by Michael Hinkle
While working on my book Treasure Hunt, I started to pick up on an interesting trend:
The vast majority of skills and lessons I’d seen help me in my thirty years of professional sales were not only great sales advice—turns out they were also great life advice. Time after time, the tools I used to adjust both my mental and tactical game in my work were also the tools I used in my everyday relationships and decisions.
One of my favorite expressions to use with younger sales professionals is “We work to live, not live to work.” In sales, it becomes all too easy to attach self-worth to a number, but this almost always backfires. But if we put life first and remember our purpose must come before commission, then we have a real shot at living a well-lived life.
So today, let’s do something different than the typical “How to” succeed at sales rant. Let’s look at the 5 key pieces of sales advice that is also life advice.
#1—PUT OTHERS BEFORE SELF
Everything is about this. It’s the Golden Rule: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” Make sure you’re putting the needs of the other person ahead of your own. Trust me, prospects know when you’re putting your own needs first. They can sniff out the BS. The best salespeople I’ve known have been the most servant-hearted.
And it holds true to life, too. If you put others before yourself and have a heart of service, then people will naturally want to be around you. They’ll listen to your advice more. They’ll offer their help when you need it.
#2—COMMUNICATE, COMMUNICATE, COMMUNICATE
Misunderstandings are at the root of so many failed deals or soured business relationships. Overlooking or omitting information can destroy your reputation and lose clients faster than anything else. And so many of the problems we salespeople face end up being self-generated because we failed to communicate clearly and quickly.
If you’ve ever been in any kind of personal relationship—as a significant other, a parent, a child, a sibling, a friend—then you’ve also seen this to be true. Some conversations can be uncomfortable, yes—but it beats the discomfort of permanently damaging a relationship with someone you care about. Even when you think you’ve been clear, always ask the other person to confirm they understand. And when others are communicating with you, never be too quick to judge the messenger, but interpret it through the lens of good intentions.
#3—ALWAYS MAKE THE ETHICAL CHOICE
I’m big on ethics. It’s something I talk about all the time. That’s because I firmly believe that whatever you put out into the world, it will come back to you. In sales, you’ll find temptations abound for cutting corners or fudging the details to win the deal. More often than not, it will come back to bite you in the form of losing a client—or even losing your job, depending on the severity of the breach.
It’s true in life, too. Lie on your taxes and eventually the IRS will find out and come after you. Life to a significant other and it’s only a matter of time before you’re exposed. Trust is one of the hardest things to win back after it’s been lost. But if you make the choice early on to be ethical in your decisions and follow strong values, it will pay dividends in both your professional and personal life.
#4—VALUE PEOPLE REGARDLESS OF HOW THEY TREAT YOU
One of the biggest problems in our society today is when people only value the people who agree with them on everything. It’s the sense that “If I don’t accept your view as mine, then you must not see any value in me.” In sales, this sometimes comes out in how we treat a prospect after they turn us down. Do you immediately start badmouthing them? Do you write them off and treat them as dead to you?
Instead, we need to remember that we should value people because they’re our fellow human. Whether we agree on business or politics or anything else should always be secondary—or even lower, honestly. You can’t control how someone treats you, but you can control how you treat them.
#5—BE YOURSELF, WARTS AND ALL
In sales, it’s all too easy to feel the need to impress, to present yourself as the person with all the answers. But you’ll actually gain more trust and respect from good clients who see you’re being authentic—including when you admit what you don’t know or come to them first about a mistake before they even find it.
No one’s perfect, so you might as well be honest about it. If you’ve learned from mistakes, then no need to hide the fact. Never be ashamed of a scar—it proves you’re stronger than whatever hurt you. It makes you stronger than you were before. It’s true in sales—and it’s true in life.
If you follow these five pieces of advice, not only will you be better at sales, but you’ll be better at life. People will be drawn to you and want to learn from you. Take the time to write these down on some sticky notes and put them on your computer where you’re forced to see them. If nothing else, I guarantee seeing them every day will help put you into a more positive mindset, ready to serve others and be the best version of yourself!
You can learn more sales (and life) strategies in my book Treasure Hunt: A Common Sense Approach to Building a Successful Sales Career, now available on Amazon.

Michael Hinkle is the Founder of JBI, a Los Angeles-based sales consulting and coaching business. For over 20 years, Michael has created sales opportunities from scratch. His latest book, Treasure Hunt, lays out a roadmap for building a successful sales career. It is available on Amazon.
With JBI (Just Buy In), Michael is teaching sales teams across the country the methods that he has used successfully for decades. His is not a wait-and-see philosophy but an active mindset that finds new clients and saves them from people who don’t deserve them. His consulting has already changed what is possible for businesses across the country, including his own.