I’ve seen literally dozens of salespeople become superstars— record-setting prize winners who win the trips, earn the big commissions, and glow in the praises of the boss at annual sales meetings. And I’ve watched a considerable number of them crash and burn shortly thereafter.
Those who go down in flames follow some common patterns. Some compromise their integrity for the sake of the next big deal, and then pay the price of not being trusted by either their companies or their customers. Some abuse substances as they ride in the fast lane. Others become infatuated with their own success and squander their potential by chasing after some big deal that never closes. Most become immersed in the heady exhilaration of one deal after the other, work 12- to 14-hour days, and lose their families in the process.
Then there are those who excel and lead the pack year after year, who enjoy a full personal life, and view their success through a balanced perspective. The difference is that one group is grounded, and the other not.
What does it mean to be grounded? Being grounded means that you are securely fastened to some deeply held, basic commitments that give shape and focus to all that you do as a salesperson. Being grounded means that there is something that keeps you in check, that gives direction and purpose to your job-related efforts.
Imagine a kite flying in a brisk and variable wind. The kite twists and turns and darts up and down in response to the tricky winds. But it’s always held in place by that string in the hands of its flyer, whose feet are firmly on the ground.
Cut that string, and the kite wiggles erratically and crashes to the ground. In a paradox, it’s the string to the ground, that force that the kite constantly struggles against, that gives it the ability to fly. Cut the string, and the suddenly free kite instantly darts out of control and crashes to the ground.
So it is with grounded salespeople. Before you can concentrate on twisting and turning in response to the constantly changing winds of your job, you need to know that the string is firmly attached to the ground. Without it, you’ll likely find yourself going off on tangents, becoming excessively reactive, and wasting hours every month in non-productive, low-priority efforts. That firm attachment is a strong commitment to something that is larger and longer-lasting than any individual part of your job. It’s a paradox. In order to become more effective in your job, you must first focus on things that are outside of it.
When you get grounded you put that kite string in place, allowing you to focus on becoming effective in your job. Without being grounded, much of your effort to become more effective is scattered and unfocused.
There are three strands to this kite string, three elements to being grounded:
1. A mindset that provides energy for your efforts.
2. A basic strategy that gives direction to your efforts.
3. A set of important values that brings purpose to your efforts.
A mindset that provides energy
for your efforts
Smart time management does not begin with the tools and tactics of your job. You don’t start with a new PDA, laptop, or cell phone. Rather, you start inside yourself, by accentuating a mindset. A mindset is a group of beliefs that are so deep and firmly held that they are the source of many of your thoughts. Those thoughts kindle your behavior, influencing almost everything that you do. Your mindset shapes the way you see the world, and therefore, the way you do your job.
All the great time managers I have known have one thing in common. They have all shared the mindset that I call More. They believe that there is more to life than just this. There is more that you can do, more that you can become. There is more to your job than where you are at today. There is more challenge, more to achieve. There are more customers, more sales, more of everything.
They strive to do more, be more and have more because they believe that they can and they should. This fundamental mindset is a characteristic of every great achiever, whether they be a salesperson or a social worker, a politician or a preacher, a mother or a martyr.
Don’t get this mindset mixed up with greed, which focuses on the accumulation of more and more money. The More mindset is not so trivial. It is focused on attaining a greater degree of human potential. Because of the salesperson’s job, one portion of that human potential is measured by money. But that money is incidental to the drive for more. Some high achieving salespeople are salaried, compensated in such a way that their sales achievements do not directly impact their income. Some are still high achieving, more motivated people.
The More mindset concerns itself with not only doing more and having more, but also in becoming more than you are now. When you are imbued with the More mindset, you never settle with the status quo. You know you can be better than you are, and you can achieve more than you do.
While we are considering more in relation to our jobs as salespeople, it has application to every part of our life. It’s an approach to life.
More provides the energy that drives the changes you will need to make if you want to become an excellent time manager, because the More mindset creates discontent, and discontent is the mother of change.
Let’s think about this together. If you are going to become a smart time manager, you are going to need to change some things that you do. Change is hard. None of us really likes to change. We’d much rather stay in our comfortable routines. We’ve spent years developing them, either consciously or subconsciously. If everything else were equal, we wouldn’t change.
This is particularly true if we are solidly content with our situation and with ourselves. Show me salespeople who are perfectly content with who they are and what they are accomplishing, and I’ll show you salespoeple who won’t grow or improve.
Contentment, then, supports the status quo. Discontent is necessary to energize change. Take that same salesperson who is making a comfortable living and cause some change in those circumstances—cut the territory in half, or change the compensation plan. Or witness a personal change in circumstances— another child on the way, or the purchase of an expensive new home. Suddenly, there is discontent. That discontent causes energy, and energy, focused and directed in the right ways, causes positive change.
I’m not advocating that you go to your manager and ask for a cut in sales territory. But I am advocating that you understand the role of discontent in your job and the necessity to create discontent within yourself in order to energize the changes you’ll need to make. I am advocating that you accept responsibility for developing your own discontent. And the way to create discontent in you is to latch on to the mindset of More.
If you truly believe that you can become better, do more and have more, then you are never content with the status quo. The More mindset becomes the seed that grows into constant discontent. The fruit of that tree is positive change.
Once you gain this More mindset, you find yourself engaging in certain kinds of behavior and developing certain habits. For example, because you believe that you can accomplish more, you look for opportunities to do so. You are more sensitive to opportunities for your products and services with your customers. The salesperson energized by the More mindset will find opportunities for products that the content salesperson will walk right by.
It works like this: The More mindset creates an expectation that there are more opportunities. Because you believe there are more opportunities, you look for them. Because you look for them, you find them. After a while, you begin to crystallize the processes and techniques you used to find those opportunities. You may create certain disciplines for yourself, like always asking an extra question or two. You may create tools, like an account profile form to capture customer opportunities. As a result, you become far more effective.
The starting point was the mindset. The mindset led to behavior. The behavior led to processes and habits. Those processes and habits led to better results.
Want to become a more effective time manager? Want to improve your sales results? Start with the first strand of the kite string—the More mindset.
How do you get the More mindset?
Many professional salespeople don’t need to develop the More mindset. They already have it. It was instilled in them by their families as they were growing up. Part of their motivation to take a job in field sales in the first place may have come from that more mindset. There is, after all, more opportunity to do more, achieve more, become more, and have more in field sales then there is in most other jobs. The freedom of an outside salesperson leads to great opportunities for personal growth and financial achievement.
Looking back, I’d have to conclude that more was deeply instilled in me as I was growing up. My father was a salesperson who became a branch manager before he passed away. My mother, in her late 60s, became active in politics and was elected to three terms as city councilwoman in Toledo, Ohio. In her 70s, she was elected Vice Mayor of the city. Every one of my five brothers is self-employed. Clearly, some values were instilled in my family during my formative years.
If you have the More mindset as a result of your upbringing, be thankful. It was a wonderful gift to you from your family. It’s a gift that will bring you a great share of abundance and affluence over the course of your life.
Another source of the More mindset is a firmly held spiritual belief. Spiritual beliefs are so deep inside us that they have the power to shape and direct our thoughts, our mindsets, our attitudes and, of course, our actions.
I happen to be Christian. I came to that position as an adult, at a time when I was searching for some meaning in my life. I came to it as a result of a pretty thorough study of spiritual issues and religious paths. As a result, I have a deep-seated belief that God instilled certain gifts and talents in me, and that part of my appropriate response is to consciously exercise those gifts and talents in a way that strives for a more complete and influential use of them. In other words, more!
So, regardless of my upbringing, my deeply held spiritual beliefs have moved me to the More mindset.
Perhaps that is your story. If so, again be thankful that you have acquired the More mindset. It will lead to a richer and fuller life for you and those around you.
It may be, however, that you don’t have More Mindset (M2) to any great degree. You vaguely sense that you can probably do better than you are, but it’s not anything that you think much about. Or it may be that your more measure is temporarily down at the moment. You are going through a time of self-doubt. Your confidence is down, your self-image is suffering, and you are wondering if you are ever going to be more successful at this job.
Regardless of which of these two situations best describes you, the solution is the same. You need to replenish your more mindset. You need to reinvigorate your capacity to strive for more.
I have found that the best way to do so is to take charge of your thoughts by controlling the quality of material that goes into your mind. Instead of listening to talk radio or the latest “you left me sad and blue” country station, listen to a motivational or educational CD or cassette in the car. Instead of checking out every e-mail solicitation, subscribe to inspirational and educational e-newsletters (like mine!). Instead of hanging around with people who are complainers and fault-finders, surround yourself with upbeat, successful people. Instead of reading the latest psycho-mystery novel, read biographies of successful people (or buy my books!).
All of these are conscious choices you make that directly impact your thoughts, and your thoughts are the components of your mindset.
Want to improve your mindset? Want to increase your more measure? Take charge of the material that goes into your mind and watch your mindset shift.
Time management begins with a more mindset. You will never be a truly effective time manager without it. Make a decision right now to feed your More mindset.
The More mindset provides the first strand in our kite string—the energy to change in positive ways, for the rest of your life.
The next strand in your braided kite string provides the basic overall strategy that you will pursue in your quest for more.
The basic time management strategy
A house painter was determined to be the best, most profitable house painter in town. So he invested in the latest spray equipment, bought the quickest snap-together scaffolding and ladders, and trained at the gym to strengthen the muscles he needed to paint quickly. Using all these techniques, he painted his first house in 27 hours, when all of his competitors would have taken 40 hours to do the same job. As he sat in his truck and admired his work, he looked again at his job order and realized that he had painted the wrong house! He was incredibly efficient, and not at all effective.
This is one of the most common time management misconceptions resident in salespeople. Often, they focus too much on becoming efficient instead of effective; busying themselves with 1,000 tasks in the course of the day, but rarely stopping to ask if these are the right tasks. They’ll buy a cell phone so that they can make phone calls from their car between sales calls. But they don’t stop to consider whether those calls are worth making in the first place.
I can’t emphasize this issue strongly enough. Gather 100 field salespeople together and ask them for a definition of time management, and 80 of them will talk about doing more in less time. While a little bit of that is appropriate, that is not the path to greater success in your job, less stress, and more enjoyment of your personal life.
Salespeople who view time management as the process of jamming more tasks into a day find themselves exhausted, highly stressed, burned out, and wondering why they don’t accomplish more when they are working so hard. They become cynical, their blood pressure rises, they get irritable, and no one can stand to be around them. Not a pretty picture.
The way to the benefits that you want from smart time management is to follow the road called effective, not efficient. It is not doing more in less time; it is doing the best things with the time you have.
You can make great strides in time management and quantum leaps forward in your productivity by focusing on that which is effective, instead of just what is efficient. That means learning to prioritize that which will bring the greatest results from the smallest effort, not doing more in less time.
This focus on becoming more effective is the basic time management strategy for field salespeople. You’ll find it cropping up over and over again throughout this book. If you are going to make the kind of progress that you hope to, then you must understand and commit to this basic strategy.
That’s the second strand in our kite string.
The third strand provides the limits to your behavior, helping you to focus precisely.
Crystallizing your values
Imagine the More mindset as the engine that provides energy for your quest for better time management. Image the effective vs. efficient strategy as the basic path toward the attainment of the benefits you want. The final piece of the puzzle, the third strand of your kite string, is a set of values that hold you in check. Clear values provide boundaries around your journey so that you don’t lose yourself in the rush to achieve your goals.
Whereas your mindset empowers you to move, values define the area in which you can and cannot operate.
Why is that important? It’s a time saver. Think hard about the limits to your behavior. Spend a lot of time, crystallize them, write them down, and commit yourself to them. Then you don’t have to think about them again. You’ll be able to make thousands of decisions quickly and simply.
Let me illustrate. We have created a values statement for my business.
Values
Profit: We will earn a better-than-average profit as this allows us the flexibility to do other things.
Integrity: We will be honest in everything we do, never over promise, and zealously work to fulfill our commitments.
Value: We will strive to provide our clients more value than they expect.
Personable: We will be pleasant and easy to work with.
Knowledgeable: Understanding that we are in the business of “selling knowledge,” we will be on the cutting edge of new knowledge.
Open-minded: We will constantly be open to new or different ideas, methods, and concepts from all sources, especially our clients.
Learning: We will value individual and organizational learning (the ability to continually take in new information, acquire new insights, and change in positive ways as a result of that information) as our primary competitive advantage.
Humility: We will constantly be aware that the resources we use and the clients we serve are gifts from God, entrusted to our temporary stewardship.
Quality: In everything we do, we will strive to do it as well as the very best companies in the world like ours do it.
Every employee receives a copy, we have copies prominently displayed around the office, and we expect everyone to be guided by these values. Having thought about them once, we don’t need to reexamine every decision. The decisions come easily. Should we copy a piece of software we bought for this computer onto that one? No, it would be dishonest. Should we send out this letter without proofreading it three times? No, it would mean lower quality. Should we invest in this seminar? Yes, it provides us with new ideas, one of our values. Got the idea?
When you write out a set of values for your sales life, you shape and focus your behavior, making it easy to make decisions. Values, clarified and articulated, are a great time saver.
We all have values. Those are the things, people, institutions, habits, and behaviors we think are more important than others. Sometimes we are aware of these values, and make conscious, intelligent decisions to value something or someone. That’s the decision you made, for example, if you are married. You consciously chose to highly value the person who became your spouse.
More commonly, we are not aware of all the things we value. We haven’t chosen them thoughtfully. So, we value things, but we have not really examined them, to ascertain whether they are worthy of our time and effort. We just inherited them, picking them up from our families in our early years. As adults, however, we have an opportunity to examine our values, and to choose those that are higher and more noble than others. It’s not enough to be consistent and true to your values, but you must also chose higher values. Hitler, for example, was true to his values. He pursued his vision and was, for a time, successful in it. But his was not a noble value.
Start with a list
It’s the dreaded blank piece of paper. You are going to fill it with answers to different questions. Work through them methodically.
1. What people do you value?
2. What ideas or movements are important to you?
3. What behaviors do you respect?
4. What character qualities do you admire?
5. What irritates you about other people or situations? Those things that bother you are usually the absence of something you value. For example, if a rude person irritates you, it’s because you value politeness.
This is just a start. The idea is to create a long list of the things that you determine to be more important than any one deal, any one small accomplishment. For example, by publishing my company’s value statement, I am taking the position that these values are more important than any single transaction, more important than money or accomplishment. If there is some financial gain to be had, for example, by being dishonest, we won’t do it. Why? Because our value of honesty is more important than any deal.
That’s the real issue. What values are most important to you? What attitudes, behaviors, people, or ideas will you sacrifice other things for? Write those down, creating a long list.
Edit
Just like with other aspects of your job, too long a list diffuses your energy and causes more of a problem than is solves. Remember: focus, focus, focus. When you have a long list, look for patterns. Edit and prioritize your list, ferreting out the things that pop up over and over again. Work at it until you have a one-page document. Let it sit for a few days, then review it a few times. Is this really who you are? Are you willing to commit to these things? Are they worth sacrificing for?
When you are happy with the document, congratulate yourself because now you are done! You have put in place the three braided strands of your kite string. You’ve done the hard work of becoming grounded. Now, you are free to soar!
Don’t just file your work away in that box that has last year’s income tax return and your high school pictures. Share your work with people close to you. Post reminders in prominent places. Set your value statement up as a screensaver on your laptop. Put a More reminder in your calendar to review in order to refresh yourself annually. More importantly, keep it on your mind, and use it to direct your decisions and focus your energy.
Why bother?
Why should a busy salesperson take time to work on these “grounding” issues that may, at first, seem only indirectly related to time management? The kite string analogy is nice, but does it operate in real life? Here’s how.
1. Writing out your values forces you to focus with some precision.
One of the overwhelming challenges of the information age is sorting through all the possibilities available to you. You will need to continually struggle with focus. The more you can focus on the important things in your life and your job, the more successful you will be. You’ll shrug off the onslaught of trivial diversions, and keep your energies applied to the place where they will get the best response.
Reducing things to writing causes you to focus. This exercise means that you take those vague and general ideas that float around in your head, and think precisely, reducing them to words on paper. Words precisely written clarify the gray areas in which many of us spend a lot of our time.
2. A written statement commits you.
In every new employee orientation, we provide a written statement that describes my company’s vision, values, and ethics. That statement also hangs on the wall in highly visible areas. The fact that it exists in writing is a commitment. Our employees know exactly what ethical behavior is expected of them. Because it is in writing, and posted prominently, they know I’ll hold them accountable to that standard, and that they can hold me to it also.
If that statement were not written out, it would not have the same power. It’s one thing to state something orally, but it’s quite another to commit ourselves to a position in writing. Every important position in human affairs is written out and turned into a document of some kind. The Declaration of Independence, The Constitution, and the Bible are written documents.
I have occasionally been involved in organizations where there was an extremely manipulative person. On each of those occasions, the person in question strongly resisted written policies and procedures. The reason? If it was in writing, it was understood and agreed to. It represented some rules— limits on what the organization’s members could and could not do. If it didn’t exist in writing, then there was room to maneuver and to manipulate.
Those same principles apply to us. If we have some values and ethics, but we don’t write them out, we’ve left ourselves wiggle room. We’re not as committed as we should be. That wiggle room means that we can maneuver and rationalize if we want to. And that ultimately reduces our effectiveness and wastes our time.
3. A written statement provides you with guidance in making decisions.
The results of these exercises can simplify your life greatly and provide a powerful tool to help you focus. Think deeply about certain issues once, get them resolved, and then you don’t have to think about them again. You may decide that you are going to be absolutely honest in all dealings with your customers and employers. Okay, you’ve made a decision, committed it to writing, and let some other people know about it. When that opportunity comes up to get a sale by allowing a customer to maintain an incorrect assumption, you don’t have to think about. You don’t have to take your time to consider it. You just don’t do it. Simple.
Easy. You don’t need any time to think about that one.
That’s because you thought about it deeply once. Now, you don’t have to go through that thought process again. You have created a standard to guide your decisions. That guide simplifies your decisions and allows you to make them quickly and confidently. You’ve saved time.
4. A written statement helps keep you from being overwhelmed.
When you have a mindset, a basic strategy, and a set of values and priorities, these help you sort through the overwhelming number of things to do, and choose wisely between them. Here’s how it works.
Let’s say that More mindset has caused you to commit to a certain long-term goal: to rise in the corporate ranks as high as you can go. So you’ve chosen to pursue a long-term career with your company and you want to move up the corporate ranks. It’s toward the end of the month, and you are overwhelmed with stuff to do. You’ve got a number of projects you are trying to close, your boss wants you to get a certain number of new customers, you have some customer problems to take care of, there is some new training available from the corporate office, etc. You can’t possible do everything you need to do. Some things are not going to get done. Which ones? How do you sort it out?
You take your more-generated long-term goal, and rank each task in priority in light of the goal. You ask, Which of these tasks is going to move me closer to my goal? Then, make a list of all the things you have to do. Next, put the items in priority, from the most important to the least, understanding that those on the bottom of the list probably won’t get done.
Now, plan to work at the most important things. Presto! Your long-term goals have helped you sort out your overwhelming number of tasks and kept you from being overwhelmed.
5. A written statement provides motivation in times of adversity.
There have been a number of times in my career where things were not going very well—it seemed like I couldn’t sell anything, I was not getting along with my boss, and my family life was falling apart. My performance problems on the job hurt my income, and that lack of money added stress to my personal life, which in turn caused me to be irritable with my boss and short with my customers. A vicious cycle.
At these times, it was only my sense of a larger purpose, of something bigger than myself, that allowed me to put the situation into perspective. As a result, I was able, at every one of these miserable times in my life, to work through them, to survive, and even prosper.
If there is one sure thing in the life of a salesperson, it is this: You will have to face some serious adversity sometime in the future. It may come from a work-related issue—a deep sales slump, a cut in compensation, a new boss who doesn’t like you, or a serious change that impacts you negatively. Or it may come from a more personal source and impact your performance— problems with a spouse or family member, or perhaps health problems. Regardless, it will come. I guarantee it.
Your ability to successfully deal with it will be one of the watershed moments of your career. Allow it to depress you and you’ll slide down that downward spiral, cheating yourself and your family of the fruits of success. Overcome it, and you’ll strengthen your character and contribute to the lives of your family. It’s one of the most important issues you’ll face.
Michael Gelb put it well in his book Thinking for a Change:
The greatest long-term predictor of success for individuals and organizations is resilience in the face of adversity. Individuals and organizations who view their setbacks in the context of progress are much more likely to continue in their efforts toward success.
I couldn’t agree more. When you have a larger purpose, clearly articulated, written out and committed to, then every difficulty and adversity is just another step toward that end. If you don’t, then even the smallest obstacle can be seen as insurmountable.
6. A written statement provides motivation to stretch yourself.
It’s very easy to get comfortable in a routine and never vary from that. Or to become complacent. It is probably a natural human motivation. We work hard to get to the point where we don’t have to work hard anymore. The problem with that is that when we become complacent, we stop growing. We stop gaining new skills, expanding our capability, broadening and deepening our perspectives.
From time to time, we need to be stretched to take risks beyond the limits of our comfort. The More mindset, coupled with a basic strategy and a well-articulated set of values, provides us the motivation to go beyond what we have done in the past and to expand ourselves.
At one point in my career, I was the number-one salesperson in the nation for a company—my first full time professional sales job. I had it made—adequate salary, good benefits, company car, bonus potential, and the respect of my employer and my colleagues. But I became bored and decided to move on to a job that was 180 degrees different. I took a job selling surgical staplers to hospitals. It was a huge leap from the secure job I had to one that paid straight commission, in which I had to buy my own samples and literature from the company, and work totally on my own.
Because of some experiences in my childhood, I hated hospitals. I had never worked on straight commission before, never sold to doctors, and had absolutely no knowledge of surgical procedures. When I accepted that job, that was a stretch for me.
I was able to take that stretch and put myself into an uncomfortable place primarily because I had a more-generated vision of myself as a very competent, successful salesperson who was on his way to bigger things. It was because of my grounding in deeper issues that I was able to take this leap.
So it is with you. If you have the three kite strings in place, then you have the motivation to stretch yourself beyond your current limits.
Don’t neglect these basic issues. If you want to become a smart time manager, first get grounded.
To implement this management secret:
1. Feed your More mindset with books, tapes, seminars, and positive people. Do something each week to strengthen your beliefs in more.
2. Make sure you understand the difference between effective and efficient. Think of an example, in your own words from your job, in which you did something to become more effective, and another in which you did something to become more efficient. Identify and solidify your values. Write them down, share them with people close to you, and post them in a prominent location. Remind yourself of them regularly.
3. Check my Website (www.salestimemanagement.com) for our Time Management Tool Kit. including forms and worksheets.