Why I’m happy about my tax bill
TweetLet me say that I am one of those people who HATES taxes.. and really cannot understand any reason why we cannot stop spending tax money on moronic things, reduce the size of our government, and lower our taxes – but this blog is NOT about my political views, its about my rumblings on sales and sales management.
So, then why am I happy about my tax bill and what does it have to do with sales.
Well, in my entrepreneurial days, I worked a lot with a fantastic sales man. He sold pen based computers and was enormously successful in his endeavors. He was probably the first salesperson I encountered that I admired. He certainly embraced much of the other characteristics that I will or have blogged about here and I took a lot of lessons from him.
One day, he and I were at lunch and I made some opinionated comment about taxes. Yes, it was early in my career and I had not yet learned the humility lesson yet (not that I’m perfect now) – so my views were, of course, perfect and all others who did not embrace my ideas were stupid. I’m not sure where he sat in his political views because he HAD learned the lessons about not mouthing off your opinions (after all he was enormously successful in sales). He simply looked at me and said, “Mark, I have to tell you that I am thrilled that I am going to be paying a lot of taxes this year. Do you know why? Because it means that I made A LOT of money!”
I’m sure he, and every other successful sales person would love to see lower tax bills and are championing candidates that will help us keep more of our money – but in the mean-time, when we pay that enormous tax bill, it’s because we are being successful!
Sales is one of the few careers in which you are totally in control of the amount of taxes you pay. If you want more money – well then, get back to the phones, get back in those board rooms, and “get the signature on the line that is dotted!”
I am certainly hoping to be paying a lot of taxes this year. I am managing a phenomenal sales team. I set a goal for them this year that was at a 15% increased pace from last year. The team had never had a real well defined quota plan and I wasn’t sure how they would perform against it. I am proud to say that they are currently on a pace that will have the team quota beat by 242% and every single member beating the goal. I suppose I need to make the challenge even harder now…
