4 Easy Steps that will Make You Better at Work.
Sometimes the phone seems like it weighs 1000 lbs. and making another call to a prospect is the last thing that you want to do. You’re tired of leaving messages, you’re tired of being rejected. You don’t want to be yelled at by one more grumpy person who is having a bad day.
We naturally shy away from uncomfortable situations. We don’t like getting out of our comfort zone — it feels dangerous. Often, this leads to paralysis — instead of pushing through these feelings, we shut down or analyze. Instead of making the next call, we end up making excuses.
Here’s the problem: Every time we choose to do something other than make that next call, it gets easier to justify not making the next call. Worse, we focus so much on the possibility of the next call rejecting us that we become paralyzed with fear and anxiety until we convince ourselves that we can’t do it. So, what is the right course of action?
- Just do it!
Whether I have just had a good call and closed a sale or just had a bad call and wanted to say some choice words to my prospective client, I force myself to make the next call. This is important. It forces me to put whatever just happened into the rear view, to forget about it, and to be present with my current client. I don’t care if anyone answers on that next call or not. What I am training myself to do is to always continue to move forward and to make the next call. I do this no matter what, regardless of excuses.
2. Focus on the little wins.
I have a simple stat sheet that I use. I track the number of calls I make, the number of contacts, the number of call backs, the number of pitches and the number of sales. I do this for two reasons. First, after a while of doing this I know exactly what my stats are. I know roughly how many messages I have to leave in a day to get the number of call backs I want. I know how many pitches I have to make in order to get a sale. This leads to confidence. It helps me work the numbers to my favor. Plus, anything you can track, you can improve. I know that if I am leaving a lot of messages and not getting any call backs, then I have to improve the message I am leaving. If I am speaking with a lot of people but not getting into a pitch, then I need to improve what I am saying at the beginning of the call, and so forth.
Second, I make filling out my stat sheet a daily game. I have several very small goals to attain each day related to filling up each portion of my stat sheet. Focusing on the stat sheet gives me something to focus on rather than what will happen on the next call. When someone answers my call I have no preconceived notions and can move right into my pitch without any fear of rejection.
The idea is to create small goals and wins to hit throughout the day that help you focus on the actions that will get you the sale, not necessarily on the end result. Focusing only on getting that sale is much like the old adage, “a watched pot never boils”. It doesn’t have to be a stat sheet. I have colleagues who set a goal of a certain number of calls or pitches that they have to do before they can take a break. Others who look forward to getting their first no out of the way as quickly as possible so that they can get over that hump each day. Whatever it is, create small wins and goals throughout your day that keep you doing the right actions. The results will always follow.
3. Don’t stop 3ft. from gold!
The classic book, Think and Grow Rich holds one of my favorite stories. It is a story about a man and his uncle who decide to mine for gold. They soon found what they think is a rich vein of gold. Excited, they went back to their town and raised money for a full scale mining outfit with dreams of becoming wealthy. Unfortunately, when they began mining on a bigger scale they found that the gold vein quickly disappeared. Bitterly disappointed and now deep in debt, they sold their equipment and mining stake to a junker for pennies on the dollar.
Now here is where the story really takes off. That junker decided to hire an engineer to find out what had happened to the vein of gold. The engineer advised that the gold vein had not disappeared, but that the uncle and his nephew were unfamiliar with fault lines. In fact, the gold vein would continue only 3ft from where they had stopped drilling! Following the engineers advice, the junker began drilling and sure enough, found one of the richest gold mines in Colorado.
The nephew later related that he became a very successful life insurance salesman by determining that he would never again stop 3ft from gold in all of his business interactions.
Our sales days, weeks and months are the same. So often we feel discouraged in the moment and quit — and so often we are quitting just 3 ft from our gold. When we discipline ourselves to keep making the phone calls, to keep doing a full sales pitch and to keep following the process, minute after minute and day after day, we will find our gold.
I can’t tell you how many times my only sale for the day has come on the last call of the night a few minutes after closing time. I would not have gotten there had I not been persistent throughout the rest of the day.
Never stop 3 feet from your gold.
4. What’s your story?
“I have had a lot of worries in my life, most of which never happened.” — Mark Twain
Our mindset and the stories we tell ourselves are vital. Our reality is based on the stories we tell ourselves. This is perhaps the easiest advice to dole out and often the hardest to internalize. Every message you leave, each person you talk to, every rejection that you receive, every yes that you get — is exactly what you make of it. I can look at a day of messages and rejections as a day wasted and go down the rabbit hole to all of the frustrations and anxiety that that leads to — and I will be right. Or, I can look at the same day and know that those messages I left will lead to many call backs tomorrow and possibly for weeks to come. I’m glad that I got all those no’s out of the way today, that only means that I am more likely to get yesses tomorrow. Today was a great day to practice, to learn from each of my pitches and get better.
That’s my motivation to get on to next call, to leave the next message and to talk to the next person. The only story that is running through my head is one where each action I take is leading me to success. But you have to work at that. You have to be consciously aware of what you are thinking and be willing to change your thought process along the way. That takes work at first, but the more you are consciously replacing your negative story with a success story the more your brain will naturally start thinking that way.
So, when you don’t want to make the next call, for whatever reason — whether it was because the last person you talked to yelled at you, you gave a bad pitch, or you just feel like all you are doing is leaving messages — remember, that is the most important time for you to make your next call. You are building the right habits, setting the stage for future sales and creating the mindset that leads to sustained and lasting success.
