A Sales Sign

Good morning!

In last week’s sales tip, I talked about the first of two lessons learned from a commitment I made to exercise. My idea was to create two sales goals, not one. First, determine how many calls you want to make, at minimum, on a daily basis. Second, determine what percentage of time it will take you to reach that goal. In January, I closed all three of my exercise goals, 74% of the time. My goal in February is to do the same.

Here's the second lesson I learned from all of this sweating….

Similar to sales, you really can't see the effects of exercise immediately. One workout on a treadmill or an elliptical and you're not going to say, "Wow. What a difference!" Nor will one solid day of hitting your sales activity goals be felt.

In the first three weeks of working out, I had done a fairly good job of being consistent. I dragged myself to the gym and managed to gasp my way to 30 minutes of aerobic exercise, but neither saw nor felt any impact from it.

All that changed one Monday night in mid-January…

My friend Chris Mutkoski has a pickle ball court in one of the bays at the building he owns (a former printing facility, by the way). Chris invites a bunch of us to play on Monday nights. Being the oldest in the group, I usually flame out after a couple of hours. This particular Monday night, however, we were well into our third hour of playing, and I realized how much more stamina I had than usual.

It was the first time I had felt the effects of all that exercise. And this is the second lesson…

You need to prospect consistently with a firm belief you’ll see an early sign that it is working. My experience is something will happen after a few weeks of hard work that lets you know you are on the right track and sales growth is imminent. That should be your first goal.

Forget about your long-term sales goal for a minute and just focus on seeing that sign. It’s only a few weeks away and, like exercise, it will motivate you to continue. It’s not on the horizon. It’s just around the corner.

Keep going.

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