Anyone can dream, many will plan, but few will actually do. Which one are you? A dream left unfulfilled will remain just that – a dream. A plan left unworked will never be completed. It’s not about what you dream, nor what you plan. It’s about what you do – that is what truly counts.
I don’t want to just talk about this in regard to your annual plans or your long-term objectives. I am referring to this month and even this week. When you get done with your week, do you look back in awe at what you achieved or do you look back, shrug your shoulders, and say, “next week, I’ll do better.”
The question you have to ask is, is it better to over dream / over plan for each week, month, quarter or to just focus on doing? Dreams and plans are not only for the long-term, they’re for today. In my new book A Mind For Sales, I talk about the importance of balance and how you get that. I talk about your need for 25-year goals, including one “moon shot goal.” I also talk about daily goals and even daily dreams.
Each day, you encounter numerous opportunities but the vast majority you never capitalize on, sadly. You don’t capitalize on them because you fail to see them, not for what they are but for what they could become. Let’s not get hung up here on chasing squirrels and shiny objects. No, I want you to be mentally prepared to process every opportunity in order to objectively evaluate everything. I want you to be ready to see one item, immediately match it with something else and then dream about the potential. And one important note on all of this: it needs to be done in less than a minute. Don’t tell me you can’t do it that fast. Remember your last customer call when the customer mentioned three things that you had to run with immediately?
Our ability to dream, plan and achieve begins with us being open to everything out there around us. It’s about taking small clues and matching them up with other items. It’s about taking that comment a customer says in passing and probing deeper to understand the customer’s true intent behind it.
Sales is not about incremental opportunities, and it starts with how you think and how you process. With each opportunity you see, you need to ask yourself the following questions:
- What impact could this have on others?
- How could this become even bigger?
- How and what could this align with to increase success?
- Who has the expertise to carry it forward and make it bigger?
- What is my role?
These are simple questions but if you process opportunities alongside asking these questions, your immediate thinking and goals will change, not just for this quarter but beyond. Your customers need you, not for what you are today but for what you can help them become tomorrow.
Anyone can dream, many will plan, but it’s up to you to go past both and make it happen!
Copyright 2020, Mark Hunter “The Sales Hunter” Sales Motivation Blog. Mark Hunter is the author of High-Profit Prospecting: Powerful Strategies to Find the Best Leads and Drive Breakthrough Sales Results
