s your goal to be average, mediocre and barely able to get by? I doubt you answered yes to that question. However, many sales professionals choose that path through their everyday activities. There are real and specific differences between successful merchant level salespeople (MLSs) and those barely making it.

The same is true with virtually everything in life, and I have studied the winning qualities of highly successful individuals in many fields.

For example, I believe the greatest quarterback in the NFL today is Peyton Manning. He probably spends more time studying and honing his craft than any other quarterback and, possibly, any other player in the league.

Would he have to spend that much time watching film, studying defensive schemes, etc. to be great? Probably not. Would he be the best if he didn't do this work? Probably not.

True greatness always includes careful preparation. It is never a coincidence. Two specific winning qualities guaranteed to make a difference in your sales career are focused attention and flexible adjustment.

Focused attention

Truly successful professionals in any field have focused attention. Simply put, they stay on track. They don't allow daily distractions to pull them away from their productivity. You cannot experience high levels of success without knowing how to effectively handle distractions and stay focused on the task at hand.

Consider these key components to finding success through focused attention:

• Focus determines mastery: To become excellent at something like closing, one must be attentive and focus on when and how to close the sale.
• Focus determines your energy level. The things you feed on and look at the longest become the strongest elements in your life. Are you applying yourself appropriately?
• Broken focus creates insecurity and instability in everything around you. It's amazing how many people fail because of perpetual distractions.
• Often we need to deny ourselves many things if we want to become great at one thing. Have you ever met a jack of all trades who makes $300,000 per year? To be good at many things usually equates to not being great at anything.
• Focused attention means that when you don't have a specific or good reason for doing something, you have one great reason for leaving it alone and avoiding the distraction.

Without focus, you waste your creative efforts in a maze of mediocrity and inconsistency.

When your focus is clear, you become passionate about your dream and maintain the strength to accomplish it.

Flexible adjustment

A critical quality of winning MLSs is their ability to adjust, realizing that sometimes change is necessary. They acknowledge the need for improvements, adjustments and corrections.

If you aren't happy with where you are today, does it make sense to continue doing what you've done for the past two years? For example, is emphasizing savings for the purpose of leasing terminals working for you? Chances are that the MLSs who are making over $300,000 annually make frequent necessary adjustments to stay at the top of the bankcard field.

Have you ever seen a team go into halftime 20 points behind only to come back and win the game? Why and how did they come back so strong? They made necessary, flexible adjustments.

On the flip side, if they'd returned to the field and continued the same method of play as before, would they have won? Absolutely not. The same is true for us. We win or lose by the way we handle our circumstances. It's not the circumstances themselves that determine our results.

Consider these key components of flexible adjustment that will help you become even more successful.

• Great ideas still need change, adaptation and modification in order to flower and succeed.
• Success and growth are unlikely if you always do things the way you have always done them.
• When things consistently go wrong or sideways, it's time to adopt a different strategy. Wise people adapt; fools never do.
• The successful realize it's not always how you start but how you finish. Adjustment allows you to start wrong and still end up right.
• Your success can often be found within your mastery of adjustment. Remember: Pain keeps you hurt. Pride keeps you ignorant. Blind spots keep you mediocre. Delusion keeps you out of touch with reality. Winners confront dysfunctions and boldly remove them.
• Most of the time, positive change can be achieved by simply adding or slightly adjusting something. When you refuse to make adjustments or improvements, you may as well wrap a chain around yourself; you will truly be restricting your own success. Don't let stubbornness and resistance to change destroy your career.
• Change is always hardest for people who are in a rut because they have scaled down their living to encompass only what they can handle comfortably. They welcome no change or adjustments that can lift them up. That is tragic.

Winners and losers

"He that is good for making excuses is seldom good for anything else," Benjamin Franklin once said. Many of life's failures occur when people do not realize how close they are to success. They give up; they make excuses. They become losers when they are on the verge of winning.

Are you a winner? If you've read this entire article, you are either already a winner or have a clear desire to make significant improvements. True help, training and mentoring are often what's needed. Find someone far more successful than you are who can aid you in achieving your goals and dreams.

Jason A. Felts is the Founder, President and Chief Executive Officer of Florida-based Advanced Merchant Services Inc., a registered ISO/MSP with HSBC Bank. From its onset, AMS has placed top priority on supporting and servicing its sales partners. The company launched ISOPro Motion, its private-label training program, to provide state-of-the-art sales tools and actively promote the success and long-term development of its partners. For more information, visit www.amspartner.com, call 888-355-VISA (8472), ext. 211, or e-mail Felts at jasonf@gotoams.com