The Sales Experiment

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I Overestimated My Capacity to Write while on Vacation

The main part of the Dan Miller Challenge was to read or listen to quality personal development or business skills development content everyday for 6 months.

I attempted to kick this challenge up a notch by committing to the following:

  1. Read the content
  2. Select an action
  3. Do the action
  4. Use this blog to write about what I selected and what I did (and any results if able to measure)

I Chose My Friend Over This Challenge

I went to visit an old friend on 9/19 and am about to get back on a plane to head home on 9/22. Needless to say, I didn’t write during that time. I did (I wrote for one of my other blogs) and did some rough drafting. Very quickly, I realized that next time I’ll have to preload. It’s awfully rude keeping ones head stuck in a laptop, so I abanded my efforts to write for the sake of my friendship and for the sake of the fact that I needed a vacation.

I’d written daily since 9/1/2014 on both this blog and another. I’m learning some wonderful lessons about writing by writing so consistently, not the least of which is that it takes time to write in a way that is publishable. I’m one of those that doesn’t think a blog has to be the world’s best prose, but I also don’t want to put out schlock.

That said, I did keep my reading commitment (and Friday – the day I flew up to Cleveland – I did take an action based on my reading):

Friday 9/19/14 – Duct Tape Selling by John Jantsch

Jantsch said that part of a sales professional’s job is to help her clients to think bigger. I love that idea. As an insurance man, it’s not always a logical step in our process. In response I drafted a post for my client-focused blog about the importance of helping your organization think bigger, both on the corporate level and for the individuals that make up the organization.

9/20/14 – The Knowledge of the Holy by A.W. Tozer

Reading this for my men’s Bible Study group. I read this until my Kindle’s battery died. I forgot my charger.

9/21/14 and 9/22/14- The Power of Consistency by Weldon Long

I picked up this book quite some time ago. I decided to give Jantsch’s book a break for a bit since it’s heavy on tactics and strategies. I had a feeling Long’s book would be more about mindset. Mindset work is no less practical but any action item would be less about getting on the computer and working on a miniproject, it would be more about reflection.

The action item from Mr. Long? Admit that any results we get in our life is a result of the sum total of our thinking. After that confession, start identifying the thinking and assumptions that might have lead to either our good results or our not so good results.

I promised myself I’d publish before boarding my plane, so pardon any major grammatical or word choice screw ups.

Until tomorrow…

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One Thing Every Dang Day

One Thing Every Dang Day

It seems like a wimpy way to do things: Pick a goal and select one action to take that will move you toward that goal. And then actually do that one action item.

It’s not ‘massive action’. It’s not ‘leaving out all out on the field’. It’s one thing. Every day.

But one thing a day, compounded over the year, might be 2 to 3 times more ‘things’ than you’d do otherwise.

The Habit of One Thing a Day

I’ve heard this suggestion before. Darren Hardy talks about it at length in his book The Compound Effect. Paul Castain discusses it in his Podcast (the one I listened to this morning), admonishing his listeners to learn to take action.

What I love about this suggestion to select one, maybe two, things a day is that it helps me move forward with much less frustration. As Castain points out in this episode of his Sales Playbook podcast, we all have families and jobs and clients and a variety of responsibilities. We can’t simply start taking 5-10 new actions a day without majorly upsetting the balance in our lives.

Therefore, one specific, targeted action a day is a healthy way to move toward a well-defined goal or personal self-improvement initiative.

That’s what I’ve been attempting to do through this challenge that I affectionately call the 6 Month Dan Miller Challenge.

Today’s Action: Request Castain’s “Qualities of a Rock Star Sales Person” list, rate myself on a scale of 1-10 for all 75 qualities, and identify particular weaknesses.

See for yourself where the weaknesses fall out. Now I have to decide if I’m going to focus on the weaknesses or pull out my ’10s’ and leverage my strengths. Decisions.

Disorganized, Bad at Email, Time Management Impaired, and Sales Process Challenged
Disorganized, Bad at Email, Time Management Impaired, and Sales Process Challenged – I hope nobody I know disagrees with my 9s and 10s

Today’s Second Action: Reach out to a new networking contact.

I love the little self-tests and ‘in the privacy of my own office’ projects, but if part of the goal here is to create value to receive value, then I need to find folks for whom to create value. If my main action item doesn’t involve engaging another human person, I must add at least one attempt to reach out.

My three pronged marketing plan to find places to teach, find bloggers and journalists to get to know, and engage experts in one-on-one interviews is vital to my mission.

I also will need to add more direct sales prospecting methods. But I’m sure I’ll be running into those action items soon.

Today’s Listening

I did read more of The Dip by Seth Godin, but not a whole lot more.

My main listening was The Sales Playbook Podcast (I had a lot of phone calls during my rush hour drive times today):

Episode 106 Getting Back To School With Your Selling Skills Part 3 September 11, 2014 – Paul Castain. My exercise for today came from this podcast.

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The Three Lists to Freedom

I love Chris Ducker’s exercise: “Three Lists to Freedom.”

I don’t know how many times I’ve heard him share on podcasts how this exercise revolutionized his life. In his words, “It’s a game changer.”

Alas, I’ve never actually sat down and done it.

Today’s Exercise: Take at least 30 Minutes and Do the Three Lists to Freedom Exercise

The exercise is simple enough, but it’s no easy. He explains it much better in the blog post linked above, but you’re here now, so here goes.

I made three columns on a sheet of paper. Label them thusly:

  • Things I hate doing
  • Things I’m not so great at doing and struggle, but try really hard anyway
  • Things I shouldn’t be doing (although I might be good at them)

I didn’t limit myself to work tasks, including everything (somewhere on the list) from updating my home budget to doing major home renovation projects.

While I’m not in a position to quit doing everything I hate right now, the list give me a punch list.  I’ve at least identified items that I can earmark for offloading.

I heard Ducker mention this exercise in the Lewis Howes podcast I referenced yesterday. And as I continued to read Seth Godin’s The Dip today, I realized how well Ducker’s exercise dovetails with Godin’s ideas about learning to quit certain things in order to be the best in the world at the most important thing(s).

We simply cannot do everything. And trying to do everything will cause us to miss out on doing the most important things as well as possible. I almost didn’t get this blog post written because I was trying to edit a picture of my three lists on PicMonkey.

As 5 minutes turned to 25 minutes, I realized I should stop my failed attempts at design and write the dang post.

Hopefully, this exercise will work its way into my life and force me to notice what I should not, under any circumstances be doing so that I can be more effective. More effective doing things like…

My Second Action Item: Develop My Potential Speaking or Teaching Opportunities

I wasn’t going to let the day end before I reached out to a possible opportunity to share what I know for my target niche.

I did it (and today I got a reply from one of the organizations I reached out to last week).

I’m excited about where this Challenge is leading me.

Today’s Reading and Listening

Episode 104 Getting Back To School With Your Selling Skills August 19,2014 – Paul Castain

In this episode, the venerable Uncle Paul encourages mindset to a (a) Can do – attitude, (b) Will do – ‘action bias’ as I like to call it and (c) Must do – a sense of urgency.

He also referenced a checklist of tools that he suggests we ask of him. I did email him for the checklist today, but in his next podcast, he says we need to ask nicely. I’ll resend my email tomorrow. I wasn’t quite Tarzan in my ask, but I was a little terse. Sorry sir.

Episode 105 Getting Back To School With Your Selling Skills Part II August 26, 2014 – Paul Castain

I was proud when Mr. Castain got to preaching about how addicted we are to content. I’ve already gone to the confessional on this issue, and am currently in recovery. This blog is all about my recovery from content addiction to content-inspired action.

The Dip by Seth Godin

In today’s reading, Godin really punched home the importance of quitting distractions in order to avoid mediocrity.

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What did you read today? I’d love to hear about it in the comments.

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