Tips & Insights for Top Performance

Steven Covey, in his book Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, talks about one of the traps for ineffective people is getting caught in doing the urgent rather than the important. Bottom-line this is reacting to life rather than responding. While urgent things will come up, they seem to happen more when you are not planning. Eventually everything will become a crisis. STOP. When you care for the important you will have less urgent things to deal with. There will always be truly urgent things, but these are called emergencies, not daily urgent tasks. Make a list and determine what is important for you to do to move forward with your business (or life). What do you need to do in order to accomplish these goals? This is what is important.

Important things seem like it will not matter if they get done today or tomorrow and therefore often are perpetually put off until tomorrow or until they become urgent. It is similar to the bad habit many of us had in school with reading. The teacher gives us what is important to read each week. Students are busy and do not read what is important and then a few days before the test when there is 200 pages of reading, the assignment now becomes urgent. Thus the cycle begins as we create urgent tasks that would not be urgent if we did the important things we need to do each day.

Here are a few keys:

1)    Anything is possible. Believe that it can happen and look for ways to make it happen.

2)    Know what you want/need in life and what is necessary to accomplish those needs (i.e. a working lady wants to work and have kids but needs to have work flexibility. Solution: Find a job that has flexibility or can be done from home that uses your skills and will meet your work needs (income, work environment, preferences, etc.).

3)    Have a vision of the solution. (If you can see all the way to the end, plot the actions it will take. If you cannot, plot the first set of actions and work on those. The next steps will become obvious as you move).

4)    Take baby steps to move closer to that vision. What ONE thing can you do?

5)    Surround yourself with people, resources and tools to keep you courageous, focused, encouraged and optimistic so you do not grow weary, discouraged, distracted or overwhelmed.

6)    Embrace Change. As you go keep your eyes fixed on the objective/goal and allow for adjustments along the way. 

Fish! A Remarkable Way to Boost Morale and Improve Results is a great quick-read to inspire and motivate. Based on the story of a fish market in Seattle, “FISH” offers wisdom for everyday living. The book focuses on four key concepts:

• Choosing your attitude. Explore concepts like the “toxic energy dump” where you appraise and get rid of negative people and things that drain your energy. Make sure you are not a toxic energy dump yourself!
• Playing. Discover the next steps of extreme customer service, how to make the customer special: play with them!
• Making their day. Also, learn about making the experience fun for the customer.
• Being present. Don’t just exist but be in what you are doing, whatever moment in time you are in, be fully present. Rather than thinking about the past or the future, concentrate on the present moment.

 These 4 simple lessons help to teach how you can have more power over your environment and improve the working relationships you have. Whether you are looking to build a team or just have day-to-day peace, learning how to apply these easy principles will give you a life that is more enjoyable and has better results. A fun story that is short to read makes this book entertaining and educational. A classic book for your library.

Now is a great time to assess your environment for maximum productivity.  An exercise that is great for cleaning up your environment is to visit your tolerations. 

What are you tolerating? Take steps today to start to remove those nagging annoyances that subconsciously suck energy from you. Really, it is amazing how much they absorb. You will know exactly how much after you complete this exercise; history shows it is amazing!

First, make a list of 30 things that you are tolerating in your life – this is a brain dump. Any things that nag you, annoy you, and cause you to think, “I really need to get that fixed” or “I really need to do something about __________.” Put anything from the little things to the enormous. i.e. make a brochure, send out promotional mailing, get website, sort a stack of unfilled papers, deal with a chip in the windshield, a broken appliance, a messy car, a bag that is ripped, dust on the side of your stairs, dust, cutter, full e-mail box, squeaky door, etc. These items are the tolerations we hold internally that take up a ton of our energy. Do not stop until you have 30 things.

Once done, pick a few things you are going to get off the list this week. Each week peel more things off. It will go quickly at first as you take care of the 10 minute jobs and then become slower as you take care of the more monumental jobs – but just keep working at a minimum of two things each week. When you are done, the feeling of freedom and space will be an incredible reward!

Because of the nature of many sales jobs (and other jobs too, but especially sales), it is common to get seduced into following the “urgent” carrot. This “urgent” carrot is whatever opportunity for a sale that is in front of me. I see the potential sale, I follow it. Period.

This model might work for some, but for many it leads to reactionary cycles that are unproductive and lead to a life of 24/7 work life with burnout and no balance. Things fall in the cracks, promises and follow-thru is compromised and it feels like you never quite have enough time.

Today, one of my clients, who is working on mastering sales productivity, and I reviewed his keys to success. These points are what he attributes to his success in his upper end service based sales (high-end design-build landscaping) and are also relevant to many others… as they are basic productivity keys:

1. Do a power hour to get your important things done. This is that one hour each AM to focus NOT on your to do list, rather on the important things you need to do but often do not “get to”.

2. Ask for and know peoples budget. Sometimes this can seem like a question you want to wait to ask and might not be right for all professions, however, it is a great qualifying question. Your goal is to sell. If your buyer has no dollars for the purchase it really doesn’t matter how great of a sales person you are. While you might squeak a sale out of a person like this, the chances are there are other more ripe prospects. Spend your time on people who can afford and are ready to buy your product.

3. Qualify your jobs. Don’t waste time with unqualified jobs. Again, different sales models require different approaches, but if your target is a big fish, don’t fill your time with small fish. If your target is small fish, then do small fish activity. The key is to know what is a qualified lead for you and pursue those. In the world with many demands on your time, this is one way to work to spend your time with prospects that have greater potential. It is a very simple concept, but many sales people move forward without qualifying the lead. Write down 3 attributes of your buying clients. Use this to help you qualify hot leads from cold leads.

4. Know your VALUE proposition. Why should people spend money with you? What makes you different than others? What makes your product or service worth it. As a sales person you have to believe in what you are selling and you have to be able to communicate the value or worth. It is a competitive market, what sets you apart from your competition?

5. Be persistent – ASK FOR THE SALE. Follow-up, don’t assume they are not interested, offer what you can do to help them to make a decisions. (Is there something you are questioning, what is keeping you from making a decision, are you ready to move to the next step, how can I help in the decision making process?)

6. Have a set schedule of meeting blocks. Know when you met with people so you can easily set follow-up appointments. When you wrap up your sales call, you should be able to set a follow-up appointment. We are all busy, if you don’t do this it can take weeks and months to secure another meeting, meanwhile you might lose the prospect to another faster salesperson. When are your blocks?

7. 1/3 prospecting; 1/3 sales; 1/3 production. Know the key parts of your sales cycle and spend proportionate time in each quadrant. Often sales people are in the sales part and balls get dropped at the front and end of the cycle. If you are intentional about time in each, you will round out your day, improve the quality of your WHOLE sale cycle not just the actual sell. What are you 3 main parts? Are you spending time in each?

8. Write down all promises and commitments in calendar. Block time for yourself. Write promises down that you make. Have time to follow-up. You have lots you are thinking about. Your word is important; don’t really on your memory to ensure you make it happen. What time do you need to block for you?

9. Have balance (honor nights and weekends with family). Again different jobs are different, but have time for you and time for work. The 24/7 person looks like a super star out of the gate, but it is hard to maintain the pace. Think about the long distance runner who sprints from the finish line, in order for you to maintain performance you must balance work and life. Your life allows you to work, so take care of it (health, family, energy, rejuvenation time, etc.) What time do you reserve for yourself/life?

10. Build a network / support team. Design strategic alliances and build your support team. Even if you work alone, there are relationships you can find where you “help each other out”. These are priceless. Who is your support team?

 Consider the points and the questions. Pick ones that will support you in being strategic with sales. All the best!