To put it simply - your success or failure is determined by your ability to coach yourself well.
As your own sales coach, the first challenge that you need to grapple with is deciding on your number one desired outcome. This is important because everything you do should bring you closer and closer to that outcome.
After you’ve figured out what outcome you’re working towards, it’s time to take these four things into consideration:
- Think bigger
- Make it meaningful
- Make it specific
- Challenge yourself
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Think Bigger
This applies to not only accomplishing your personal goals but your professional goals as well. And as sellers, our professional and personal lives are so tightly intertwined that it’s extremely relevant to think bigger in terms of both of these aspects. Think bigger and challenge yourself.
- Allow me to illustrate - people often ask me these questions:
- “How can I motivate myself?”
- “How can I do what you’re doing?”
- “How can I get up early – and work hard and stay busy?”
- “How do I do all of that?"
What they’re asking for is the magic answer, a sort of magical motivation tool that can magnetically pull them out of bad and jump start their day at a great speed.
The reality is there are days when you’re not going to feel like getting up. In fact, this is an important symptom that you should look out for. If you are having trouble getting out of bed, perhaps it’s because the payoff for getting out of bed is not something that really matches what you defined to be life's number one desired outcome.
Again, what is your number one desired outcome?
The moment that you latch onto this idea, you will find the reason, the goal, and the magical tool that will help you get out of bed every day.
Make Your Goals Meaningful
Make it personally meaningful. I mean it.
If climbing a mountain is a big challenge but is not especially meaningful to you, then don’t do it. Maybe learning how to play the piano is the better challenge for you.
Tap into the things that you will want to have accomplished when you look back on your life – 10, 15, 25 years from now. What’s that one thing that will make you say, “You know what I wish I had done?”
What is that thing? Because on your deathbed, it will certainly become clear as day to you, but you don’t want to have to come to this point with regrets.
Just make sure that your personal goal is meaningful to you and place this with highest priority.
Make it Specific
People tell me that they want to make a lot of money.
What’s a lot of money?
For some, this means $5 million, but for others, this means being able to get through the week and still have money remaining.
It’s surprising to note that, at times, the value of money can still be subjective. I frequently travel to other countries with only $5.00 in American currency in my pocket and see how far I’ll get. There will be times when I couldn’t withdraw cash and I’ll have wished for a $50 instead. The $50 that’s there for me when I need it most is a great deal of money, compared to that $5.00 bill.
If making a lot of money is your biggest priority, then come up with something meaningful that the money can acquire for you. Of course there’s always an exception. For some, aiming to hit a specific dollar amount in and of itself is personally meaningful.
Chances are it’s what you do with the money that is the key driver. The more specific and personal you can make your goal, the more likely you’ll be driven out of bed every morning to go for the gold and get it done!
Challenge Yourself to Grow
When you aggressively pursue a new goal, you will, very early on, encounter the one thing that you hate doing. And what you’ll realize is that, as an adult, it’s very easy to avoid the discomfort of doing something you hate to do. As an adult, if you don’t like eating vegetables, you could stop eating vegetables and no one will be able to stop you (unless you have a persistent person in your life who makes you eat your greens).
The problem is: the things you like to avoid can stop you like a fence and block you from going forward. For example, even if you don’t like a certain new technology, you will likely have to learn it anyway because it’s absolutely necessary for your growth and will enable you to take one more step forward. And so, challenge yourself to break through those fences and try the things that used to make you afraid.
If there’s one thing you remember from this post, let it be this - don't be afraid of being afraid.
How to Achieve a Desired Outcome
Once you’ve identified your ultimate outcome and you’ve opened your mind to thinking bigger and challenging yourself, it’s time to take the next steps to achieving that outcome.
Here are the four aspects that you need to focus on:
- Find the smallest step
- Let yourself enjoy the moment
- Find many steps
- The shape of the road.
Find the Smallest Step
Very often, we’re daunted by the challenge - we want to get to the top of the mountain but we’re at the bottom of the mountain and it just seems like it’ll take forever to climb up.
But of course, the very first step is the most important one.
In fact, when most people don’t accomplish their goals, it can be attributed to two main causes: getting started and maintaining momentum.
Generally, getting started is the most difficult aspect. What I want you to do is make that easy for yourself. If you were to begin an exercise program that involved getting up early and doing a series of activities, what would be the hardest challenge? Well, if you could just learn to get up early, then you will find that the first small step you take is the most essential step that will eventually get you to all the other steps.
And in this way, you want to break down your big goals, and start saying to yourself, “What’s the very next thing?”
Most business or social goals have to do with either being introduced to someone (sometimes it’s not who you know, but who knows you) or getting someone’s permission. If I’m an actor, I want to get the director’s permission to be cast. If I’m a professional salesperson, I need to get the decision-maker’s permission so that the company will buy from me. Generally, it boils down to these 2 things.
What do you need to do to break it down? You need to make a phone call, send an email, and get a name. You must meet someone who could eventually introduce you to your target person. Where do you need to go?
This is the kind of reverse engineering and granular thinking needed to come up with an easy-to-take, can’t-miss next step.
Let Yourself Enjoy the Moment
After you’ve taken the first small step, actually enjoy it for a moment. Allow yourself to feel good because you’re realizing that the only difference between where you are and where you want to be is that you haven’t finished taking all the steps to get there.
You deserve to enjoy it, so take a moment to fully realize it. When you take this time to contemplate your starting point, you’ll be even more motivated to take the next steps toward your goal.
Find Many Steps
Here is the trick: Everyday, you want to find as many small steps that you can fit into each new day as you can.
That should be the totality of your day - constantly taking the small next steps – and don’t count on any one of them to be the one that gets you to the final success.
You need to know that most of the roads you begin traveling down will not necessarily lead to whatever success you’re looking for right away. Chances are that the bigger the goal, the longer it’ll take to get there and the greater the number of different routes you can take. But if 99 won’t work, and you’re only working on 50 of them, something isn’t working. You want to be on the constant outlook of the little baby steps that need to be taken so that you’ll eventually bump into or cause, by virtue of all the interactions that you’re creating, the success that you’re looking for.
Understand the Shape of the Road
Everyone runs into obstacles. What’s interesting is that if you break that down to the core, you’ll reflect on your personal methods of dealing with challenges.
What is your reaction to an obstacle? Would you stop while some people keep going?
Think of it this way: There is no such thing as an obstacle. To use the term "obstacle" means to see something in front of you that might look like a big rock or a high wall, where there’s nothing to hold onto, and say, “Oh, my goodness.”
By saying it this way, what you’re really thinking is this: The road was nice, flat, smooth, consistent, and safe.
As you were walking down the road, there would be nice signs pointing ahead saying, “Success just 500 yards ahead. Just keep strolling down this solid clean road.” We think it’s supposed to look like that, and when it doesn’t, we think there’s an obstacle. When we see an obstacle, we treat ourselves very differently. If there’s a road, we keep walking, and if there’s a sudden high wall, we suddenly stop in our tracks.
Some of us are conditioned to stop when we see an obstacle.
Treat the obstacle as you would any other road. You just have to adjust to it and perhaps even slow down. Maybe you can’t keep running. Just keep walking. You can even crawl, but don’t stop advancing on that road.
Keep finding the small steps that will move you forward.
Being your own sales coach isn’t easy - it takes a lot of passion, time, hard work, determination and drive. You have to find ways to keep yourself motivated and heading steadily towards that number one outcome you’re trying to achieve.
But, when you feel like you need some inspiration or a little help, we’re here to guide you.
Ready to get started as your own Sales Coach? Make sure you’ve set yourself up for success. Our Calendar Management Checklist will help you start planning your days to ensure you’re productive and on the right path to reach your outcome. This free resource will help you structure your day more effectively, identify “bad meetings” and utilize your time wisely.
