The Sales Experiment

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The Need to Make Difficult Decisions about Everything We Do

The Need to Make Difficult Decisions about Everything We Do
the importance of difficult decision-making
Photo Credit: `James Wheeler via Compfight cc

We can only do so many things in a day.

If we shove as many things as possible into that day, we can only be so effective.

We become unfocused and scattered and obstacles start popping up that hinder us and distract us from our key goals.

One of the keys to being more effective (in any area) is to make difficult decisions.

We must decide between competing opportunities. Usually, there is something good about each opportunity that comes up, even if it’s just an opportunity to please someone and move their agenda forward at your own peril.

As I’ve been making my way through Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown, (affiliate link), I’ve been trying to be more selective and intentional about my decisions around sales opportunities.

The safest way to do this is to be clear about what the best possible opportunity would look like and only say yes to those opportunities.

I’m horrible at this practice, but it’s a practice that all of us could benefit from. Otherwise, we slowly lose control and direction.

Every decision is an opportunity to move ourselves toward our highest priorities.

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Today’s Reading and Listening

I’ve been consistently listening to and/or reading to positive, mindset-shifting, skill-sharpening content every day since 9/1/2014 per my commitment to the Dan Miller Challenge.  I have not, though, been so hot at writing every day. 

The Art of Focus Pt 1: Opportunity Cost Internet Business Mastery – Episode 255

Jeremy and Jason (the hosts) discuss the hidden costs in the decisions we make around our businesses along with some guidelines to help us make wiser choices. This dovetails nicely with my learning from Essentialism.

The 3 Drivers of Sales Success  Part III – Your Sales Playbook Podcast, Episode 109

This podcast is a wonderful (free) masterclass on developing more business by strengthening our relationships with current clients.

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The Three Disciplines of Effectiveness

The title of this post is a little arrogant because I have no empirical proof or research to back me up. Experience and common sense are on my side.

Here are the three disciplines that can lead to greater effectiveness, regardless of whether we’re talking about sales productivity or any other area of life:

  1. Schedule the activities that you can’t stand doing but know that you have to do. This is the “eat your veggies” and “run stairs” discipline. Schedule it. Put it in your calendar.
  2. Identify what you should NOT be doing, but only do because you want people to like you. Stop doing that stuff.
  3. Identify the effective activities that you enjoy: Load your calendar up with those things.

Life’s too short to spend too much time doing effective, but miserable, activities. And it’s definitely too short to do stuff you shouldn’t be doing or don’t want to do or that has no bearing at all on improving your mind, heart, or soul.

I repeat:

Schedule the activities that are vital, but no fun.

Stop doing the stuff that you only do because you’re nice (i.e. saying ‘yes’ way too much)

Identify the effective and enjoyable activities. Do those things as much as humanly possible. 

I’ve been reading Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown and those items above are my initial reaction to what I’m reading.

Some things have to be done, so we must schedule them and do them. Most things are others’ priorities imposed on our lives. We need to be vigilant that we don’t get overrun by these things. And once we identify what we can be passionate about doing that also moves us towards our goals, then we can go all in.

How about you?

What helps you be your most effective?

 

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Tactics, Strategies, and Effectiveness

I’ve spent the last few days catching up on Michael Stelzner’s Social Media Marketing Podcast. The podcast is a wealth of information on digital media’s most effective tactics and strategies (if they are used wisely and surgically, of course).

Today, I listened, specifically, to the podcast with Zach King, a filmmaker who has used his talents to conquer the new world of Vine video.

Mr. King said something that stuck out (paraphrased): “If your target audience isn’t on Vine [i.e. the younger demographic], then perhaps you shouldn’t be on Vine. It’s not smart to try to be on every social media platform.” (something like that)

The message is this: Use the tactics and strategies that increase effectiveness as it relates to your goals.

Only use the marketing platforms that drive your business forward. 

Experiment? Yes.

Commit full resources to all of them? No.

Sales and New Marketing Both Suffer from the Shiny Object Syndrome

Every new sales book that comes out touts itself (or convinces reviewers to tout it) as the greatest new development in sales since whatever the other most recent sales movement was.

The same holds true for marketing.

We get nudged off of a consistent course by grasping at the next thing that sounds like it’ll hold a silver bullet.

The newsflash is this: there is no such thing as a silver bullet. You might find a little fortune or favor here and there, but there is no silver bullet.

Be Honest About What Is Effective

As they say in recovery, the first thing one must do is admit there is a problem.

In sales and marketing, the first thing one must admit is which activities produce the most compelling results.  You’d think we’d be happy about finding the one thing, and we’d be uber-disciplined about doing the one or two things that generate the most results.

The problem is that the one or two things require the most sweat. The activities that move the dial nearly always cost us. They take time. They take focus. They take courage.

What strategies and tactics are the most effective in your work?

Are you doing them?

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By the way, Zach King’s Vine channel (or account or whatever) is ridiculously cool. Here’s a fun example:

 

 

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