Though many people get into sales to make money, there’s no worse reason to enter the profession. If that is your reason, you’ll fail. In sales, you don’t make money; you earn it.

As a sales professional, everyone wants to earn a million dollars. We all want money to achieve our goals and dreams. You get the money by living and executing the three principles of sales wealth building.

1. You earn money by building a strong self-belief system, i.e., having the confidence that you can do whatever you set your mind to do, knowing why you want to earn a fortune and having the confidence to take action. How are you building that belief now?

2. You earn money by being better than the rest and doing whatever it takes to excel at what you do: getting up one hour earlier; always making the last call of the day; striving to be the best at everything; and being unwilling to settle for second place.

3. You earn money by having answers others don’t. You learn these new answers by exposing yourself to success information you don’t now have, but need to be the best: seminars, books, tapes, a plan of lifelong learning. It’s simple, just not easy. Some people have to go through failure to get these answers. Some make a habit of continually exposing themselves to new information. The key is learning something new every day. How are you getting those answers now? Have you put yourself in a position to get the knowledge you need, to earn the money you want to achieve your dreams?

“The biggest reason people don’t succeed is that they don’t expose themselves to existing information,” says American business philosopher Jim Rohn. And I add to that: “Therefore, they don’t believe in themselves enough, and lack the confidence to succeed.”

It’s not so important that you want to succeed. It’s critical you know why you want to succeed, what has prevented you from achieving success to date, and what belief system and game plan you need to put in place to gain that success.

If you blame everyone and everything but yourself, you are doomed. Take responsibility for the failure and do something about it (I’ll guarantee that when you succeed, you’ll take the responsibility).

It’s easy to lose self-confidence if the belief system you’ve got in place is weak due to poor knowledge and lack of determination. It’s easy to fail at sales if you have never told yourself (sold yourself) the real reason you want sales success in the first place: not earning money for money’s sake, but the real reason you want the money, and what you’ll do with it once you get it.

For example, you may want money to buy a home of your own, to pay for a specific college you want your child to attend, to liberate you from a spouse, or to gain the approval of a sibling or a parent. Whatever it is, uncover it, write it down, post it up (if possible), carry it with you and read it twice a day. Then you will begin to live it.

But that’s only half of the success formula. You must also seek to be the best at what you do. I promise you that if you seek to be the best and focus on that, your other goals and dreams will just show up.

Combine your “why” with the desire and dedication to be the best, and presto: sales success.

Some of you are reading this and saying, “Jeffrey, don’t bug me with this philosophy stuff. Tell me how to make sales.” I am. This is the most powerful sales lesson I can deliver. Only a few will get it: the ones who will rise to the top.

Free GitBit: I have a list of questions to ask yourself that will help you understand your present belief system. They’re good and they’re free. Go to www.Gitomer.com, register if you’re a first-time user and enter the words BUILD BELIEF in the GitBit box.

Jeffrey Gitomer, president of Charlotte, N.C.-based Buy Gitomer, gives seminars, runs annual sales meetings, and conducts Internet training programs on selling and customer service at www.trainone.com. He can be reached at (704) 333-1112 or by e-mail at salesman@gitomer.com.