1978 Was the Best Year Ever

It’s that time – Plan to Make it Your Best Year Ever

I revisit this every January because years ago I made a resolution to have my best year ever after reading my friend Art Sobczak – the TeleSales guru‘s newsletter – yes, a real-life-paper mailed-each-month newsletter. (a contrarian technique that works like a charm today. . .anyways) Art published this “Best Year Ever” guide and as fate would have it, I was open to the message, diligently worked through the worksheet questions, made a plan and stuck to it for a few months. (It wasn’t 1978, it was 1993 or 95 or something like that . . . I’ll get to the title later.)

I was filled with clarity of purpose, a plan of action and the work began. No holidays, no sickness, no distractions of any kind. 90 days straight. That’s all it took for the magic of Momentum to take hold. It takes 21 days to form a habit but how many days does it take to generate the magic of momentum?!? I am going to say it’s somewhere between 21 and 90 days because that’s when it kicked in for me.

21 days made a habit of what I consider the cornerstone of business development success: “ending the day on paper before it begins“, focusing on the “3 most important things” to get done each day, and making a habit of “prospecting every day” which is the most important part of sales. 90 days after the momentum began, the unthinkable happened and they moved me into management. (most sales people are mediocre sales managers but that’s my next post).

Momentum is a magical thing. Zig Ziglar describes it as Priming the Pump. Once that water starts flowing . . . hit it Zig!

What should you take away from this? Your results are all about momentum. And getting momentum is a process. A process, not an event.

Let’s aim for gaining momentum this year. Build that Momentum.

I’ve copied Art Sobczak’s Best Year Ever questions below. An all time favorite.

Happy New Year!

Several years ago I comprised a list of questions for sales pros to ask themselves as they started their new year.

It was extremely popular, received tons of reprint requests, as well as suggestions to share them again the next year. So now I do it every year.

I suggest you set aside some time, look at each of these questions, and answer them with an action plan. Follow that plan, and like many others, you will guarantee your own success.

Here we go:

What are you going to do to improve your industry and product knowledge in 2014?

How many inactive customers will you revive and turn into regular customers again? What do you need to do to make that happen?

What will you do to ensure you’re protecting your best customers, and adding more value to the relationships? How will you sell even more to them?

How many new customers will you bring on this year? How do you plan to do that, specifically?

What will you do to improve your physical health in 2014?

What, specifically, are your sales and production goals for 2014? How does that break down into quarterly and monthly goals?

How much more money will you make in 2014? How will that happen? What will you need to do, today, to take the
first steps in that direction?

What will you need to do to increase THAT number by an additional 10%?

What are you going to do every day to keep your attitude at a high level?

How much time are you going to spend, daily, to improve your own sales skills? What will you do?

How many referrals did you get in 2012? How did get them? From whom? What will you do to turn them into sales?

Speaking of referrals, will you please forward this issue to two others who would also benefit from these weekly Tips?
(OK, that’s one of mine.)

In which areas will you improve your personal, family, and spiritual life?

How are you going to maximize the use of your time? Where will you cut out the time-wasters in each day?

What have you been putting off that you will take care of within the next two weeks?

Who can you help to feel special every day?

What challenge, wish or desire–that you’ve never attempted before–will you finally achieve in 2014?
How will you do that? Why?

Where are you going to write all of this down so you can review and revise your plans regularly?

What will it LOOK like when you accomplish everything you’ve just been thinking about?

How good will it FEEL?

What will it SOUND like when you achieve these things?

Why COULDN’T you do all of this?

Any answer to that last one is not a reason, but rather a self-imposed limitation, excuse, or lack of desire or effort. The biggest deterrent to success looks us in the mirror every day.

Now, go out and plan to have, no, COMMIT to … YOUR BEST YEAR EVER IN 2014!

Visit Art at: http://www.SmartCalling.com/

Good stuff.

(Wondering about the 1978 comment in the title? If you’re following the Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI) over time, we peaked worldwide in 1978. I was 9 so I’m happy to have been a part of it. Stayin’ Alive.)