How would you rate your sense of happiness? Now, I don’t subscribe to the ‘thin’ definition of happiness as feeling happy most of the time … I subscribe to and apply the more robust definition of happiness to mean a sense of living a good life – a meaningful, flourishing, and prosperous life.
You might be thinking, what’s that got to do with sales success?
Well, what we know from repeated, evidence-based research is sales and service people who report higher levels of happiness, well-being, and a sense of living a good life, are also more successful.
Meik Wiking is the CEO of The Happiness Research Institute in Denmark and has travelled the world researching and identifying the difference between the happiest and unhappiest countries (as reported in the World Happiness Report).
His research suggests the following six factors:
- Togetherness (or a sense of community) – In your sales or service role, to what degree do you have a sense of community with your sales or service manager and colleagues?
- Money – In your sales or service role, to what extent do you believe you are being remunerated fairly for the value you create for your organization and secondly, to what extent does your remuneration allow you to live a ‘good life’? (note … what I’m not asking here is would you like more money).
- Health – In your sales or service role, to what extent are you able to balance your work and personal time in ways that promote a healthy lifestyle?
- Freedom – In your sales or service role, to what extent do you have a sense of self-determination where you have flexibility and choice in the way you sell and serve customers?
- Trust – In your sales or service role, to what extent to you have a sense of self-trust? How would you describe your propensity to trust others? And what is your sense that others trust you and would describe you as trustworthy?
- Kindness – In your sales or service role, to what extent do you believe your role allows you to be kind to others … to your customers, clients, colleagues, and other stakeholders? To what extent do you believe others are kind to you?
Now, this might not be how Meik Wiking typically applies his research, however, for those of us in sales or service roles, investing time to think beyond just our targets and the next sale, can often allow us to work on strategies of either personal or team development that can not only enhance our success, but also our sense of happiness, well-being and living more meaningful, flourishing and prosperous lives.
