I did. The following Monday I resigned from my sales position and began my profession as a speaker. I still needed help getting to where I wanted to go in my new career, but now I knew where to get that help. I had experienced firsthand the power of leverage and immediately sought to create more. In fact, since my initial conversation with Tom, I have never been without leverage. And that has made all the difference in the world. I can honestly say that without the leverage that was created when I shared my dream with Tom, and the ongoing leverage that I have leaned on since then, I would not be where I am today. I may have never made the career transition. But I did; and you can make a significant climb too, if you're willing to apply leverage to your sales career.

Ed, Kevin, and Don are three sales professionals who work for the same company. All three had individually achieved a great level of success. But something extraordinary happened when the three began applying leverage to their sales efforts.

It was 1996 when the three attended a Sales Mastery event with the CEO of their company. Little did they know that what they were about to learn would, in a matter of a few years, triple their incomes. As they listened to the different principles that were taught at the event, something inside each of them-the power of possibility-began to surface. Each realized the value that could be added to their businesses and lives if they were to begin to hold each other accountable to reach their goals and maintain higher standards of selling. It seemed to be the one principle that each had failed to take advantage of. Before the event was over, the lesson had manifested itself in the form of some friendly competition. In the process of holding each other accountable for reaching their goals, the three decided they would raise the bar every month by trying to outsell one another. And in the end, they did more than outsell one another-they outsold themselves.

In 1995, the year before the three learned the value of leverage, their numbers looked like this:

Ed 119 units sold, $16.2 million in sales revenue
Kevin 102 units sold, $14.3 million in sales revenue
Don 132 units sold, $15.6 million in sales revenue

In 2001, after six years of utilizing leverage in their careers, their numbers looked like this:

Ed 394 units sold, $63.4 million in sales revenue
Kevin 283 units sold, $45.5 million in sales revenue
Don 362 units sold, $57.5 million in sales revenue

Today, the trio accounts for 65 percent of their company's profit. If that's not a strong testimony of the power of leverage, I don't know what is. And here's the kicker: They aren't finished. I recently spoke with the CEO of their company, and he believes their numbers will climb even higher because they are so serious about continually leveraging one another to the next level. And I'm sure he's right because that's precisely what happens when you apply leverage to your career.

The beauty of leverage is that once it's created, it permeates more than your sales career. Leverage adds tremendous value to your life and to the lives of your clients. As a result of my conversation with Tom Hopkins that day in 1988, I ascertained a path toward my destiny: making a difference in people's lives through speaking. With leverage on my side, I was given an opportunity to begin maximizing my gifts and abilities. Was I using my gifts and abilities before I had leverage in my life? Yes. And you may be as well. But I was not tapping into my full potential, nor was I truly fulfilled. There was only so much I could accomplish by myself. In fact, there was only so much I thought I could accomplish. But through Tom's mentoring I realized there was more available for me if I took the correct steps. Leverage not only pointed me in the direction I needed to go, but it also pushed me down that path and kept me on it-the path that I would have continued to dream about but may have otherwise never taken.

To help you understand the value of leverage, take a look at the following acronym for the word LEVERAGE.

Leverage allows you to . . .

Love what you do. Leverage helps you continually invest in the tasks that make sales a pleasure-namely, building and maintaining loyal relationships. And leverage helps you continually avoid the tasks that make sales a chore. The reason is simple: When you travel down your career path with others who know your deepest desires and are committed to helping attain them, those people act as your guides, keeping you on the most productive and promising path. They offer you suitable and steady reminders of why you do what you do. They keep you honest and trustworthy. They help you sell from your heart. In short, they keep you focused on that which brings you both success and satisfaction.

Equip yourself for excellence. As we've already discussed, leverage provides the means to maximize your gifts. It helps you earn clients' trust the right way. While leverage doesn't put the tools in your hands, it certainly places them at your fingertips. With leverage you are best positioned to follow through on your commitments to personal and professional growth. With leverage you are best positioned to follow through on your commitments to your clients. With leverage you are positioned to regularly receive innovative tips and techniques for improving your selling performance and increasing your sales productivity. In short, with leverage you have the keys to every door of opportunity before you.

View yourself as you can be. Leverage expands your thinking and distends your dreams. Like a thermal rising up from a mountain range, leverage lifts your beliefs to greater heights. And as Kierkegaard declared, "What wine is so sparkling, so fragrant, so intoxicating, as possibility!"

Embrace the change necessary for growth. You must accept that change is inevitable in life and in your career, especially if you want to continue growing. With the right leverage you are much more likely to mark change as a catalyst that not only produces something different but also something better. While many changes in your sales business are inevitable-the market will change, your clients will change, your approach will change, and even your desires will change-leverage positions you to profit from change when it does occur, unexpectedly or otherwise.

Reach your goals more regularly. Leverage taps into the power of programming. There's no magic formula. With leverage you are simply more mindful of the things you desire to accomplish, and as a result, you tend to be more productive and purposeful with your time. Leverage helps you keep your mind's eye focused on your goals so that your actions naturally follow suit.

Analyze what's working and what's not. Every successful salesperson must learn to remove what hinders business and retain what enhances it. Leverage shows you the difference between the two and gives you the tools to constantly create positive change in your business. In fact, to be successful at selling, you must be willing to run your business with the understanding that what works today may not work tomorrow. Leverage helps you remain teachable so that you can readily adjust accordingly.

Give up to go up. With leverage you can afford to make the big sacrifices necessary to achieve the future you most desire. Leverage allows you to live out the "pay now, play later" principle because it provides you a net of support. Not only that, leverage helps ensure that you do not give up what must be kept, and do not withhold what must be given. While you still must give something up to get something better, with leverage you will never do so at the expense of your most treasured values.

Engage in accountability. "Show me who you frequent," reads a French proverb, "and I will tell you who you are." In other words, the people with whom you associate can make or break you. The right kind of leverage, created through the accountability of those wiser than you, propels you to the peak of your potential. In fact, strategic accountability is the fundamental application of applying leverage to your career.

How much leverage would you say you have in your sales career right now? Have you surrounded yourself with trusted advisors with whom you've shared your vision and plans? If you have, then your sales career has leverage. But if you have yet to enlist the help of others in your sales career, then it's time to allow leverage to push, pull, and propel you down a more successful and fulfilling path.