Pablo Picasso was one of the most influential artists of the last century, no question about it.

The other day I spent some extra time at the Norton Simon Museum, in Pasadena, checking out his paintings, and then his sculptures, and I got to thinking about what he could teach salespeople.

There are at least five solid lessons:

(1 Picasso put "The Law of Large Numbers" to work. (See my audio program with this title, published by Nightingale-Conant.)

He was extremely prolific, having created, literally thousands of works over his career. Compare that to DaVinci, whose significant output was extremely limited, however brilliant. Salespeople should be constantly opening new accounts, more than they think they need to reach their quotas and to have a nice living. Push yourself to create a lot, every day, thats the Picasso way!

(2) Picasso, as you may know, used various expressive styles. He had a blue period, dabbled in cubism, realism, minimalism, and so forth. There are lots of ways to communicate with your public, so become adept at all: phone, face to face, voice mail, email, etc.

(3) Ignore your critics, internal and external. If you watch the movie about Picasso, starring Anthony Hopkins, you can see how self-confident this guy was, especially in his romances and work. He didnt indulge in self-criticism, and he had no time to listen to his external critics. In fact, he probably outlived most of them!

(4) Lead, and let others follow. Emerson said to be great is to be misunderstood, and while Picasso did enjoy commercial success during his lifetime, he set his own course, boldly creating styles unique to himself. One of the sculptures I like a lot at the Norton Simon Museum actually looks a hundred years ahead of our time, and he shaped it in 1909! I think it may take audiences that long to really get it, but so what?

(5) Enjoy yourself! This guy loved life, and was filled with energy and vitality. He left nothing un-done; you can see this in the movie about his life. Work should be involving and enjoyable. If its drudgery, its not just killing your creativity; its probably killing you.

Most great artists outlive everyone else, except great comedians. We could do worse than to model our careers after luminaries such as Picasso, Erte, and Dali, to name a few.