But What Do We Do Next?

 

Let's get to the point, business is down. It's taken us half a year to come out and admit it, but there you go. I'm not really interested in being negative as it usually doesn't serve a purpose. But to not face reality is just foolish. Relentless gas hikes, banks tighting their belts, banks increasing rates while the fed drops?, floor traffic down, a distracting election year, blah, blah, blah, etc. etc. etc.....

To be honest, I really don't care. Not that I don't want these things to improve, but there really isn't a whole lot I can do that will directly affect many of these challenges. The best thing any of us can do to improve the economy is to make more money, and go spend a little. This increases the velocity of money and ultimately heals the financial issues in our country. It always has. Many of the challenges we face is because the flow of money has slowed.

Like some of you, my priorities lie elsewhere, and not in worrying about other people screwing things up. Like many of you as well, I have a limited amount of time and energy in which to get everything done.

We all are given 1,440 minutes everyday. What you do with them is up to you and has a direct effect on the results you receive. We each choose what we do (or don't do), when we do it, and how well we do it. Every action you take today has an affect on your future results. If you're not happy with your current results, most of the time it's due to what actions you previously took.

We can't predict the future... or can we?

If where we are, and what we have today is a direct result of the decisions we made in our past, then the decisions and actions we take now, will determine our future results. Sadly most don't ever design their future. At least not on purpose. So what is "On Purpose"?

Napolean Hill wrote in "The Master Key to Riches";

"It is impressive to recognize that all of the great leaders, in all walks of life..., have attained their leadership by the application of their abilities behind a definite major purpose.

It is no less impressive to observe that those who are classified as failures have no such purpose, but go around and around, like a ship without a rudder, coming back always empty-handed, to their starting point.

Some of these "failures" begin with a definite major purpose but they desert that purpose the moment they are overtaken by temporary defeat or strenuous opposition. They give up and quit, not knowing that there is a philosophy of success which is as dependable and as definite as the rules of mathematics, and never suspecting that temporary defeat is but a testing ground which may prove a blessing in disguise if it is not accepted as final....One of the strange facts concerning men who move with definiteness of purpose is the readiness with which the world steps aside that they my pass, even coming to their aid in caring out their aims"

Anyone who has been to my sales classes has heard me say "Everything you need to be happy and successful has already been written down."

Dale Carnegie wrote in "How to Stop Worrying and Start Living";

"Why does such a simple thing as keeping busy help to drive out anxiety? Because of a law - one of the most fundamental laws ever revealed by phsychology. And that law is: that it is utterly impossible for any human mind, no matter how brilliant, to think of more than one thing at any given time" Why is that important? Because we can handle a downturn in most anything for a certain period of time. But after a while, it takes it's toll and we must refocus our attention to our daily actions in order to quickly improve our results.

We need to spend the bulk of our time on the "critical inch" of our business.

Don't waste time and energy doing things, that while perhaps necessary, aren't the critical and important aspects of what we need to do.

I've seen people frustrated, claiming they "didn't have time" to make the necessary calls, properly qualify a customers wants, needs, desire, budget, ask for the business, self promote, market or whatever else the "essential" tasks might be - but somehow they did manage to find the time to clean their desk, make a few social calls, plan their weekend, read the news, check the sports scores, do some online shopping, check their email to many times, and do countless other tasks that have limited, or no relevance to performance and success.

Part of the solution is asking the relevant question: What's truly most important? More often than not, the answer is quite different from the answer to another question: What is the most convenient thing to do? Frequently we'll jump from one task to another without any real thought as to the true relevance of our actions. Ask yourself, what result am I going to get by doing this?

The reason most people spend their time on low priority "busy work" is that it's easier to do and does not require additional knowledge, skills or coordination with someone else. Set your priorities on a "must-do-now," "should-do-today," and "need-to-do-when-possible" basis.

Or better yet ask yourself, if I could only do one thing today, what would it be?

Set priorities every day, preferably, before you leave today. Then you will have a written plan of action each morning to start your day. You may not get it all done, but you certainly will be farther ahead.

Concentrate your time and energies on the 20 percent of your activities, contacts and ideas that have proven most productive to you in the past.

What this means is that you need to focus your sphere of influence on the most productive people and actions.

This week focus on doing high priority work first!
Now Go Sell Something!

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