Do Over

Over the past few months I have written often on the impact of emotion in the role of sales leadership and as a salesperson during the sales process. This time, I am taking a slightly different viewpoint: you as an individual, and your personal life.

In the role of sales management, here's a coaching technique I recommend: After every face-to-face sales call and after every sales training session at your office, you should ask that person, "If you had it to do over again, what would you do differently -- if anything?" The purpose is for the salesperson to self-critique first before you provide your insights. The real secret in building a self-managed sales team is for you to train your salespeople to personally use this coaching technique when you are not with them -- so that it becomes a daily self-improvement, self-check system for each salesperson.

The "do over" question is one that I ask people to ask of their personal lives. In my keynote, I sometimes open with that question. My objective is to help each person evaluate their lives both personally and professionally. During the program I ask each person to evaluate their personal and professional life on eight categories on a score from one to eight, with eight the highest. During this brief exercise, each attendee determines where they are in balance or out of balance and then we cover what I like to call the "balance finders."

We then discuss what I call the "Passion of Impact." As sales leaders and as people, our greatest potential is to impact the lives of others around us -- this is done through coaching, positive attitudes and a giving spirit. I have found that by impacting others, people on a personal and professional level tend to soar, and that often leads to more balance and a sense of fulfillment.

We then ask, "How will you leave this world a better place?" If the answers to your rating shows that you aren’t in the right place, right now, you can always do a "do over" to get yourself there.

What tends to be missing in those individuals that are struggling is they are out of balance or have not built a philosophy to lead. I end the keynote by allowing each person to think about what ingredients they need to make their lives better and what their menu for life will look like.  My theme: Think positive, take action! This idea came out of the 9/11 events of a decade ago, when many were really shocked and frozen.

My mantra is "think positive, take action!" What is your mantra or theme for life? Write me here [email protected]

Posted by Ken Thoreson on April 16, 2010