A top sales company leader never relies on any asset more than himself to re-command the game at half time. Of course you don’t want to lose that guy that you poured your energy into during training season, but you know that you can replace him if and when you need to. People quit, technology breaks and deals go bad. No matter what challenges your team faced in 2010 (or even in the first week of 2011), you can make 2011 your team’s best year yet.
Your company will be an extension of your personality and discipline. If you are champion-minded, you preserve and enhance your own best asset: you.
Now it's almost a full business week into 2011. Check your vital signs. A champion leader is healthy and growing in these 5 vital areas. You should have tangible, written (yes, WRITTEN) goals in each of these areas.
1. Leadership & Growing Your Business
We cannot separate quality from quantity. Take stock of both.
To enhance the quality of your leadership, attend webinars or conferences. Read leadership books. Follow leadership blogs. Aside from all the sales training you get and give, seek out a business mentor if you dont already have one and commit to mentoring at least one up and coming business superstar in your company. Both mentors and mentees can also point out things in your interactions and leadership style that you can improve on. And when it comes to corporate leadership, especially in sales, improvement is the name of the game.
Set quantitative company growth goals. Something we say around the office over here is “numbers, baby, numbers.” Sure, remarkable leadership is vital to a thriving company, but the proof will be on the scoreboard. In what ways have you projected growth for your company or your team? Identify the bottom rung and top possibilities you can reach this year and set specific numbers that you can be held accountable for. Personal sales numbers? Hire a certain number of people for your company? Help coach a certain number of people to hit higher sales numbers or get promoted? Expand your company? Be specific, use timelines and revise quarterly.
2. Finances (AKA Discipline)
Personal finance gest its own category because it reflects our capacity for discipline and the way we set our priorities. You can tell a lot about a person by what they spend their money on and how they spend it. A recent study by Harris interactive found that 57% of households do not have a budget, which would explain why almost ⅔ of Americans have less than one month’s savings saved for emergencies. This reflects a haphazard attitude towards life in general. Think about what happens when you don’t make it a priority to set priorities.
Solution? Set a budget. Keep it.
Set a goal for how much you will commit to investing into savings this year. I’m less concerned about how much and what account (whether it’s 10% of your paycheck immediately locked into your savings every month or $25,000 into a money market account... you can find entire resources dedicated to the best way to invest your savings). The right numbers for you and your lifestyle are entirely up to you and you can revise as needed. The important thing here is your discipline- you make a commitment to order your priorities. Then you keep that commitment, every single month.
3. Physical. Read: your health (...and longevity)
Resolutions like “I’m going to get it shape” make me laugh. It sounds pretty flimsy to me. Your physical (health!) goals should be very personal and specific; and you should set them in each of the following categories:
a. Adequate sleep
b. Fitness (cardio AND strength-training)
c. Nutrition (including drinking enough water)
d. Self-renewal (learning or getting better at a sport, remembering your vitamins, remembering your pysicals, etc)...
How do you make these specific to you? Pick something attainable and meaningful that you know will enhance your health and therefore ability to prosper at work. Here are some examples: One guy I know is in incredible shape and has a goal to trim another 0.5% body fat and maintain it throughout the year. That’s specific. A girl at our company is a total type A and stays up til 3am working all the time. She’s going to learn how to set personal boundaries and reign in the quantity and quality of her sleep. By mid-February, she plans to be sleeping an average of 7 hours a night. A lofty goal- but specific- and reachable with commitment. What are you tangible goals to enhance your health this year?
4. Relationships & Social-Emotional Maintenance
I can’t even count how many successful CEOs have told me that their top priority is their family. Successful people are successful because they know how to set and keep priorities to maintain the important parts of their lives. It’s easy to get lost in the intensity of our work and neglect important relationships in our lives. There’s a deadline to get our data report in at the end of the day but there’s no deadline to pick up the phone and tell your mom you love her.
I’m sure I don’t need to talk about why it’s so important to maintain social-emotional balance and quality relationships with friends and family... so we’ll briefly cover the how. Evaluate who and what is important to you. Then set a deadline for yourself if you need to, with specific goals and stick to them. Some long-distance but important friendships may require a quarterly email update and check-in while other relationships (like your wife) need a goal that you aim for every day. I call my grandpa once a week; he’s kind of old school so I don’t tell him that I only make time to call him because I schedule it in my blackberry and force myself to do it! But that’s how I operate. And at the end of the day, my grandpa and I have continuing times to connect and we both have enrichment from each other in our lives that will carry on long past this Friday’s sales goal.
5. Spiritual & Character Development
These goals will obviously be largely personal as well but the bottom line is this: private victories always precede public victories. If you want to become and stay a champion in business, you must keep your inner world balanced, and in order.
A commitment to renewing yourself through spiritual and character development will keep you centered and grounded against the daily challenges that come along with a high-intensity industry like ours and the roller coaster of this economy. Some people find this balance through their community or religion. Some people find this in music, nature or literature like biographies of inspiring people. Without some type of reflection built into your life, when the sh*@ hits the fan, you WILL struggle.
Seek out purposeful quiet times where you can watch, listen, reflect and enjoy. Reflect on purposes that are larger than yourself and find new perspectives. I encourage people to give both time and money to a social cause that connects with them. Commit to integrity. Find ways to add new dimensions to your character this year.
***
2010 was the year of the “stealth bankruptcy.” Many people were shocked at the top 20 big name companies, like Blockbuster and Hummer, that finally collapsed. And a lot of job industries are still shrinking. How does this translate to us as leaders in the sales industry? Well, the good news is that we are actually growing. But we need to take ownership of our teams to accelerate them towards our goals in the uncertain economic shifts going on.
So let’s reign it in: Did you lose your own attitude at any time in 2010? Did parts of your company crater? I’m sure you, like all of us, have had your share of frustrations and goals you didn’t hit. So now it’s midweek, the first week of 2011 and it’s a good time to take stock of where you’re at. No matter what challenges you’ve faced last year or even in the last two days, you can make 2011 your team’s best year yet.
[Previous Post: What causes even top sales companies to lose their momentum during the holiday break?]
[Accelerate! Home] or [Shop for acceleration! tools] or [Contact my team]
Your company will be an extension of your personality and discipline. If you are champion-minded, you preserve and enhance your own best asset: you.
Now it's almost a full business week into 2011. Check your vital signs. A champion leader is healthy and growing in these 5 vital areas. You should have tangible, written (yes, WRITTEN) goals in each of these areas.
1. Leadership & Growing Your Business
We cannot separate quality from quantity. Take stock of both.
To enhance the quality of your leadership, attend webinars or conferences. Read leadership books. Follow leadership blogs. Aside from all the sales training you get and give, seek out a business mentor if you dont already have one and commit to mentoring at least one up and coming business superstar in your company. Both mentors and mentees can also point out things in your interactions and leadership style that you can improve on. And when it comes to corporate leadership, especially in sales, improvement is the name of the game.
Set quantitative company growth goals. Something we say around the office over here is “numbers, baby, numbers.” Sure, remarkable leadership is vital to a thriving company, but the proof will be on the scoreboard. In what ways have you projected growth for your company or your team? Identify the bottom rung and top possibilities you can reach this year and set specific numbers that you can be held accountable for. Personal sales numbers? Hire a certain number of people for your company? Help coach a certain number of people to hit higher sales numbers or get promoted? Expand your company? Be specific, use timelines and revise quarterly.
2. Finances (AKA Discipline)
Personal finance gest its own category because it reflects our capacity for discipline and the way we set our priorities. You can tell a lot about a person by what they spend their money on and how they spend it. A recent study by Harris interactive found that 57% of households do not have a budget, which would explain why almost ⅔ of Americans have less than one month’s savings saved for emergencies. This reflects a haphazard attitude towards life in general. Think about what happens when you don’t make it a priority to set priorities.
Solution? Set a budget. Keep it.
Set a goal for how much you will commit to investing into savings this year. I’m less concerned about how much and what account (whether it’s 10% of your paycheck immediately locked into your savings every month or $25,000 into a money market account... you can find entire resources dedicated to the best way to invest your savings). The right numbers for you and your lifestyle are entirely up to you and you can revise as needed. The important thing here is your discipline- you make a commitment to order your priorities. Then you keep that commitment, every single month.
3. Physical. Read: your health (...and longevity)
Resolutions like “I’m going to get it shape” make me laugh. It sounds pretty flimsy to me. Your physical (health!) goals should be very personal and specific; and you should set them in each of the following categories:
a. Adequate sleep
b. Fitness (cardio AND strength-training)
c. Nutrition (including drinking enough water)
d. Self-renewal (learning or getting better at a sport, remembering your vitamins, remembering your pysicals, etc)...
How do you make these specific to you? Pick something attainable and meaningful that you know will enhance your health and therefore ability to prosper at work. Here are some examples: One guy I know is in incredible shape and has a goal to trim another 0.5% body fat and maintain it throughout the year. That’s specific. A girl at our company is a total type A and stays up til 3am working all the time. She’s going to learn how to set personal boundaries and reign in the quantity and quality of her sleep. By mid-February, she plans to be sleeping an average of 7 hours a night. A lofty goal- but specific- and reachable with commitment. What are you tangible goals to enhance your health this year?
4. Relationships & Social-Emotional Maintenance
I can’t even count how many successful CEOs have told me that their top priority is their family. Successful people are successful because they know how to set and keep priorities to maintain the important parts of their lives. It’s easy to get lost in the intensity of our work and neglect important relationships in our lives. There’s a deadline to get our data report in at the end of the day but there’s no deadline to pick up the phone and tell your mom you love her.
I’m sure I don’t need to talk about why it’s so important to maintain social-emotional balance and quality relationships with friends and family... so we’ll briefly cover the how. Evaluate who and what is important to you. Then set a deadline for yourself if you need to, with specific goals and stick to them. Some long-distance but important friendships may require a quarterly email update and check-in while other relationships (like your wife) need a goal that you aim for every day. I call my grandpa once a week; he’s kind of old school so I don’t tell him that I only make time to call him because I schedule it in my blackberry and force myself to do it! But that’s how I operate. And at the end of the day, my grandpa and I have continuing times to connect and we both have enrichment from each other in our lives that will carry on long past this Friday’s sales goal.
5. Spiritual & Character Development
These goals will obviously be largely personal as well but the bottom line is this: private victories always precede public victories. If you want to become and stay a champion in business, you must keep your inner world balanced, and in order.
A commitment to renewing yourself through spiritual and character development will keep you centered and grounded against the daily challenges that come along with a high-intensity industry like ours and the roller coaster of this economy. Some people find this balance through their community or religion. Some people find this in music, nature or literature like biographies of inspiring people. Without some type of reflection built into your life, when the sh*@ hits the fan, you WILL struggle.
Seek out purposeful quiet times where you can watch, listen, reflect and enjoy. Reflect on purposes that are larger than yourself and find new perspectives. I encourage people to give both time and money to a social cause that connects with them. Commit to integrity. Find ways to add new dimensions to your character this year.
***
2010 was the year of the “stealth bankruptcy.” Many people were shocked at the top 20 big name companies, like Blockbuster and Hummer, that finally collapsed. And a lot of job industries are still shrinking. How does this translate to us as leaders in the sales industry? Well, the good news is that we are actually growing. But we need to take ownership of our teams to accelerate them towards our goals in the uncertain economic shifts going on.
So let’s reign it in: Did you lose your own attitude at any time in 2010? Did parts of your company crater? I’m sure you, like all of us, have had your share of frustrations and goals you didn’t hit. So now it’s midweek, the first week of 2011 and it’s a good time to take stock of where you’re at. No matter what challenges you’ve faced last year or even in the last two days, you can make 2011 your team’s best year yet.
[Previous Post: What causes even top sales companies to lose their momentum during the holiday break?]
[Accelerate! Home] or [Shop for acceleration! tools] or [Contact my team]