Craig McConnell, President of PrintGrowPro Inc.

Despite the commercialism that has crept into amateur athletics over the years, to me, the Olympics still embody everything that is good about sports: dedication, team work, persistence, goal setting, sacrifice, hard work, winning with class, losing with class, etc.

And, I must confess, I still get a lump in my throat every time the National Anthem is played.

Did you ever stop and think about how many hours Evan Lysacek, Lindsay Vonn, or Shaun White have practiced in their lifetimes? Odds are they didn’t decide last summer that they wanted to win Olympic gold.

There is a fascinating book out that I would encourage everyone to add to their sales library: Outliers, by Malcolm Gladwell (he also wrote Blink).

In Chapter Two he quotes neurologist Dr. Daniel Levitin: “ten thousand hours of practice is required to achieve the level of mastery associated with being a world class expert – in anything.” “In study after study of composers, basketball players, fiction writers, ice skaters, chess players, composers, concert pianist, master criminals, and what have you, this number comes up again and again.”

Gladwell goes on to give specific examples: the Beatles, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and actually shares this quote from John Lennon: “the more we practiced, the better we got.”

So where does that leave us in our quest to master the art of selling? Are any of us approaching 10,000 hours yet?

Prospecting, listening, presenting, networking, asking the right questions, professional persistence — are we already as good as we can get? Or, can we raise the bar, figure a way to become more valuable to our clients and start to live and work outside our comfort zone?

So as you go into tomorrow, remember the Rule of One: make one more call, learn one more thing, swim one more lap, hand write one more thank-you card, read one more page, practice your elevator speech one more time, add one more customer to your pipeline, find one more client’s PAIN, research one more prospect, and eat one more carrot.

Have a great day and go sell something.

For more information on Craig McConnell and PrintGrowPro Inc., please visit
www.printgrowpro.com/.

Peter Ebner, one of the industry’s leading sales trainer

Are you busy servicing your accounts, but not earning enough? Are you trying to earn a 6 figure income but falling short? If you’re working hard but don’t have the income to show for it, it’s probably because you’re making this costly mistake.

To listen to Ebner’s sales tip #2, click here.

Brian Sullivan, President and Founder, Precise Selling

Do you want to have a successful day today? Well, you have about 960 opportunities (16 waking hours x 60 minutes) to make it happen. So the trick is to make sure the percentage of successful moments far outweighs the percentage of stale or unproductive moments. And to do that, all you need to do is consciously think about what you are doing during several moments throughout the day.

So here is a little exercise to help you win the daily success battle. I want you to grab your daily calendar and pick 5 different moments where you will evaluate yourself. And if your calendar is electronic and has an alarm on it, that’s even better. And when that moment comes, take 15 seconds to consider whether the activity you are doing will help you succeed at whatever your professional or personal goal is. If it will not, refocus and string together a bunch of moments that will get you back on track.

You see, the only difference between top performers and the average is how they look at each moment, each hour and each day. There is a sense of urgency in high achievers that has them keeping score between productivity and wasted time. And top performers simply come closer to 960 great moments than others. And when they roll over to set the alarm clock before bed, it is at that moment they can tell themselves, “I made my objectives, I served others, I made a difference, and I did my best. Today was a great day!”

Go make it a 960 day!

Brian Sullivan is the author of the book, 20 Days to the TOP- How the PRECISE Selling Formula Will Make You Your Company’s Top Sales Performer in 20 Days or Less. To dig deeper into the PRECISE Selling Formula, go to www.preciseselling.com.

Linda Bishop, President of Thought Transformation

Last week I was signing a register at a hotel and the desk clerk said, “Wow! It’s February already. This year is sure going by fast.”

He was right. The first month of the year came and went at warp speed. If you were one of the fortunate salespeople who met or exceeded your goal, congratulations. Figure out what you did right and keep doing it.

If you missed your goal, why?
• Do you have enough potential customers in the funnel?
• Are enough of them ready to buy?
• What should you be doing to convince them to buy from you?

As the proverb goes, today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday. If there’s a problem, own it and fix it. Do something different so when March rolls around you’ll have met your goal and have no regrets.

To see more on Thought Transformation, please visit http://www.thoughttransformation.com.

Steven Amiel, President of Marketing Mentors

My father was the consummate print salesman. Uniquely successful for over 50 years, he retired last year at age 85. He never cared about recessions and did extremely well through the economic downturn that seems to occur once a decade. His was a simple sales process: he focused on one person only, the print buyer. That was his bull’s eye. He never stopped hunting, building relationships by taking an interest in their lives and helping them get jobs and, lastly, providing the best service and quality printing.

But today, the bull’s eye has changed. Successful print sales require selling beyond the printed page and the print buyer. They demand understanding your customers’ business and contouring your products and services to improve their current business processes.

The takeaway: recessions come and go, but are nothing compared to the enormous fundamental changes in technology, data, and media choices that have impacted our industry. As a sales person, if you spend twice as much time selling the old way, it still will not translate into increased sales and larger commissions. Today’s successful sales persons have developed the skills to literally create their business with prospects and customers. To do that means spending that extra time to:
• Develop credibility by learning about your customers’ industries.

• Speak about your company only in terms of the benefit it provides to their business.

• Focus on selling solutions to people in the organization who have a stake in the benefit.

So back to my father’s advice, “Son, you can never stop hunting for new business. The second you do, your business starts going backwards.”

He is still right Just make sure you aim at the right target.

Steven Amiel is the President of Marketing Mentors Inc.
Website- www.marketingmentors.com

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