Colleen’s Blog

“This year is going to be MY year.” Almost without fail, each year we all hear phrases like this leading into January. It’s a good thing. It shows that most people have a genuine interest in being successful. Unfortunately, interest alone is not enough to follow through with creating real success. You must develop an unwavering commitment to your success and follow through by taking serious action. Over the years, I have worked with and observed many successful salespeople. By successful, I mean they are pulling in at least $500k or more in personal income each year. Find one of these successful salespeople - better yet, find five of them. Take note of the things that they all have in common with each other. Yes, there will be some differences in their style, methods and philosophies. After all, they’re different people! But, if you can pinpoint their similarities, you can absorb those traits and emulate their daily activities to bring you success as well. Keep in mind that the people you model should be people whose results you admire in business, and outside of business. As we all know, a healthy income means very little if you’re always stressed and unable to enjoy personal time. <-- Click To Tweet To help out your cause, here are a few similarities that I have found exist in the successful salespeople that I have observed:

This is one season that can cause a lot of confusion for many salespeople. No - not confusion with their sales, but with the idea of giving gifts to their clients. “What should I buy my clients?” “Can I give them gifts?” “Should I even acknowledge them during the Christmas season?” Do any of these questions sound familiar? You've probably asked them at some point...either out loud or to yourself!

Do you turn your computer on each morning only to find a mountain of unread emails that need your attention? Email overload is an epidemic in the workplace. Most salespeople that we poll tell us that they spend up to 40% of their day just managing email correspondence between clients and internal partners. If this sounds about right for you as well, let me put things in perspective. If you continue this trend throughout 2015 and work 5 days a week, you will spend 104 days next year in your email inbox. Imagine the number of sales you will be missing out on! It's time to re-align your mindset. Email does not close business for you. You close sales based on your personal relationships. Stop working so hard behind your computer and go meet customers in person, or pick up the phone and call them. In order to increase productivity (and sales) you must learn to manage your email inbox. <-- Click To Tweet Here are 5 tips for staying on top of your emails:

Wow. In three weeks we are officially going to be in 2015. You're hearing me talk a lot about year end activities and tips for starting 2015 on the right foot. This is a deliberate attempt to help you focus on getting ahead and making the upcoming year your most successful to date. If you're reading this blog and taking the time to increase your knowledge, I know you can do it. Speaking of focus, what are you focused on in your day-to-day tasks and routines?

As salespeople, we spend many hours investing in our own knowledge. Workshops, conferences, coaching, books...the list goes on! The best sellers are always looking for new ways to increase their knowledge and expose themselves to new information. This is such an essential key for massive success in sales, but it won’t do you any good if you lack perhaps the most important ingredient in business, which is honesty. To be fair - the majority of salespeople aren’t “dishonest” people. But, it’s safe to say that many salespeople extend or bend the truth to either belittle the competition or make up for weaknesses in their own product or service. Don’t be one of the many!