by Kirby Hasseman
How does your day start? What are the first things you think about? What are the first things you do?
If you are like most people, you start your day thinking about the yesterday. You might be stressed about the work you did not get done…or the bills you did not pay. You might be mad about a conversation with a co-worker or a spouse. Or you might be worried about things coming up today or tomorrow. You are thinking about all you have to get done. You worry about the meeting you will have or the project that is nearing it’s deadline. You are stressed that there will simply not be enough hours in the day to get it all done.
Either way a few things are true;
1. You are not living “in the now.”
2. You have started your day in stress mode.
Dr. Joe Dispenza talks about this phenomenon in his book Becoming Supernatural. It’s no wonder, he says, that we feel like we are living the same day over and over again. We start each day in the past! By the way, I totally get it. I struggle with this a ton too. My natural state is “go, go, go.” That means when I wake up, my brain is ahead of me. I struggle to not start my day “on the wrong foot.” It’s a daily struggle. So what do I do? Each morning, especially on those days where I can feel my stress taking over from the start, I do three quick things.
1. I Take a Deep Breath: The whole goal here is to slow my heart rate down. There is no sense in starting the day in stress mode. I know that intellectually. But this simple exercise helps me take control of my physiology.
2. I Make a Quick List of Things I am Grateful For: I talked about the power of this yesterday. The fact is, you can’t be upset or negative when you are grateful. So by re-setting my mindset to gratitude, it helps me to get back on track, mentally.
3. I Get Up and Start Taking Action: For me, a ton of the anxiety I feel comes for worrying about the problem…whatever that problem is. Once I get up and start working on the project, I feel better. For me, nothing cures worry like taking action on the problem. So on this week of Thanksgiving…gratitude wins again. Let me know if this helps you…or share with me your “go to” morning strategy!
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by Kirby Hasseman
I am a bit of a rule breaker by nature. I always have been. Or maybe it’s more accurate to say I follow rules that make sense to me. Now, let me clarify a bit before I hear sirens wailing outside my office. It’s not the that I am a criminal. It’s just that I have a bit of a contrarian streak in me (a lot of entrepreneurs do). And I like to consider all options for myself. I remember when I was just starting this business. I had an office in my home, so I was almost always working. There was just always something to do. When I was at dinner with the family, I could hear my phone ringing in the office. When I woke up in the morning I started working. It’s what you do when you are starting a business. No big deal. But after a long winter, I was ready to break out! So in March I went to my wife and said “We need to take a quick trip to Florida…like now. I am booking a trip for next week.” She protested saying that next week was the mandatory state testing for the students, including our girls. I looked at the school calendar and confirmed that it was state testing next week. I also noticed that the following week was “makeup testing.” Then I pointed out to my wife something really important (to me). I don’t care about state testing. Not at all. My oldest girl at the time was in third grade. What does state testing have to do with her long term success? The answer? Not a damn thing. My wife agreed, but told me it was my job to tell the school principal. “No problem,” I said. I went to the school the next day to talk to her about it. I said, “We are going to be taking the girls out of school next week for a family vacation.” She said, “But next week is testing.” She waited for the impact of this enormous announcement to sink in. But I said, “I know. But the next week is make up testing. I am sure they can take the test then, right?” She thought for a moment and said, “Oh…ok. But if they take it later the girls will not get their results with the rest of the school!” She clearly felt this was a big deal. “I literally don’t care about that at all.” I pointed out. With nothing left to offer, the principal (who was very nice by the way) said “Well…have a nice vacation.” And we did. The point about this fun story (that became a fun vacation) is that rules are important. They help keep society moving, and in many cases, polite. On the other hand, I don’t think that rules are made to be followed blindly. They are to be considered. They should be evaluated. And in some cases, they should be ignored. Don’t ignore this! It’s a great time to sign up for the VIP newsletter. Each week we take all of the content we create and put it in one email for you to consume. We know you are busy…so sign up to be come a VIP now.
by Kirby Hasseman
“Busy” is the most over-used word in our culture today. It’s become the default answer for many people about how anything in their life is going.
How are you doing? Busy.
How is the family? Busy.
How is work? Busy.
Because of that, “busy” has lost it’s meaning. What does busy even mean?
I don’t want to be busy. I want to be productive.
This may sound strange if you read this blog a lot, because I spend a lot of time talking about “activity.” The idea in this blog from yesterday, is that you need to focus on the pro-active activities that lead you toward your goals. If you focus on those, every day, you will make steps toward success.
You might be thinking, “But won’t doing that make you busy?”
I can speak from experience when I say “yes.” But more importantly it will make you productive. I was reminded of this when I went on sales calls recently with another seasoned sales pro. We visited several customers. We dropped off samples. We had great conversations. We talked about new sales offerings. It was great! After the group of meetings I asked what we needed to do to follow up with these customers. After some thoughtful consideration, the answer was “nothing.”
I wasn’t sure why at the time, but that answer made me uneasy.
Then I figured it out. There was no next step. There was no call to action. We had some great conversations and engagements, but there was nothing we had decided to do to move the conversation forward. If that’s the case, then those calls were just “busy work.”
Action is important. But action for the sake of action is not the goal. The idea is to create action that moves to an outcome. Now don’t get me wrong. I am not suggesting we had to sell something right then. I just wanted to know what was next. It might have been:
*Sending a presentation with ideas.
*Calling to set up another appointment
*Writing an order
*Sending a sample
*Or even sending a note for taking the time time meet.
There needs to be a specific next step. And here’s the thing, your customers and prospects want that too! They have just taken time out of their day to engage with you. They have plenty of other things to do! So if they have given you the thing they can’t get back (time), what was the point of it?
So the next time you create a list of prospects and customers to call on, make sure to determine what you hope to make happen. What is the goal? What is the next step? Especially if you are going to call on me. If not, I will probably be “too busy” to see you.
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by Kirby Hasseman
I am a big believer in goals. Huge. I think it’s the first step in creating an “intentional” life. So many people have life “just happen” to them. They don’t think about what they want to do or where they want to go. So one day they wake up and are confused and disappointed about what their life has become. Why did this happen? Because they did not create their life on purpose. That all starts with goals. But here is something it has taken me a long time to learn…Goals are only part of the equation. You can’t just dream about a life that you want. You can’t just think it into existence. You have to go out and make it happen. That’s where your daly activity comes in. Jeff Haden does an amazing job of illustrating this in the book “The Motivation Myth.” He says his idea around goals is to “set it and forget it.” Then you need to focus on the daily action. So first you set the goal. Then you reverse engineer what you want to accomplish with activities that will get you there. Then you obsessively focus on the daily activities to keep you moving toward your goal. For example, let’s assume you want to achieve a specific sales goal. You set your big volume goal. But as they say in the book The 4 Disciplines of Execution, that is known as a LAG goal. That means, by the time you measure it, it’s in the past. It’s important to have a big LAG goal. But as a salesperson, you can’t make them happen without someone else. You can’t force the prospect to buy. You can only control your own actions. So in order to achieve the LAG goal, we want to create a LEAD measure. This LEAD measure is something that you can do on your own that will ultimately lead to more sales. What might some of these look like? *10 Prospect Calls Per Day*10 Face to Face meetings per week*1 Piece of Content Per Day*10 (Relevant) Product Presentations Per Week You get the idea. These are things that you can do to drive sales. You don’t need permission. You just need to do these things every day. If you do them, over time, good things will happen. So set the big goal. Dream big. I love it. But then it’s important to take the extra time to map the activities it will take to execute on the goal. Now…go do them…every day. Make sure you never miss an update! Sign up for the VIP newsletter now. Each week we send out one email to our VIP’s to give them all of the content in once place! Sign up here.
by Kirby Hasseman
I stopped in the office of a friend the other day to talk to him about the latest and greatest offerings we have.
It was a sales call…and it was unannounced. I had hoped to “pop in” and chat with him quickly before moving on with the rest of my day.
But when I walked in I could tell his energy was pretty low. His eyes looked tired. So I asked him what was going on. He proceeded to talk to me about some tough things that were going on in his personal life. The more I listened, the more I realized that he did not need for me to solve anything. I just needed to listen. So we just talked. During the half hour conversation, I tried to offer some words of encouragement, but mostly I just was a person to talk to. Then we discussed getting together later for a coffee or a beer. I left without trying to sell him anything.
Sometimes as a salesperson or an entrepreneur, we can get caught up in chasing our goals and trying to create the life of our dreams. It’s a noble pursuit. But sometimes the best thing we can do to create the life you want is to just “be human.” Take a moment. Take a breath. Listen. Be a friend.
Sometimes that’s the best sales strategy of all.
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