[E128] Time To Reflect Back & Plan Ahead

Hi and welcome back to the sales experience podcast. My name again is Jason Cutters, so glad that you’re here, so thankful that you’re downloading this podcast. Hopefully with the goal of improving your sales experience for yourself, for your team, for your customers, for your prospects. I wanted to make a really quick short episode today. It is Christmas 2019 if you’re listening to this, the day it came out, Merry Christmas. If not happy holidays, no matter when you’re listening to this, and I just wanted to make a short episode. Kind of touch on something here that I think is important to always remember is that this time of year, especially if you’re in sales, things tend to slow down. Now there’s some of that happens when sales reps kind of give up and think that it’s going to be slow and they kind of create that self-fulfilling prophecy.

Then there are other times where it’s just slow because your clients are not there. Your prospective customers are not there. Whether it’s business to business, business to consumer, they’re just not around. They’re not thinking about it. There’s not much you can do about it. And you’ve just got to understand that and then give yourself a break. And so this is a little reminder I wanted to record and share is to give yourself that break. It’s really tough, especially as salespeople and sales managers, cause you always feel like you got to keep going. You can’t give yourself that time off. If you stop, then everything stops and your pipeline is going to dry up or your income is going to drop. And sometimes you don’t feel it right now in the moment you’re going to feel it in a month or two months when a, you know, you slow down now and there’s less to work on down the road or fewer people that you’re nurturing or talking to.

But this is a good reminder. Always make sure that you give yourself some time off, whether you’re spending time with family or by yourself, traveling, staying home, you know, always understand that it’s good to give yourself a break. And this time of year can be pretty stressful. You know, a lot of times I see salespeople who are stressed out about the holidays, about money. I know I have been there, I have been there where during this time of year I have been very stressed out, very worried, very concerned about money and where things are going to go and where I’m at right now at this point in the year. And then going into the new year. I’ve also spent times around the holidays where I’m not worried and not stressed because I’m doing really well. Money has been there and the success has been there and things feel like they’re on a roll in the holidays feel much better cause there’s that momentum.

And so I’ve seen both sides and I’ve dealt with both sides and I’ve also spent holidays where the money might not be there. The success, the direction, the future might be uncertain. Don’t know where things are going to go. And I’m still not worried about it because I know that it will all work out. And this holiday season, just remember what the great philosopher Bobby McFarland says, don’t worry, be happy. So enjoy the holidays and relax. Now, if you’re in sales and you have some downtime during the Christmas season, like between Christmas and new years, I strongly suggest and would love for you to take time to review how this past year went. How did 2019 go? Spend an hour writing out what happened just right out of basically a play by play of what happened throughout your year in life, relationships, finances, health, spiritual, all of those categories. Just write out how the year went. Just take your time and just replay that kind of like we talk about with sales where you want to listen to your calls or have someone watch your interactions with your customers and then give you that feedback to, same thing you want to do at the end of the year.

Just take some time. Spend some time. Most people don’t spend any time planning their life or setting their goals or really doing anything right. If you look at the amount of time people will spend planning a vacation, it’s usually far more than people spend planning out their life or what they’re going to do, their strategies, where they’ve been, what’s working, what’s not working, and if you look at how much time people will spend watching TV shows or binge watching series or movies online on Netflix versus how much time people spend on themselves and getting where they need to be, then you’ll notice that if you can carve out some time, spend it on recapping and looking at it, not for anyone else, not to share with anyone else but just for your own head and then see where you’ve been and then appreciate how far you’ve come.

And then what you want to do is you want to look ahead. What do you want to create in the next year? What do you want to create in 2020 what are your goals you want to have and that you want to shoot for and go after? Whether it’s sales, whether it’s business, whether it’s finances, life, relationships, spiritual, maybe it’s health related. What are the things you want to do and not in a new year’s resolution way where you get excited, you start out strong. And then next thing you know by February you’ve already given up and you’ve gone back to your routines. But what kind of things are you actually wanting to go after and create in your life? And then if you also want to take this to the next level, look back at the last decade, right? We are about to finish the decade of the 2010s and so look back at what you went through in the last decade.

Where were you 10 years ago versus where you are now? What did you go through? What ups and downs, career, relationships, what was yours like? I know that I did that recently and look back the last 10 years, and I’m not necessarily further ahead than where I wanted to be, but based on everything that happened in the last 10 years for me, I am so thankful to be at this point and moving forward, having gone through everything I have as I go into this next chapter right this next decade. And then figuring out where you want to be in this next decade. If you can look out that far, sometimes it’s really tough, especially if you’ve been like me where if you look back, there’s no way you could have predicted where you aren’t now relative to where you were five years ago, 10 years ago, maybe one year ago.

And so to look out 10 years for most people is really challenging because they cannot fathom or even imagine what that’s going to be like in 10 years. But put some time and effort into it. Figure out what that would look like if you had your way, if you got what you wanted, where would you want to be in 10 years at the end of the 2020s where do you see yourself? What would you love to have be do and relationships, business, finance, all of those things. Where would you want to be? And then when you set your intentions on that, you set some goals around that. You will move that direction. Now, of course life is going to toss you around a bit and we know that and if you’ve been through life at all, you understand that it does come for you from time to time and kind of mix up your plans.

But just focus on what you want to create in this next year and this next decade. It’s so important and always remember that wherever you are in life right now, you can change that and no matter what age you are focused on the fact that no matter what’s happened for you, with you to you or not happened for you, with you to you, there is still so much life left. Like I am 44 right now and I feel like I am pretty much at the halfway point. I feel like I’ve, this is halftime. I’ve spent 44 years on the planet and here I am the next 44 years. Who knows? So I don’t feel like, Hey, my life is over, I’m getting old. And you know, I feel like literally there’s so much time and space ahead of me now that doesn’t mean that I don’t want to create anything and I’m not going to work hard because I know I’ve got too much time left.

But it means patience that I know I will create things in the next 45 50 years, 60 years. Who knows by then and that I want to work hard now and I want to do lots of things and create lots so that I can see what amazing things will happen. So if you’re listening to this, that’s my kind of Christmas end of the year goal setting, help you focus. Also, if you’re in sales, set some parameters and some guidelines and some goals around what it is that you want to create in your sales career. And keep in mind there’s the sales itself, like how much do you want to make? How many sales do you need to do in this next year to hit those goals? If you have that in mind, you know what that is. Assuming you don’t change careers, change companies, but also what is it that you need to do?

What do you need to learn? Who do you need to become to hit those goals? Because always remember that where you are now and everything that you have now is a result of who you are. If you want something bigger, better, different, greater relationships, finances, business, whatever that is, then you have to become something different. You have to learn new skills. You have to change your mindset. You have to change your focus, change your habits, right? Everything that you have now is a reflection of who you are. If you want something different, you have to become different. What kind of courses can you take? What kind of books can you read? Podcasts? Can you listen to experts? Can you listen to what kind of training programs can you go through? What is it that you would need to add to your toolbox as a sales professional, as a person?

So fixing your mindset or changing the way that you view the world and yourself, your goals, and what is it that you need to do? So it’s one thing to set a goal and say, I want to make X next year. It’s another one to say, okay, I want to make X. What do I need to do differently? Who do I need to become? How can I get there from where I am now? What do I need to add to myself to get there? So hopefully that helps. Again, Merry Christmas, happy holidays whenever you’re listening to it. And may the new year be great for you no matter what. And as always, keep in mind that everything in life is sales. And people remember the experience you gave them.