Develop And Nurture These Two Characteristics For Peak Performance
5 December, 2018 / Articles
What makes a salesperson great? What separates the best in any industry from the rest? Having a guiding set of principles is key to success, whether you’re in sales or leading teams of people, is vital. Here are the two main characteristics of these individuals and the six habits or actions they cultivate to reach the top:
- Daily Discipline
Developing discipline on a daily basis is a major factor in reaching the top, but it’s not as easy as it sounds. For many people, “discipline” is a dirty word; it’s something we all battle in different areas of our lives. But there are three simple skills you can develop that will help.
Develop a morning routine.
In his Amazon bestseller Miracle Morning: The Not-So-Obvious Secret Guaranteed to Transform Your Life, author and speaker Hal Elrod notes that “how you wake up each day and your morning routine (or lack thereof) dramatically affect your level of success in every single area of your life.”
So, what should your morning routine entail? Whether it’s a workout, a journal entry, meditation, a walk, reading a chapter of a book that inspires you or another activity, find something that starts your day on a positive note, and do it consistently.
Create a plan to handle unforeseen changes in your daily schedule. Cancellations happen. How do you respond when your 1 o’clock cancels with short notice or simply doesn’t show up? What do you do? Call a friend in the area for coffee? Scroll through Instagram?
If you have a backup plan, the shift is seamless. You can get out your prospect list and use the time to set up new appointments or do local drop-ins. Don’t let a change in plans sideline you. Stay in the game and take action.
Connect with a strong support system.
Don’t underestimate the power of your professional relationships. As it’s often said, if you’re the smartest person in the room, you’re in the wrong room. Surround yourself with people who challenge and inspire you to continually improve.
- Develop Emotional Maturity
This one can be tough. We all feel a plethora of emotions on a daily basis. Knowing when and where to draw the line is key. When it comes to business, do your best to take on every day with an objective stance. Starting your day with some sort of affirmation or another such exercise to keep you centered can be immensely helpful. Give yourself a solid foundation, an objective stance that you can return to when emotions try to pull you off course.
Understand the numbers.
To know your business and to execute the critical path to growth and success, you must know the numbers and constantly adjust, plan and make your moves accordingly. The bottom line? It’s not personal; it’s stats. If you see enough people in a given day, the sales will follow. This fact allows you to stay on-purpose and focus on each partner or new account.
Realize you control your learning.
In today’s business environment and with the abundance of resources we have at our fingertips, we can learn anything relatively quickly. The best in any field realize this reality and harness their resources to stay in the loop. And they know how to step outside their routine and comfort zones to find what they need.
Business icons like Richard Branson get it. “I see life as one long university education that I never had,” he said. “Every day I’m learning something new.” The average CEO reads a book every week. That’s about 50 books a year, and that’s a lot of knowledge. Thanks to the internet, you don’t even have to venture out to purchase books. Regardless of how you consume them, just do it. Read, think, respond.
Be consistent to achieve progress.
The feelings associated with a lack of progress are what we have to fight against. When the natural ebbs and flows of business happen, rely on your metrics and not your emotions.
A quick story about a publisher I worked with relates to this point. She was a sales leader in our company when she was sideswiped in a car accident. Recovery took longer than expected. Once she was back in action, it took almost four weeks for her to generate a new contract.
In this situation, an inexperienced publisher would have let emotions take over and questioned their approach. But this one stuck to the metrics. She realized that a certain number of appointments would reset the momentum she had and bring results she was used to. That’s exactly what happened. Results come from consistent action, not emotion.
Daily routine and mastery of emotions have been a focus of mine, professionally, for years. Any business is a work in progress, but having a morning routine, planning ahead for blank spaces in our calendars, developing a strong support system, understanding the numbers, actively learning and being consistent are the keys to rising to the tops of our industries.
The science man and innovator, Fernando Fischmann, founder of Crystal Lagoons, recommends this article.
