I love December! But why does it have to come so close to January? At least it seems like this year has just flown by, but when does time slow down? As business owners and independent sales professionals we have the same number of minutes every year to spend as we see fit. What choices did you make with your ‘bank account’ of minutes this year?
The joy of working in outside sales is you have the opportunity to have your own business without the headaches of ownership. If you are a small business owner, you have a chance to become anything you choose to be and wish to work hard enough to achieve.
The pursuit of this excellence often has us focusing on the shortfalls which prevented us from reaching our goals. We see what and who we wish to become or achieve, but yet so many things stop us from getting there. Why does this happen?
You see where you want to go, so let’s think about why we’re not there. No, Stop right there! That is what we often do, we spend all of our time thinking about why we are not there, so what do we focus on? The obstacles in our path, sometimes we are the biggest one. Have you ever found yourself the victim of a self-fulfilling prophecy? This is what we create if we focus on obstacles-we create more of them!
It is interesting how when talking to highly successful business owners and sales people the tone their conversations take. You never hear about what they don’t have or didn’t make. It is not to even be considered. You hear about their goals, their dreams their next accomplishments, as if they are current reality. There is not a doubt in their mind that they will achieve their next objective. What do you spend your time talking about? Are you thinking ‘have’ or ‘have not?’
I myself am often guilty of this, we always want what is the best so we think about the worst thing that can happen and our good friend Murphy of Murphy’s law is right there waiting to take advantage of any opportunity he can find. How many times have you opened wide the door of opportunity for our good friend Murphy to come visiting on your last sales call?
So let’s talk about what to do to eliminate Murphy from your sales results
- Evaluate your thoughts, take note of positive thought and eliminate negative thoughts.
- Write your goals and develop a written action plan to accomplish. Break your plan down into monthly, weekly and daily action items. If you can’t measure it you can’t manage it.
- Review your accomplishments daily, weekly and monthly.
- Celebrate your accomplishment. Take a friend out to lunch when you reached your weekly activity goal, treat yourself to something nice when you make your monthly or quarterly goal. Have intermediate measures of success.
- Journal. Write down each day your affirmation of success and carry it around with you. Place pictures of your success vision-whatever that may be, in prominent positions where you will see it often and at challenging times, by your phone, in your notebook you take prospecting or wherever you may face adversity or negative thought.
- Take out the trash. Just as you think positive thoughts, you must remove negative influences from your life. Evaluate at the end of the year those who support you and spend your time with them. Hang out with successful people who will think of accomplishments and great things, not inadequacies or shortfalls. After all, we do not want those to repeat themselves in our sales results.
- Get help. Work together with an accountability partner, either within your company or perhaps a peer in business. Hire a coach, someone who will be frank with you on your thoughts and allow only positive direction.
Take action, the end of the year is when you recognize and celebrate your accomplishments and those who help you achieve them. Enjoy your family and your holiday season. Focus on one area of growth you wish to achieve and take steps to improve, focusing on the benefits and not on the ramifications.
If you find that taking out the trash involves more and more of your effort – you should join us in January for our Thought Patterns of High Performers workshop, details to be found here.
I have enjoyed talking with you this year, and wish you a happy and joyous holiday season!
Great Selling!