Skills are the building blocks for success in sales. If skills don’t develop and grow, there won’t be a long string of big commission checks that come in year after year. Sellers who are constantly working on their skills are those who get the biggest checks. Full stop.

Unfortunately, most managers and companies today define performance solely by the revenue they produce. That’s unfortunate because that thinking ignores the foundations of exactly what drives the revenue: your consistent application of skills and best practice actions! Those are what create the commission events.

The TOP 10% understand that performance is built through skill development and professional evolution. In that light, don’t be afraid to look yourself in the mirror and appraise your performance…at any stage of your career. (Yes, do it even when you think you don’t need to do it anymore.)

Don’t appraise your year solely based on revenue production; add skill growth to your annual performance appraisal.

It’s easy to stack up the numbers and say, "…well, I was up 13% this quarter YOY, and last quarter I was up 8%." But a myopic perspective only on your revenue numbers will get you mixed up on what’s truly important…skills.