I was speaking at an event the other day and asked,  “how many of you set goals?”  Of the 25 people there I saw about 4 hands go up.  I then asked, “how many of you take time at the beginning of the day, week, month or year to set goals?” “How many of you tell people about those goals? Do you post your goals and do others know what they are?”

I didn’t see one single hand go up.  I thought to myself, here we go!

The reason I tell you this is because it can be the one single thing that helps drive your business.  When you know what your goals are each and every day, when we review these goals each day, you realize what you need to do to get there.

Here’s where we start:

1. Write down your goals. It can be 1, it can be 10. I don’t care; write them down.
2. Post them somewhere. On your wall, your fridge, in your office, on your door, as a screen saver, on your phone. Post them everywhere.
3. Tell people about them. The reason you don’t is because you don’t want to be held accountable. The reason you will is because you want to be held accountable!
4. Take the time to do it. Take 10 minutes. You can take 10 minutes per day. The first day is to write them, after the take that 10 minutes to review them. It’s worth it.
5. Know the activity you need to do to hit them. Set a time period you want them done by. You can control your activity every day.

Goal setting is one of the easiest and toughest things you can do. It’s easy because we can write down whatever we want to. Goal setting is about conviction. If you are truly convicted in what you want to do, what you want to hit, you will go out and do whatever you can to make that happen.  The tough part, you now have that hanging over your head!  You have now told people. YES! Now we are talking. Now you have to do everything it takes to hit those things.  Go get it!

There are three things that will factor into your goal setting, how you stick to it, and why you do it.

1. You can control this every day. Have that Positive Mental Attitude!  Enjoy it, this is supposed to be fun. Not overwhelming.
2. This is Physical, Mental, Social, Family, Career. All those things that go into life. Enjoy it all and be grounded. Do it for the right reasons.
3. Get a coach, mentor, tell people. Have someone hold you accountable to your goals.  Without that you are just floating.

Now, take all of this and set them bigger. Those goals that when you tell people it makes you a little uncomfortable. It makes them think how the heck are you going to accomplish all of that. Don’t listen to naysayers. When you want it, you will do it.

Standing ovation….. Give yourself one sometimes.

If you are anything like me, and I’m guessing many of you are, because you are in sales.  You have a hard time giving yourself credit for what’s happening.  You may always be looking at doing more and more and more. You ride the emotions at times. You set appointment after appointment and sonetimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. We then have the times where we kill the activity (like always), but we can’t set an appointment to save our lives! You may be in the top 5, top 10, top 20 of your company but you still feel like you can do more. It’s not enough. We aren’t where we want to be.

You could also be on the flip side. You are new to the company, or have been there for a short time. You are putting in the activity. You are making the dials, setting the appointments, getting in front of people but nothing is happening. Even when something does happen, it’s not as much as you’d like.

This may sound funny, but I’m here to tell you to celebrate those things.  Give yourself a standing ovation.  Literally get up out of your desk, or as you’re driving to your next appointment, or when you are going home for the day and give yourself an ovation.  

A couple things to be happy about…

1. You aren’t going to kill it every day. That’s okay! What can you control? Your activity. You can kill the activity every day. That’s going to lead to the results you want. It may not that day, but it will and you can give yourself an ovation for that.
2. When you are doing the activity, you are practicing. What do I mean by that? Every time you talk to someone. Every appointment you are in.  Every time someone cancels on you. Every time someone tells you no. This is practice. It makes you better. It makes you stronger. The more you do it the better you get.
3. Fill your pipeline. Every time someone says no, they are now a contact. May not be today, may not be tomorrow, might be 3 years from now. Eventually they will need you. You can celebrate that. You created a new contact.

I hired a coach. I was the person that wanted more all the time. Not that I’m settling now. I just never gave myself the opportunity to look back at what I’ve accomplished. I never looked back at how much I was really doing and why I was doing it. I killed myself daily and didn’t enjoy it. That’s why this topic is so near and dear to my heart.

My coach taught me to enjoy what I’m doing. Why I’m doing it. How I’m doing it. Taught me to look at what I’ve done and be happy. Know that I gave my all every day. She helped me know that I’m capable of more. But at the same time, there’s times you just can’t do more. She helped me understand that it’s not all about how much we sell but at times it can be about the relationships we are building.  There’s so many things that she helped me do, but one of the biggest, if not the biggest, is to give myself an ovation.  She taught me to be happier.  We all want to be top dogs, but maybe, just maybe it’s okay at times to know you are doing the right things daily.  Enjoy it!

Activity is the root of what drives our business.  Without activity in the sales world, we don’t have a business.  What this truly comes down to is making phone calls. Dialing those numbers that you don’t always want to make, but you know you must. This isn’t busy being busy.  This is being planned, prepped and prepared about who you are going to talk to.

1. Stop calling the same people repeatedly. Don’t hold onto this false sense of hope that someone might do business with you.
2. You build your business through new people.  Where do those new people come from? Referrals, Linked In, Past Clients, Current Clients, etc., etc.
3. Set up a plan. Know the first 5, 10 or 20+ people you are going to call. Have it done the night before or in the morning. It will get you in the right mind set.
4. Practice.  It takes 2 minutes. Practice in the car, working out, in the morning, at night, take a walk, whatever it takes. Take that little bit of time to know what you are going to say.  It will get you past the call reluctance.
5. It’s just one call, to them. To you it’s 10, 20, 30 or 100. Whatever it is. But to them, it’s just one call. Don’t overthink it.  
6. If you are truly trying to help people you won’t think about getting rejected. They might say yes, they might say no, so what.  You are helping them either way. It’s hard to be nervous when your heart is on service.
7. Have fun. Phoning and activity doesn’t have to be hard.  Stand up, sit down, dance, laugh, say something off the wall. It doesn’t always have to be straight to the point and serious.
8. The people on the other end of the phone are people just like you.  You aren’t going to close everyone, but you can still have a conversation. That will go a long way to calling them in the future.
9. In most cases, no means “not right now.”  Set them out a year, two years or even three. That’s okay, keep them in your system and in your pipeline for the future.
10. Get after it.  When you do the activity, it will breed results. When you make excuses, it will not. You can’t get mad at the results if you aren’t putting in the activity.

I hear so many people feel that they are above calling. They get away from what makes them successful.  I was coaching a Managing Director the other day and he flat out said, “These are all the things I know I should be doing but I’m not, it’s like I’m a new rep again.”  All that means is… we can’t get away from what got us there in the first place. It doesn’t have to be the 50 dials a day, maybe for you it’s 10. It will get you the results you are looking for.

Stay true to your activity. It only makes you better.

If you are in sales, you are a salesperson. That’s not a bad word, a dirty word, or even wrong; it’s one of the best professions you can be in. Now, you may not have grown up thinking…. I’m going to be in insurance sales, car sales, a Loan Officer or even a Real Estate Agent. Guess what? You are, and now is the time to embrace it.

I remember when I got my first job in sales. It was at Life Time Fitness. My boss at the time (one of the greatest guys I’ve ever met) sat me down and said “call all these people,” and handed me a stack of papers. He didn’t know the impact that would have on me. I haven’t stopped dialing.

Except for that one time…

I fought being a sales person. I took a job as a Sales Director, telling myself I wouldn’t have to make calls anymore! Yes! I couldn’t accept being a sales person. I couldn’t accept that I needed to put in activity each and every day with no excuses. It hit me, and you know why it hit me? I stopped doing the activity. My business suffered. My income suffered. My mentality suffered. I realized it was time to accept it.

That’s what I did.

I embraced it. Every facet of it. I embraced the phone calls. The days you look forward to it and the days you don’t. I embraced the way people put you off. The way they just say no. The awkward first call when you just don’t have it that day. I embraced the meetings when people want to see you in person, even though neither one of you need it. I embraced sales people before me giving what I do a bad name. Having to overcome the objections we hear time and time again. I embraced all the rejection. I embraced constantly thinking about my numbers and my goals knowing some days would be harder than others. I embraced it.

You know why I embraced it? Because I love every second of it.

When you embrace it, you will want to help people. You will want to make those calls, set those appointments, get past that fear and have that confidence. That phone won’t seem like it weighs 5,000 pounds. Tell people you are in sales! Tell people you are good at it. If you aren’t good at it, get better. If you ARE good at it, get better.

We are in the #1 profession in the world where we can make an unlimited amount of money and help an unlimited amount of people if we just put the time and effort into it. There’s no degree, no college and no class in high school. You have to work at it.

If you are reading this right now, smile, sit back in your chair and understand that you have something to offer. Understand that when you work at it, it only gets better. When you find a mentor, coach, seminar, books, CD’s, DVD’s, videos, podcasts or anything else you can do to make yourself better… you will be better. You will be less stressed, home on time and happier in life. When you love what you do it loves you back.

Start drinking the Kool-Aid from the fire hose! Be a SALES PERSON. Embrace it.

We are sales people.  Whether you want to admit it or not, we are all in this together.  We all chose this profession for better or for worse.  So many people succeed, and so many people fail. The hard part to figure out is, why are there so many that are right in the middle?

Is that you?  Do you wish you made more money? Do you wish you had more time? Do you wish you sold more? Are you that person that does just enough, or gets to a certain point and they get comfortable?

I had a coaching call the other day and some of these things really resonated with me.

We began talking about how they were down.  How things just weren’t going the way they wanted them to go.  How they had just lost two big sales to the competition and they thought they did everything right.  They were down on themselves. They were living in that scarcity mentality. They wanted to and thought they had to close everything. This is because they weren’t doing the work they needed to get past it. You can’t get mad at the results if you aren’t putting in the work to get results.

Do you know why this happens?

Because we ride the rollercoaster…

I was driving to the gas station one day and I was thinking to myself, what happens when the bottom drops out? What happens when people stop buying? What happens if I stop making the money that I need/should be making? What will I do WHEN this happens, not IF. I remember sitting at the stop light, in my car asking myself these questions.  So I picked up the phone. I picked up the phone and called my mentor, team leader, coach and just all around one of my best friends.  And you know what she said?

Are you doing the activity?

Are you making the dials?

Are you talking to people?

Are you asking for referrals?

Are you setting appointments?

I answered “yes” to these questions. This has changed my train of thought since that day. No longer do I look at what might happen, but I go out and do what I have to to make it happen.

You have to ask yourself, can you answer yes to these questions each and every day?  If not, you will get on that roller coaster and not get off.  If you are doing those things, you no longer have to ride it. It will just keep going up, as long as you continue to get better at what you do. As long as you continue to put the work in, adding to your vocation, pushing yourself out of that comfort zone.  Stop taking the easy way and go out and live the life you want to live.

Get off the Roller Coaster. Do the things you need to do to be successful.

If you are in sales, of any form, any kind, you have suffered from call reluctance. What does that mean?  It’s those times you don’t want to pick up the phone.  It might be when we are cold calling. It might be when we are doing follow up with current clients. It’s when you get referrals and you don’t want to call. It’s when you have that upset customer you don’t want to call.  It comes in many forms and can be paralyzing.

The best part is…. There’s ways to overcome it!

1. Be Planned – Know the first 10-15 people you are going to call. You can be smart enough, to be dumb enough, not to have to think about it.

2. Set a goal for calls – How many calls are you going to make? Tell your co-worker, tell a friend, tell your mom. I don’t care who you tell, but tell someone how many people you are going to call.

3. Set a goal for conversations – Same as above. Tell somene. Tell everyone. Let them now how many people you want to talk to. Not just call.-  commit

4. It’s just one call – To the people you are calling, it’s just one call, to you it’s 10/20/30/40 – but it’s just one to them. Remember that. They won’t remember at 4:35 in the afternoon that they told you no at 8:47 am. Don’t overthink it

5. Look for no’s. What does this mean? How do we have a conversation that we can move on – get them to say no, but at the same time “not right now” no – you can still contact them in the future, just might not be a good fit today.  Move them to make a decision one way or the other

6. Why do you do what you do? I bet if I asked you that question you would tell me you want to help people. If we truly want to help people, and we suffer from call reluctance, are we thinking about ourselves, or are we thinking about them? If we are thinking about them it doesn’t matter if they say no.

7. Use names. Names are powerful. Who are you referred by? Who do you have in common? Get permission to use those names. It builds trust.

8. Use our script. This is BY FAR the most important one. If you don’t have one, make one.  Take the thinking out of it.  Mine still sits on my desk to this day. I use to every time I make calls

9. Commit to the call. What does that mean? It means when they answer you know the name, you use the script, you aren’t looking at other things, you aren’t distracted, they have your FULL attention. Commit to them.

10. Positive Self-Talk. What are you saying to yourself in the morning? Before you call? Even right before that call?  Are you energetic and ready or telling yourself they will say no anyway. It makes a HUGE difference

11. Motivational videos – go to youtube. This can help immensely.  Get your mind right

12. Read testimonials. Even if they aren’t yours. If you, your company or anyone has testimonials read them. What you do helps people.  This reassures exactly that.

13. Set a time to make your first call and an end. We can do anything for an hour. Anything

14. Don’t overthink it. The more you think the more your mind will get in the way. Just dial. Get a list and fire off.  You’ll be happy you did.

It doesn’t matter where you are in your business. Dials/activity lead to results. Don’t kid yourself and tell yourself it doesn’t. It’s part of the game. Go into it to win.