Hit your sales targets with these habits that take 15 minutes a day.
If you want this to be the year you reach your sales quotas, it’s about moving out of the reactive and back into proactive. Sticking to these simple and proven sales habits will have you smash your sales targets. And the best bit? They can take less than 15 minutes a day.
1. Get back to good habits
The secret to supercharging your sales performance revolves around building good habits that become second nature. When you’re drowning in your inbox and over your head in proposal requests, proactive outreach is usually the first thing to be knocked to the bottom of your to-do list. But as Einstein said, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.” New sales outreach activities every day (yep, every day!) are essential to hitting those quotas. Start small and identify two to three proactive sales activities you can do each day. Something you can achieve in under 15 minutes – think prospect follow-ups, reconnecting with past clients, sending that email to a new contact or sharing relevant educational material with people who’d appreciate it. Fifteen minutes a day is 75 minutes over a week, and 300 minutes over a month. This is a relatively small time investment for a potentially big impact on your sales pipeline.
2. Get gritty
Psychologist Angela Duckworth spent 10 years looking at what factors most impacted success in the great performers of our world. She found the only factor that correlated with success across the board was grit. There are lots of definitions of grit, but really, it’s about the ability to persevere when things get hard. So, remember those good habits we talked about above … how likely are you to stick to them on a day that doesn’t go to plan? Are you still going to spend 15 minutes following up prospects when suddenly your diary has been filled with meetings? If you want to reach those targets, you need to make sure you do. You can make it easier for yourself – like choosing to schedule your 15 minutes of proactivity first thing, while your willpower reserves are strong, and before distractions derail your day. Chuck a reminder in your calendar, a post-it note on your desk, or add a passive-aggressive reminder to your screensaver (it works!).
3. Keep score
I hate to break it to you, but you’re probably in the wrong industry if you’re a salesperson and you don’t like keeping score. Beyond the sales profession though, the power of progress is actually fundamental to human nature and explained by something called The Progress Principle in a book by the same name written by Teresa Amabile and Steven Kramer. Everyday progress – even the smallest accomplishment – can make all the difference to how we feel, and therefore perform. The results of your proactive activities might not pay off for weeks, so give yourself a hit of dopamine with instant gratification. Don’t underestimate the simple task of crossing something off your to-do list or adding a gold star to a calendar. Seeing your progress add up will keep you going.
4. Reward thyself
Come on, who says thyself these days? Well, nobody really, but it got your attention, right?
And as we know, getting attention is the holy grail of sales. But I digress. This is perhaps my favourite sales habit – self rewards! Yep, you read that right, every time you complete a proactive sales activity, I want you to reward yourself. Charles Duhigg, author of The Power of Habit, subscribes to the habit loop that finishes with a reward. A reward might be that you get to enjoy your daily coffee after you’ve sped through your 15 minutes. Chocolate might work for you, or a walk in the sunshine? The trick is to find what works for you and tie it to the daily proactive sales activity. You can’t underestimate the intrinsic reward either. Every time you perform the proactive sales activity, a vote is cast internally that places you as a high-performance sales professional and that’s tied to your desired identity. This is one of the most powerful ways we change behaviours.
Fifteen minutes of proactive sales activity every day (remember, daily is the key!) will go a long way to help you smash your sales targets this year. Get back to the good habits and see the power they have.
Abbie White is a leader in the field of high-performance sales, and is the founder of sales transformation company, Sales Redefined. Find out more about Abbie: Our Founder | Sales Redefined