New Years Resolutions – Best Year Ever and Momentum

New Years Resolutions – Best Year Ever

Years ago I made the resolution to have my best year ever. Actually, I do that every year but back in my infoUSA days was the first time I really meant it. I used to get a paper newsletter from Art Sobczak – the TeleSales guru and scratch golfer. Yep, it was a physical newsletter.

Art published a “Best Year Ever” guide and in that particular year (sometime in the 90s), I decided to work through the worksheet and actually stuck to it for a few months. (I’d love to say I stuck to it for a full year, but I’ll get to that.)

With clarity of purpose and a plan of action, the work began. No holidays, no sickness, no distractions of any kind for something like 90 days straight. That’s all it took for the magic of Momentum to take hold. We all know it takes 21 days to form a habit but how many days does it take to generate the magic of momentum?!? Anecdotally 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 “ending the day on paper before it begins“, made a habit of focusing on getting the “3 most important things” done each day, and made a habit of “prospecting every day – the most important part of sales“. 90 days later, they moved me into management. (why this happens in sales isn’t a mystery, but I’ll leave the riff on whether that should happen in sales management for another day).

Sometime between that 21st day and the 90th day, the magic of momentum took place. Zig Ziglar used to describe it as Priming the Pump. Once that water starts flowing, it’s easy but if you pause/get distracted/quit before that happens. . .you get nothing.

What am I getting at? Results are all about momentum. Momentum isn’t an event. Getting momentum is a process. It’s a process, not an event.

Aim for gaining momentum this year. Today, tomorrow or even next month. Start building momentum.

I’ve copied Art Sobczak’s Best Year Ever questions below. Good man. Good stuff.

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 2013?

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 2013?

What, specifically, are your sales and production goals for 2013? How does that break down into quarterly and monthly goals?

How much more money will you make in 2013? 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 2009?
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 2013!

Visit Art at his new site: http://www.SmartCalling.com/