What are secrets held by some of the top salespeople and entrepreneurs in the world? They develop a strategy and routine and stick to it. They are prepared and practice success every day until they master it. They seize the day and maximize every opportunity. Of course, at times they are having to deal with putting out fires or facing turbulent conditions which may ruin their routine. However, top salespeople are willing to accept that they have fallen off of their bike with training wheels. They consistently get back on. Top salespeople practice until they can ride without them.
Here is a list of 7 things that successful salespeople do differently than most.
1. Wake Up Early
Successful salespeople and entrepreneurs all have one thing in common which is that they wake up early. They maximize their time. Have a morning routine, whether it’s meditation, stretching, or listening to mind feeds. Make sure that you develop a morning ritual that gets you out of bed excited to start. Last year I learned a great strategy called ‘10 before 10’ from a business coach named JT Foxx. Make a list of 10 tasks you will complete before 10 am and make a commitment to yourself to get them done.
2. Have a Schedule
Top salespeople and entrepreneurs have a schedule that has already been planned out a month in advance. They try their best to stick to it. Schedule your day in blocks from the moment you wake up, make breakfast, go for that run, and pick up your children up from school. Have a schedule in place until you put your head down on the pillow. Measure your schedule in 30 minutes increments. On Sunday set and plan the week ahead. Each weeknight set your goals and tasks for the next day and review them. Also, try using a schedule for at least 4 weeks and I can almost bet that if you stick to it, your productivity and sales will go up.
3. Prospect First Thing
Prospecting needs to be one of the first things you do to ensure sales success. From 8 am until 11 am, don’t move from your desk until you have made an x number of cold calls, warm calls, follow-ups, sent emails and social media messages. Why between 8 – 11 am? Because depending on what industry, before 11 am is usually the best time to reach people.
4. Gain Control of Their Bad Habits
First of all, create a NOT TO DO LIST. I was also taught this by JT Foxx. Make a list of all the things that you do on a daily and weekly basis that don’t bring productivity into your work or life. Pick at least three of those bad habits and work on them for the next 29 days. Because that’s how long it takes to break your bad habits. Ask yourself, what will this bad habit cost me? What triggers the habit? What time during the day does this bad habit occur? Every time you have the urge to do the bad habit, replace it with a good habit instead. For example, every time I get the urge to grab my phone and check Facebook, I will stretch instead. Each time I have the urge to have a coke, I will drink a full glass of water instead.
5. Learn How to Say No and Delegate
This all depends on if you are your own boss, a manager, or have managers above you. Many times, we take on too much because we either want to be people pleasers, or we truly believe that we have superpowers to do it all and want to save the day. If you’re an entrepreneur just starting out, get a virtual assistant to give you a hand with admin and logistics. Imagine being able to free up an extra 10 hours a week to do business development. When you take on too much, the quality of your work decreases, and you may eventually burn out.
6. Short Phone Calls and Meetings
Unless you’re meeting with a huge client or conducting a sales presentation, then meetings shouldn’t go for more than 20 minutes, 30 minutes max. Set an agenda. What do we want to achieve in this meeting? And stick to that agenda and get to the point. There is nothing worse than those meetings that drag on and on, with everyone wanting to have their say and no end goal in mind. Also, in meetings, don’t focus on the problem for more than 5 minutes, but get working on the solution asap. 95% of your time should be spent on finding ways to solve issues and complaints.
7. Develop Their Own KPIs
Whether you have sales targets and KPIs set by someone else or not, you also need to set your own. With KPIs, you can work backward. Firstly, set your sales target for the month. Then ask yourself how many follow-up calls, cold calls, emails, warm calls, meetings, social media selling, videos, blogs, posts, interactions, and networking events you will need to commit yourself to per day/week/month in order to reach that target. This is not about perfection or getting the numbers right, but rather about getting laser-sharp focus and developing a strategy to support you with the big picture
Do I personally find some of these steps challenging? All the time. Some are more difficult than others. But it all starts with awareness of self and what you need to do. You can work on one or two of these habits per month until you master all of them.
