Give Your Sales Day a “Fun” Boost
Disclaimer: My definition of “fun” here may be a little bit different! The concept behind these tips is to get yourself out of your normal mindset in order to make yourself a more effective hunter and hopefully have a little bit of fun in the process.
If your job involves mostly prospecting, you MUST find ways to make it fun. And if you care about success, you must find ways to push yourself to your limits.
When trying to find my limits in anything, I like to start with, “how effective could I be right now if my life really depended on it?”
For example, if you are running and push yourself to run 5 miles, you probably feel like you CAN’T do anymore. But if you ask yourself, “could I run another 5 if a pack of wolves were chasing me?” you will probably realize you can. It doesn’t mean you always should, but starting with this mindset allows you to be more honest with yourself.
“I did my best” is simply inaccurate 99% of the time people say it.
To be clear, I am not suggesting anyone think or try to work every day as if their life literally depended on it. I am suggesting you use this thought experiment to get a better perspective on where you are on the effort spectrum.
Sales effort spectrum:
I just won the lotto and this is my last day → slacker, getting by → average → hard worker → very driven → hardest working person I know → life depends on it
Most people are typically one category to the left of where think they are, but that’s a separate topic. More importantly, most people want to be at least one category to the right.
Now that you have perspective, you realize that you are not doing close to everything you can. So how can you close the gap and move to the right in a healthy way?
My answer has always been to create little competitions and games for myself.
Outside competitions are okay too, but if you are in sales they are usually out of your control, and as most people know internal motivation is far more powerful than outside motivation.
Examples of Prospecting Games:
- You don’t eat until you set a demo (intermittent fasting is good for you too)
- Declare to your team: if you don’t set a demo by 12pm, you buy the whole team lunch
- In the middle of the winter, 4 hour time block. At minute :50 of each hour if you have not set an appointment you run a mile, if you have set one, you stay warm and take a break (I really did this.. once)
- On a Friday, as soon as you set a demo, you leave for the weekend (you probably want to be at or above quota before doing this one)
I have done all of these. I have set demos that I would not have otherwise set. I have won new business because I went way further than I normally would go because of a seemingly silly game I created for myself.
This only works in small doses, but if you really commit to the game, it will put you into overdrive.
