Excerpts taken from a Facebook Post by Serge Pun @ U Theim Wai

Many people wrote in to ask about my life as a salesman and what is needed to be successful in sales. So here is some points to share with you.

1. Understanding the Law of Average & Benchmarking your Closing Ratio.

Let’s say you make presentations to 10 potential customers to sell a product and only one buys. That means your Ratio of Closing is 10%. Which means if you wish to make 10 sales, you have to meet and make presentations to 100 potential customers. That is called ‘The Law of Average’.

I learnt this in my first job of selling air sanitisers. The Law of Average is unchangeable and it demands hard work. The saying goes: “If you work hard, you will reap the fruits of your labour.”

Truth is there is no secret to success! At the end of the day, opportunities come when you work hard.

I was young and inexperienced compared to my colleagues. So I made a lot more sales calls than they did every day; usually three or four times the number of sales call more than they did. By the end of the month, I was pleasantly surprised that I made more sales than them despite being the most inexperienced salesman in the group. The Law of Average has kicked in without me realising it conscientiously.

2. Creating Life Changing Opportunities for Yourself.

What I said above about making more sales is in fact not the moral of the story. The real significant part is what happened afterwards.

Three months into selling air sanitisers, I walked into a real estate brokerage firm owned by a German by the name of Elmar Busch. He was impressed with my enthusiasm and motivation and he offered me a job and promised to train me to become a professional real estate salesman. And the rest is history!

I worked for him for 10 years selling property from around the world to investors in Hongkong and Asia. I learnt everything from him and he allowed me to see the world, meet important people and changed the destiny of my life. I am where I am today very much because of those 10 years I worked for him.

The doors of opportunities will open to you if you work hard. That is the moral of the story I wish to share with you. Many young people chase after doors of opportunities, trying to open them but find it is securely shut to them. And they get discouraged thinking they don’t have much of a future.

What they probably did was focusing on chasing opportunities and forgetting to really put the effort to render an excellent performance in their existing job. You don’t need to chase after opportunities, they will chase after you if you work hard and do a good job in whatever you are doing now.

3. Keep Learning or else Opportunities will Fade Away.

You may be given an opportunity of a lifetime but you will not be able to keep it for long unless you keep learning and improving yourself. That is another golden truth in life. The logic is so simple and evident that I shall not spend time on this, except to remind you again.