Behaviors are actions.
Actions lead to results.
I read the book The Secret, and I was aware that it left readers with the false sense that all you had to do to get anything in life was to think about it enough to attract it into your life.
Or in other words, a law of attraction. Think about something enough and eventually you will get it.
My personal belief is in a law of attraction with action. If you back up your belief and thoughts with MASSIVE ACTION, that’s where the results come from.
You must believe and you must act if you want to reach your goals.
I’ll let you in on the real secret If you don’t take action you will not get the pleasure of the results.
Results belong to few that do take massive action!
Now, it’s not just massive action that will get you there. The wrong actions will take you away from your goal, not toward it.
In other words the correct behaviors will get you to your goal. And the incorrect behaviors will take you further away.
Now realize there is no failure, only feedback.
If your behaviors are not getting you results that you want, you’ll simply want to change your approach. until you get the result you are after.
When you do a behavior or an action enough times it becomes a habit. A habit simply means that you’ve done a behavior enough times that it’s drilled into your unconscious mind and you no longer have to think about the behavior consciously anymore.
As with a behavior there are habits that serve you and habits that do not.
With the right habits success is easy.
With the wrong habits failure is inevitable.
Now this brings up a question: Do you have the habits and behaviors of a top performer?
There have been many books written on habits and how to change habits. One I’d recommend specifically is called The Power Of Habit.
There are many limiting beliefs out there about habits and being able to change them. You may have heard:
“You can’t teach an old dog new tricks”
“You only use 10 % of your brain”
This is completely false and you like me may have been faked out by these axioms in the past.
The real game changer and belief change for me came when I moved to New York City. I was very focused on wanting to change everything in my life and very open to any idea that would help me change. A friend of mine introduced me to the work of Tim Ferriss and I read the book the 4-Hour-Work-Week and started to follow Tim’s Blog (Now I’m an avid listener of his podcast, Thanks Tim for all that you do!)
And another book that I happened to be introduced to at the time was a book called the Brain That Changes Itself, it is a book on neuroplasticity or the ability of the brain to form and reorganize synaptic connections, especially in response to learning or experience.
“Neuron’s that fire together, wire together. “
Neuron’s that fire together, wire together was a quote that stuck with me from the Brain that Changes Itself.
In other words if you do a behavior enough times you literally rewire your neural network.
At this time in my life I had adopted a lot of behaviors that I was not proud of. I was eating unhealthy food and I had gained a lot of weight. At the time I weighed almost 205 pounds. I was feeling like I was getting fat and old and I was only 23! Not only that, I had picked up a bad habit of smoking cigarettes.
I knew I was not headed in the right direction.
It was a challenging time and I knew I wanted to change. I decided to move out of Seattle to New York City to get out of my environment that I’d been living in and redesign my life from the ground up.
Now, reading the books and believing is one thing and this was an integral part of transforming my life and making changes. I also took massive persistent actions and implemented new systems to transform my life. Without these systems, habits, and actions nothing would have changed.
There is a feedback loop with beliefs and action. If you take massive action you get results and the results then reinforce your belief and this makes you take even more action and then this reinforces your belief even more and you take even more action.
I started going to Muay Thai class and training 5 days a week. I implemented the slow carb diet that Tim was talking about on his blog and I got massive changes in my body. I cut down to 175, I stopped smoking. It was an exciting time and it was rapid change!
The change was a result in a belief change. I can change, I will change it, and I must change now!
Without massive action, I could believe that change was possible.
Without massive action, change wouldn’t happen.
It wasn’t until I believed AND took massive action AND installed the successful habits that the true transformation took place.
There are a few heuristics or “rules of thumb” that you can follow when it comes to success and creating habits that serve you.
It only takes 21 days to create a new habit. If you can hold on for a behavior for that long the new habit will be “installed” into your nervous system. And the longer you reinforce and continue the habit the stronger it becomes.
Most people go around believing the majority of their action is fully conscious when in actuality the majority of people are going around on auto pilot and their habits are directing them.
Once you install a habit into you unconscious and it’s drilled in there it becomes easy because your unconscious will do the hard work for you .
The processes we run on are mainly automated. Think about driving your car. Do you remember how difficult this was to begin with? Now it’s something that you can do without “thinking” about it.
One of the biggest dangers I see in Sales, for sales people, is they keep doing the same behaviors over and over again and those behaviors don’t actually work. And then these bad behaviors become bad habits.
“If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got.” – Henry Ford
There are specific behaviors for sales success (They will become a habit once you repeat and reinforce these behaviors enough.)
” We don’t rise to the level of our expectations we fall to the level of our training.” – Archilochos
Life Habits That Impact Your Sales:
- Getting Enough Sleep to stay sharp.
- Waking up early.
- The Golden Hour.
- Working out on a regular basis.
- Eating healthy, energy rich foods.
- Meditation.
- Reviewing goals on a regular basis.
Anything that effects your emotional state can cost valuable sales. Putting your body in a position where it is ready to perform at a high level means that you will make more sales.
Now more specifically lets take a look at sales focused habits. Remember a behavior repeated enough times will become a habit. If you don’t have one of these income increasing habits, I’d recommend trying on the behavior on for 21 days. There are a lot of habits here, I’d try one habit at a time so you don’t overwhelm yourself.
Planning Habits (Prior Planning Prevents Poor Performance):
Top performing sales people…
- plan the call in advance.
- plan the presentation in advance.
- plan the day in advance.
- plan the week in advance.
- plan the month in advance.
- plan how they will hit goal.
Time Management Habits:
Top performing sales people…
- immediately begin working on their most important task first thing in the morning (Eat that Frog).
- batch similar tasks together to maximize the leverage they get on their time.
- show up on time or early to appointments and meetings.
- work all the time they are at work with 100% their focus.
- focus on the 20% of tasks that get 80% of the results. (Perato Principle).
- delegate tasks that are not sales related.
Emotional State Management Habits:
Top performing sales people…
- consistently manage their emotional state even when the going gets tough.
- are able to change their state quickly if they get into a negative state.
- realize that emotional states effect their results.
- are in positive empowering emotional states the majority of the time.
- help other people around them to feel positive emotions on a daily basis.
- help their clients feel positive emotional states on a daily basis.
- consistently manage their clients emotional states even when there is a challenge.
Goal Setting Habits:
Top performing sales people…
- set daily activity goals.
- set weekly goals.
- set monthly goals.
- set quarterly goals.
- set annual goals.
- continually review their goals multiple times per day.
- measure their performance against their goals.
- celebrate and reinforce themselves when they attain a goal.
- remember to set the next goal once they’ve attained a goal.
Listening Habits:
Top performing sales people…
- listen more than they speak because they understand listening builds rapport.
- take excellent notes and listen intently because they know what the client is saying provides information on how to help the client.
Prospecting Habits:
Top performing sales people…
- are always looking for new prospects.
- are not afraid to pick up the phone and cold call.
- create prospecting systems.
- constantly look for new lists and communities of prospects.
- do not rely on the leads that they are provided by the company.
Initial Contact Habits:
Top performing sales people…
- understand that speed is equated to quality in sales and will contact new leads immediately.
- make excellent first impressions.
Qualification Habits:
Top performing sales people…
- ask the right qualifying questions.
- have lists of the appropriate qualifying questions memorized.
- remember to ask all of the qualify questions upfront and won’t move on to the next step until a client has been properly qualified.
- happily point the client in a different direction if they feel that their product would not be a good fit for them.
Presentation Habits:
Top Performing Sales People…
- craft their presentations differently depending on who the audience is and follow the axiom “know your audience”.
- have a logical flow for their presentations.
- have the presentation prepared in advance.
- don’t “wing” their presentations.
- understand that attention is one of the most valuable resources that a person has and frequently check in on the audience to ensure they are engaged throughout the presentation.
Objection Handling Habits:
Top Performing Sales People…
- have lists of every single objection there could be for their product or service.
- have a variety of ways to overcome every objection and have rehearsed them diligently.
- view objections as a sign of intense interest on the part of the client.
- understand an objection is simply a question.
Negotiation Habits:
Top Performing Sales People…
- look for ways to make every negotiation win / win.
- practice negotiation in other areas of their life.
- look for ways to add value in negotiation.
- don’t view negotiations as binary.
Closing Habits:
Top Performing Sales People…
- presuppose the client is going to buy.
- ask for the sale with certainty.
- know many different closing techniques and practice them.
- understand that closing is natural if you’ve qualified the client, built trust and delivered an excellent presentation.
- understand that closing the sale really begins the relationship. It’s the beginning, not the end!
Asking For Referral Habits:
Top Performing Sales People…
- actually ask for referrals from as many people as possible.
- use their companies referral program or create one if it does not exist.
- sell their referral program as much as they sell their product or service.
- create referral networks.
Learning Habits:
Top Performing Sales People…
- constantly take in new information on how to improve in sales.
- constantly read new books and take classes that focus on self improvement.
- love to learn!
- spend at least an hour per day learning and growing.
- have a growth mindset.
Activity Level Habits:
Top Performing Sales People…
- stretch themselves to make more calls then the call goal they set for the day.
- are constantly pushing themselves to get more productivity out of each day.
- measure every activity they take.
- reverse engineer their activities to determine how much money each activity they take is work.
- focus on dollar generating activities.
- do not do activities that don’t add value.
This list is certainly not a complete list. I’d highly encourage you to continually ask yourself the question what are the most useful behaviors or habits of a top performing sales person?
And
What are my current behavior or habits now?
If you want to become a top performing sales person, you’ll want to know where you are now and where you want to go.
The way to bridge the gap is implement one new success behavior or habit at a time.
EASY!
If you think of other habits that I forgot, feel free to add them to the comments section!
I am a fan of the habit list and the links to Tim Feriss! I am now following his podcast and following up on the other information included here!