Change small to build a large territory

Set the bar low to build daily selling skills

that stick!

We hear it every day, “Shoot for the stars…. Reach for the stars….Aim High…..Set your sights high…..Dream big.” Even the famed Herb Tarlek told us to, “Think big to be big”, on the 1970s sitcom WKRP in Cincinnati.

While those sound great, most people fail to achieve those lofty goals because they don’t know what to do on day one of that journey. They set New Year’s resolutions on Jan 1, but by Quitting Day (Jan 16 this year), they don’t know how to sustain their journey. They set the bar so high and the daily journey effort so high that they crush under the weight.

Salespeople fall into this same trap. They go to the SKO (sales kick off) conference. They are moved by the fabulous speakers who have achieved greatness. They are inspired to get on stage next year and win the President’s award or the top performance award.

Then they drive home, and reality sets in. Their current results and performance are so far from winning that they are discouraged from even trying. And even if they do try for a week or even a month, they are the exception. Most will quit by Quitting day, which is a couple of weeks after setting the enormous goal.

What our dreamer doesn’t realize about those people on stage or those who achieved greatness is that their daily habits and the small efforts it took to get there. Those small changes led to big results. Those small changes led to bigger and bigger changes, then to elaborate processes, which eventually led to those big results.

How can you implement their strategy?

Set your big dream goal
Set the intermediate goals to get you near the peak of that goal
Find the smallest step towards achieving just one of those intermediate goals

Sales example:

1. Set your big dream goal

“I want to win the President’s Club next year at the annual sales meet!” or “I want to be the #1 sales person in our company or be in the Top 10 Winner’s Club.”

Those are great goals. When you see other people win them, you feel the urge to be on stage as well. However, you can’t put that on tomorrow’s Outlook Calendar. You can’t open up the calendar, schedule an activity for tomorrow at 9:30-10:30, and enter “president’s club” on the activity. You can, but it will fall flat. Just like all the New Year’s resolutions. We must first set some shorter-range goals.

2. Set the intermediate goals to get you near the peak of that goal

To win this big award or be on stage, you can look at previous winners. Most are going to be very good at prospecting and bringing customers into the company. Or, they are very good at getting more out of their current customers. So, look at your current territory and determine. Do I have more potential to get more sales from current customers? Or, do I need to focus efforts on signing up new ones?

Previous winners are selling over a million dollars a year. For me to do that, I would need to sell four times the amount I am selling to current customers. Very slim chance of doing that. A better use of my time is on prospecting new accounts. While not forgetting my current accounts, I know I need to bring in new ones to have any chance of reaching my big dream of being on stage.

This is where we open up Outlook and set an activity on the schedule.

3. Find the smallest step towards achieving just one of those intermediate goals

This step is where the failure really happens. Most salespeople will get to this point quickly and decide, “Well, looks like I need to spend two hours each day on prospecting.” Currently, they are near zero time spent on prospecting, and tomorrow, they are going to spend two hours a day. This is an extreme change that rarely sticks. It’s unsustainable. Just like a New Year’s resolution. They wake up day one and put in a great effort. But soon the gravity of what they bit off is too much for them to continue. By day ten or day 15, the weight of this commitment is too much to continue.

Instead, use the smallest unit of time or sales calls to begin your journey. “I’m going to make one cold call by phone each day.” Just one and just a phone call. Or, “I’m going to make one in-person cold call per week.” Just one. If I do more, then great, but every week, at least one.

If you want to use time as your guide, then I think the smallest increment of time is 15 minutes. “I’m going to spend 15 minutes every morning on prospecting efforts.” However, if you do use time as your measure, I think you need to have a backup goal of the number of sales calls or phone calls. I can spend 15 minutes a day on LinkedIn or Twitter looking for and trying to interact with new customers. However, nothing gets done until someone picks up the phone or stops to make a sales call.

The long-term successes I have had in my athletic life or business life came from the above mentioned three steps. I started running at fifteen with the goal of running in a marathon. Sixteen years later, my results were six marathons, which included two in Boston. In my first year in sales at the national sales meeting for my company, I set the lofty goal of winning the President’s Club. Winning two times in six years, I learned that step 3 above is the most important. Take the smallest step possible as early in your journey as possible. Get good at that small step. No, get great at that small step. Then, quickly add another step. Get great, and then add another step. Keep doing this until you reach your physical or mental limit, or it becomes unproductive. Then, find a mentor to help you go further.

Final Thought: If you truly have a passion and desire to reach a goal, this method is not only productive but also inspiring to you emotionally. If you don’t have that passion, this process will seem like an enormous burden. As mentioned, it worked great for me in business and life: six marathons, eleven Ironmans, two President’s club, my own business, etc.

However, it didn’t work for learning a second language or playing an instrument. I would love to do both of those. I applied these methods to both of those efforts with zero success. By day 5 of starting with the most basic step, I hated the drudgery. I quit soon after. For a difficult lifelong achievement, it takes the process plus the desire to accomplish it. So, what’s your marathon or president’s club ambition?

Best of luck, and take the smallest possible step towards it today!