“When you work for yourself and by yourself, self-honesty is important,” says Dave Columbus, director of national sales for Cornwell Quality Tools. You need to be able to honestly evaluate your own performance. “A lot of people let themselves off the hook, because they don’t have anyone to compare themselves to. And we all self-rationalize.”
To be a successful dealer, you need to step back and try to be objective.
For example, it’s easy to justify stopping work at two o’clock when you’re having a bad day or staying home until 10 o’clock because you have to drive the kids to school.
“The fact is you didn’t do that when you had an eight-to-five job working for the boss,” Columbus says.
He suggests weekly self-evaluations.
“I think self-honesty comes down to being able to look yourself in the mirror every week and ask: ‘If I had an employee who just performed as I did, would I say ‘Good job?’ or would I say ‘You need to do better than this if you want to keep your job?’”
