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Think positive, take action to have your best year ever
By Jeffrey Gitomer
Contributing Writer
Everyone wants to have their “best year ever,” but the fact is, more than half won’t. And, of course, you’re reading this thinking, “Too bad for them,” because you’re certain that you will.
Interestingly, thinking that you will, will put you in a positive position to help make it happen, but thought alone doesn’t guarantee it. You also need to act on the goal.
And keep in mind that everyone wants to have a best year ever too, including your competition.
Well, I have good news: I’m going to provide you with a detailed list of elements that, if employed in your daily sales life, will give you your best year ever.
Define yourself
In order to have your best year ever, the first person you have to know, on as deep a level as humanly possible, is yourself.
Personally, I define myself as a father, a grandfather, a writer, a speaker, an idea person, a thinker, a traveler with endless wanderlust, a student and a lover of fun and fine things.
Contrary to what you might think, I’m not a people-person. I’m a one-on-one person. I get loyalty by giving loyalty. And I seek new knowledge every day.
Have you ever defined yourself? Have you ever thought about who you are? Have you ever written it down? Start now.
Your first challenge is to book an hour with yourself. Find a comfortable chair, and put your battery-powered laptop on Microsoft Word.
Define who you think you are. Or even better, define who you think you are at the moment and who you would like to become.
One of the thinkers I respect most in the world, Dr. Paul Homily, taught me to make decisions based on the person I want to become. Like any eye-opening, thought-provoking statement, it was also a life-changing statement.
Once you define yourself, you will ascertain both where you are and where you want to go.
I’ll share one other personal insight with you: I also define myself as the “best salesman in the world.”
It is a personal feeling and a sense of self-confidence that I carry with me wherever I go.
When you define yourself, make certain that you include everything that you are “best” at. In order to have your best year ever, you have to think of yourself as best, even if it is “best salesperson in the company,” or “best water skier in the city.”
Whatever it is, to be the best, or to have the best, you have to think the best.
Develop a mission statement
Every company has a mission statement, and none of you can recite it to me.
The reason?
Because it is a bunch of corporate marketing drivel that you don’t believe in, let alone memorize.
What you need is a sales mission—a reason to walk in the door with information the customer can use, be memorable about it and walk out the door with a signed contract and a check.
The mission that you can all embrace and live by is: “Get the customer to buy from me, and make the experience so memorable that they buy again and tell other people how great I am.”
That is an easy mission for you to live by.
Mission statements are not meant to be memorized; mission statements are meant to be incorporated into your philosophy as something that you carry with you as a statement of action.
Your next mission is to read my next column for part two of how to have your best year ever.
Jeffrey Gitomer, author of The Sales Bible and The Little Red Book of Selling, is the president of Charlotte-based Buy Gitomer. E-mail him at salesman@gitomer.com.
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