Posted on Monday, October 16, 2017

The Importance of Non-Negotiables

Setting yourself up for success—both personally and professionally—starts with cultivating self-discipline and holding yourself accountable. The most effective rules, after all, are the ones you set for yourself.

For me, a huge part of making sure I’m achieving everything I want to do in this life is sticking to those self-set rules, which I call my non-negotiables. These are the key things that I know I must do in both my work and personal life to reach the goals I’ve set for myself. Stick to your guns on these, and you’ll see that over time, your routine will become habit and you’ll be powering towards reaching those cherished goals.

These are the items that get done, no matter what:

Posted on Monday, October 9, 2017

The C.U.R.E. Technique: How to Save a Lost Sale

We all know it, and we all dread it: the lost sale. They said they wanted to buy, and now they don’t. Or a current client wants to cancel. And you can feel all the time and effort you spent going down the drain.

The knee-jerk reaction here is to immediately defend our products or services and talk about how great they are. We try to “fix it” and convince them to stay with us or to stay and buy. But what’s even more important than that is that we learn how to listen.

Posted on Tuesday, October 3, 2017

What’s the Total Cost of a Meeting?

Meetings are an inescapable part of doing business. But they’re also one of the biggest sources of wasted time and money when run inefficiently.

I recently attended a sales meeting where the manager printed out every email he’d sent his team that week. He began by spreading them out on the conference room table and reviewing each one. As I watched his entire team painfully sit through this bizarre crime scene reconstruction of their week (during prime prospecting time!), I estimated that he wasted $1,500 of his organization’s money.

Posted on Monday, September 11, 2017

Body Language and First Impressions

You only get seven seconds to make a positive first impression on someone. And for a sales professional, first impressions are make-or-break; it’s vital that you know what you should be doing when you’re standing in front of a prospect.

Mastering your body language is the first step towards making a great first impression, as it focuses on quite literally putting your best foot forward.

Posted on Monday, September 4, 2017

Calculate the True Value of Your Time

We’ve all heard that “time is money,” right? Well, it’s true. And most of you probably know that determining the value of your time can be the first step in becoming a more effective professional.

You may have even tried using your hourly rate to make better time management decisions. But if you are a salesperson, you’re selling yourself short when you calculate the value of your time using the traditional “hourly rate” formula. There’s a much better way.

Posted on Monday, August 28, 2017

The Formula for Achieving a Balanced Life

So many people talk about the importance of achieving a “work-life balance”. And I get it—you want to achieve balance. You want to make enough money while not working too much.

But instead of trying to find a perfect balance between work and life, focus on spending time on the things most important to you, both in your career and your personal experiences.

I use the acronym L.I.F.E. to help me remember the four pillars vital to creating a true foundation for a well-rounded, balanced life.

Posted on Monday, August 21, 2017

The Benefits of Meditation for Salespeople

Like most salespeople, I suffer from a total squirrel mentality. I’m always going; always trying to do a million things at once. If not properly managed, this can obviously lead to an extraordinary amount of stress—and stress is one of the biggest stumbling blocks to success.

Meditation has long been recommended to reduce stress levels and increase focus. That didn’t prevent me from thinking it was entirely too hokey and a total waste of my time, though. I tried it for two whole days in a row before making up every excuse in the world about why it wasn’t going to work for me.

But then something happened.