In our blog post two weeks ago, I proclaimed that the biggest factor between good and great salespeople is that great salespeople are proactive and do the things that make them great. The good ones don’t. They respond. They work hard. They’re nice people. They’re good salespeople … but they’re not great, and they won’t be good when the market is no longer booming.
With this proclamation, I committed to releasing five ideas for salespeople to be more proactive in their week-to-week activity. The first two were: 1. Start small, and 2. Block off proactive time on your calendar. And this week we have number three.
Idea #3: Do it early.
I’ve been waking up before 5:00 am since I graduated from college. The exact time has moved between 4:30 and 4:55 over the years (today it’s 4:40), but my time is pre 5:00 am. There are many reason I do this: I have a ton of energy (after waking up), it’s quiet, and the gym and the roads are empty. However, the most impactful reason that I wake up early and perform my proactive tasks is that no one distracts me that early. I can do whatever I want at 4:50 0r 5:30 or 6:15 in the morning. No one is emailing me. No one is calling me. Issues haven’t had a chance to occur yet. Nothing happens that early, so that’s when I work out, run, meditate, send prospecting emails, read and study professional development topics, and anything else that is important but not urgent. By 7:30, I’m done. I take my daughter to school or start my reactionary workday if I’m traveling. By 7:30, I’ve done much of my proactive work.
Don’t think that you have to wake up at 4:40 to be proactive. You don’t. However, you must schedule your proactive work before the chaos begins. If you want to prospect for 30 minutes every day, then start at 8:30. If you want to engage in self-paced training, block off an hour every Wednesday between 8:00 and 9:00.
Remember, start small, block off time on your calendar, and make sure it’s early in the day.
Looking forward to next week’s post on which I share an idea that will help you throughout the entire day of chaos!
