Why Efficiency in Your Personal Life Matters

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Have you ever had a day where you go to bed saying to yourself, “I worked so hard, but I didn’t get anything done?” I hate when that happens, whether it be at work or at home. In this scattered culture, it is increasingly easy to lose focus on the most important things in life. There are two primary strategies I can credit for giving me a giant boost in my daily productivity.

The first strategy is called Difference-Making Actions (DMA’s). DMA’s give focus and intentionality to the most important things every day – at work or at home. This simple strategy can increase results like nothing else. Here’s how it works: First thing every morning, take a sticky note and write your most important current goal. (A note on a smart phone works too.) Then write the numbers 1-5 down the page. Next to the 1, write the most important thing you could do today to accomplish that goal. Then write the next most important thing under 2, and so on. When you are done, you have identified the five most important things you could do that day to accomplish your most important goal. To be successful, DMA’s have a number attached to them. For example, “clean the garage for two hours” or “plan and prepare four meals.”

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About the Author

David HorsagerDavid Horsager, MA, CSP, is a business strategist, entrepreneur, and author of the national bestseller The Trust Edge, and the new book The Daily Edge: Simple Strategies to Increase Efficiency and Make an Impact Every Day. For more information, please visit www.DavidHorsager.com.

Leadership Lessons from the United States Naval Academy – Prioritization: Knowing that you can’t do it all

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StrategyDriven Leadership Lessons from the United States Naval Academy ArticleUnited States Naval Academy midshipmen are under never ending pressure to learn and develop, to become the finest military officers in the world. Each midshipman is assigned a full undergraduate workload to be completed in no more than four years.

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Do’s & Don’ts In Holiday Card Etiquette For Your Career Longevity

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During the holiday season, many employees wonder “Should I send members of my management team (not to mention the boss) a holiday greeting card? If so, is it appropriate to dash off an email with holiday wishes, or is a traditional paper card the way to go?”

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About the Author
Jeff ShaneJeff Shane is President of Allison Taylor, Inc., a reference and background checking firm doing business since 1984. He oversees matters of product development, online integration of services and attorney interaction on behalf of the company’s many clients. Jeff is frequently interviewed about employment trends and his interviews appear globally in newspapers and magazines.

The “New Normal”: How to Grow Your Company Through Online Channels Amid Aggressive Competition

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Sometimes it feels like it’s hard to get noticed online. There are A LOT of voices out there. We live and breathe digital marketing and we know; we see the thousands of voices that are all talking at once online. An overload of messages and brands sending those messages is the new normal in our digital culture. How do you get noticed and ultimately grow your company with the aggressive competition that there is online? It can be done and we’ve seen it done successfully with a few changes in perspective:

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About the Author

Kevin LaytonKevin Layton is CEO of Data-Dynamix, a premier source of demographic data, a go-to partner for delivering digital marketing campaigns and experts in advertising sales training that was ranked 1,226 on the 2015 Inc. 5000. The company partners with a litany of top-tier ad agencies and media groups across newspaper, radio and television. Kevin, author of the upcoming book, Building Your Digital Marketing Machine, is also a revered inspirational speaker on digital marketing, international business and business strategy. Reach him online at www.data-dynamix.com.

Out of touch or out of their minds? Maybe both!

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In a survey conducted by a BIG benefits management company (a management and human resource consulting firm), they asked 365 CEO’s and sales management executives, “What are the three key factors that separate high performing sales professionals from moderate to low performing sales professionals?”

Both CEO’s and C-level sales executives (all people who don’t sell, but rely on their salespeople to produce sales so that they can get paid), ranked “self discipline/motivation” as the most important.

Next in line were, “customer knowledge,” “innate talent/personality,” “product knowledge,” and further down the list were “experience” and “teamwork skills.”

Totally bogus.

These are qualities of corporate greed. Value, service, and help are the REAL three things that customers require to give their business and maintain their loyalty.

MAJOR DUH: When “survey” companies ask questions of people, why don’t they ask the people actually doing the work?

I’m a writer, but I’m also a salesman. I make sales calls and sales every day. If you’re interested in the most important factors of a high performing salesperson, let me give you a realistic list of success characteristics.

1. Perpetual, consistent, positive attitude and enthusiasm. This is the first rule of facing the customer, facing the obstacles, facing the competition, facing the economy, and facing yourself. Especially the people that answer the phone.

2. Quadruple self-belief. Unwavering belief in your company; unwavering belief in your product; AND Unwavering belief in yourself are the first three rules. But fourth is the most critical of the self-beliefs. You MUST believe that the customer is better off having purchased from you.

3. Use of creativity. Creativity to present ideas in favor of the customer, and creativity to differentiate you from the competition.

4. Ability to give and prove value. To prove the value of your product or service, and your ability to give value beyond the sale to the PROSPECT so you can earn the order, the reorder, and the loyalty.

5. Ability to promote and position. Personal use of the internet to blog, demonstrate credibility on the web, offer a weekly ezine, utilize social media, and achieve google top ranking, so your customers and prospects will perceive you as a value provider and a leader in your field.

6. Exciting, compelling presentation skills. Not just solid communication skills, but superior questioning skills, listening skills, and a sense of humor. The innate ability to engage and capture the imagination (and the wallet) of customers and prospects.

7. The ability to “click” face-to-face. Finding common ground in order to relax the conversation and use rapport to get to truth.

8. Ability to prove your value and claims through the testimony of others. Testimonials sell where salespeople can’t. The BEST salespeople use video testimonials on YouTube to support, affirm, and prove their claims. BUT, the reality is – you don’t get testimonials, you EARN them. (Same with referrals.)

NOTE WELL: If you’re looking for proof that you are “top-performing,” testimonials and referrals are a report card.

9. Ability to create an atmosphere where people want to BUY (because they hate being SOLD). This is done by engaging, and asking. Not presenting and telling.

10. Ability to build a relationship, not hunt or farm. I wonder if the “executives” talking about the factors of great salespeople are the same morons dividing their salespeople into “hunters” and “farmers.” PLEASE HELP ME. Great salespeople are relationship builders who provide value and help their customers win. These are the same head-in-the-sand executives that can’t open their laptops, and forbid Facebook at work, individual websites, and blogs from their people. ADVICE: If this is your situation, find your way to the competition.

11. A PERSONAL social media platform that promotes your social selling and builds your reputation. The minimums are: 1,000 business Facebook likes, 501 LinkedIn connections, 500 Twitter followers, 25 YouTube videos, and a blog where you post weekly.

12. Unyielding personal values and ethics. Great people have great values and great ethics. Interesting that 365 CEO’s and executives don’t deem them in the top ten.

12.5 The personal desire to excel and be their best. This is a desired quality of every salesperson, BUT the best salespeople have mastered the other ten elements. They must be mastered in order for this quality to manifest itself.

There is no prize in sales for second place. It’s win or nothing. The masters know this, and strive for, fight for, that slight edge.

And as for the next poll taken, here’s a great idea for CEO’s and sales executives. There’s an easy way to find out the most important factors and qualities of great salespeople: make some sales calls yourself.

And if you really want to have some fun, bring your marketing people along.

If you want to build great salespeople, go to www.jeffreygitomer.com/gold, and subscribe to Gitomer Gold – The Year of the Sale.

Reprinted with permission from Jeffrey H. Gitomer and Buy Gitomer.

About the Author

Jeffrey GitomerJeffrey Gitomer is the author of The Sales Bible, Customer Satisfaction is Worthless Customer Loyalty is Priceless, The Little Red Book of Selling, The Little Red Book of Sales Answers, The Little Black Book of Connections, The Little Gold Book of YES! Attitude, The Little Green Book of Getting Your Way, The Little Platinum Book of Cha-Ching, The Little Teal Book of Trust, The Little Book of Leadership, and Social BOOM! His website, www.gitomer.com, will lead you to more information about training and seminars, or email him personally at [email protected].