A Mind for Sales: Daily Habits and Practical Strategies for Sales Success

“I am not just loving Monday but every day because of the opportunities that await me. There is no doubt that training a mind for sales starts with how you approach the week.”

Mondays are the most powerful day of the week as this is when we begin our working day. How you choose to spend it will become an indicator of how you spend the rest of the week. 

You may think Monday is a good day to get yourself organized and that your customers may not be keen to talk to you anyway. The ‘Monday malaise’ results from everyone else thinking the same way. Maybe you think it is the worst time to reach out to customers, but this does not mean that your customers also feel the same. 

Mondays (especially in the morning) are a perfect time to reach out to existing customers and make follow-up calls. Customers will perceive your call as coming from someone who genuinely cares and wants to help. You will find that you will have amazing conversations, gain incremental sales and set yourself apart from the competition.

Your most productive task in sales is customer-facing time. This is the time you spend with a customer in person, over the telephone, via email, or by text. By starting your sales call on Monday morning, you are shaping your day and week ahead, and as a result, you will feel extremely motivated and driven to succeed.  

When we execute Monday well, it is amazing how well the rest of the week goes. Confidence creates confidence, motivation creates motivation, momentum creates momentum, and success breeds success. This is the Success Wheel. Once you get this wheel in motion, there is no limit to what you can achieve.

“You are what you repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” - WILL DURANT

Monday does not start on Monday. How your Monday goes will depend on how you spend your weekend. Don’t let a day end without knowing what you will do tomorrow, especially on a Sunday or Monday. What is your plan to get ready for Monday?

Many people find the weekend, especially Sunday night, stressful for a new week beginning. The reasons for this stress will vary. Regardless of the root cause, most stress is self-induced and results from how we choose to respond to what is going on around us. 

You cannot control your environment, so worrying about it is just a waste of energy. Focus your energy on what you can control. Plan your work and work your plan. Be confident in what you do and recognize the impact you make on others. This planning will lead to success, and it starts with how you plan your week.

“You cannot lead anyone until you first lead yourself.”

How many times have you made a sales call without having your head in the game? You can probably recall many instances where one bad call wrecked the next and even destroyed the whole day. It’s easy to say, ‘Shut out the noise! Don’t let one bad situation impede your next call! Yet it becomes more difficult to do that as our minds can be the greatest obstacle to overcome. 

So how do you overcome the seeds of doubt that can grow into mighty oak trees in your mind? You cannot allow what happened in the past to impede whatever you do in the present or future. If you think of top athletes, they do not let the poor results of one play impact their next game. They go into every play expecting their best.

This mindset is one of the biggest differences between average salespeople and peak performers. Peak performers don’t allow the past to impact how they feel about the next activity, so they easily move on. If you were to ask yourself: ‘In thirty days from now, will I even remember this call?’ The answer is probably no, and neither will the customer.

Salespeople all have a certain amount of fear inside them. Fear and hesitation are not foreign to top performers. Each day you will have to make a decision, or the decision will be made for you. The choice is whether to have a great day full of opportunities or one to respond to what is thrown at you.

“When you view sales as taking from others, it’s a job. View sales as helping others, and you will be on the path of making sales a lifestyle.”

If you are making prospecting calls, you need to accept that you will disrupt people. Instead of thinking that you are being a burden, start thinking that you are promoting possibilities to those who want more for themselves and their companies. This can’t happen unless you make the call and disrupt them.

The calls you make, even those to casual leads, are still opportunities for you to help. After you reach them the first time or the tenth time, they still may not know or see your value, but it does not mean you cannot help them. They just have not realized it yet.

Customers do not want to be sold anything. They want to buy solutions that will help them achieve their desired outcome. Sometimes, they might already know the outcome even before beginning the process. But they often achieve far better than these expectations, all thanks to you – the salesperson.

Understanding how your product or service helped the customer is critical. Studying these outcomes is important. Firstly, you will recognize a higher value in what you are selling. Secondly, you will see how you are not just selling something but partnering with customers to understand how you can help them. 

When you begin to see sales as something you need to do to help customers, you are on the way to seeing sales as a lifestyle.

“What you should have is a set of measurements that are meaningful and will help you be successful.”

Measuring performance is an important part of sales. However, you need to establish a set of meaningful measurements to help you succeed. Focusing on irrelevant or negative measurements (such as how often you hear the word ‘no’ from a customer) will be a waste of time and effort, making you feel depressed.

Choose to measure something that will motivate you and drive your performance forward rather than driving you to despair. To do this, you will need a scoreboard.

Mondays are your day to push forward on your goals, not the reset button. Struggling salespeople are quick to think that they will be successful if they just reset their goals. However, resetting your goals is not the answer to failing performance – resetting your plan on how to achieve them is. 

If your only free time is first thing in the morning, focus on your highest priorities for the day over checking emails or social media. When is the best time to check email? Most emails you receive are a waste of time. Scan your email every morning and react to those emails you deem truly pressing. All others can wait. 

Who is in charge when it comes to your goals? Are you or someone else? Most salespeople, when pushed, will admit someone else is in charge when it comes to their goals – usually their manager. They also tend to push back about the number of these assigned targets and waste their energy complaining about the numbers they cannot control. 

If you want to succeed in sales, you must learn to focus only on what you can control and on your short-term and long-term goals. Looking at where you will be in the next 25 years or so will motivate and drive you to achieve your desired outcome – which is critical to your ongoing success.

“A myth too many salespeople buy into is, the sales profession is just glorified customer service - taking care of customers by being nice to them.”

Sales is about creating incremental value. Every day, your focus must be on your leads, prospects, and customers. Your purpose is to help them see and achieve what they did not think was possible.

This means you will interrupt them, challenge them and push them when necessary. Sales is about delivering incremental value to the customer when they were not expecting it and most likely did not know they needed it!

If you are old enough, think back to the days before smartphones. We were happy with our flip phone; it was a massive improvement from the original ‘brick’ cell phones! Suddenly, Steve Jobs tells us that we need a smartphone – a device including a camera, music player, and computer all in one phone. This was not something we had thought about or were asking for as we did not see the possibility.

Sales is not customer service – but about showing the customer incremental outcomes for their business. Customer service is a key activity and essential to any company, but it lives in its own world. Clearly both departments interface with customers, but their objectives are different. Customer service can take care of where the customer is currently. Your role is moving the customer forward.

“Negotiating does not have to be evil, and it does not have to be part of every sales transaction.”

A major misconception people have about sales is the idea that all salespeople want to do is negotiate. There is also a misconception that both sides are trying to take advantage of each other. No wonder people hate waking up on a Monday morning or any morning, as they know they will be negotiating a deal.

The best sales are ones with the need for zero negotiations. Negotiation is not a central part of closing the sale because both parties trust each other. Sales is about investing in others to know where they are coming from. This creates mutual trust.

The level of trust between both parties determines the level of negotiations needed to make the sales. If you want to minimize negotiation, building trust is critical. Adopting the sell first before negotiating is a good tactic.

If you take the time to sell first, establish trust and create a level of confidence, you will understand your customers' needs at a deeper level. Higher trust and deeper conversations lead to greater outcomes on both sides.

We are all attracted to those like us, which translates over to the sales process. The lower the level of trust between two parties, the longer the negotiations will be. Waking up on Monday and being excited for the day ahead is a lot easier if you approach it from a foundation of trust and integrity.

Having integrity will not take away all the stress, but it will make everything else you do better. Your reputation precedes you. The simplest way to live your life with integrity is by being accountable for what you say you will do and respecting others.

You will still need to negotiate as you encounter those who love to negotiate. They may feel negotiation is their way to feel better about whatever they are buying, and they view not being able to negotiate as a weakness. Maintain your integrity and do not negotiate for the sake of cutting a price. This way, you can protect your integrity and that of your company.

Negotiation does not have to be a part of sales you dread. Sales is about helping others see and achieve what they did not think was possible. Negotiating can be a great experience and provide you with an opportunity to show who you truly are!

“Our impact is greater than we realize.”

Integrity is driven by you. It is not something that exists only in perfect situations and environments. Being motivated and enthused is not something that only exists in perfect companies. Your drive to make a difference is essentially led by you.

We can let our environment control us, or we can choose to make the most of it and see things in a positive light. If you can maintain calm, not stress out or add chaos to a situation, others will respect your leadership, and you will be able to overcome any obstacles.

We cannot underestimate the impact of our actions on others. Your actions, words, and personality impact others. Sales is all about impacting other people. What could possibly be better than waking up on a Monday morning knowing you have the gift to impact others?

One way to ensure success in sales is to value other people more than yourself. Value their goals and aspirations more than you own. Make it your primary objective to learn how you can help your customers and prospects. If you engage with people personally and care about the issues they are facing, they will respond.

Teamwork happens due to a culture anchored by charismatic leadership. Does this mean you have to be charismatic to be successful? No, but in sales, it makes creating bigger outcomes much easier. Charisma is assigned by others and is therefore earned. It comes down to a proven interest in the other person. If you focus on putting others first, you will be amazed at what you will be able to achieve and the impact you have on helping others.

“BEING PASSIONATE ABOUT something is not creepy. Being passionate about something is a badge of honor to be worn proudly.”

Being passionate means that you care and are committed. How passionate are you about sales? How passionate are you about your customers? Having a passion for something means caring deeply and valuing it. 

You may hear that being passionate about sales and customers is not a positive trait. This passion may affect your ability to think objectively, take the customer’s side of things and destroy negotiations as you are more likely to cave in. 

This viewpoint is valid if you do not factor in controls to your passionate approach. You cannot simply give things away to a customer that does not have the financial resources. Passion is built on top of a solid foundation of integrity, and you cannot have integrity if you are simply giving things away based solely on your passion.

Your customers expect you to be passionate. Expectations around customer service have significantly increased in recent years. Customers have options, and they know it. Unless you can breakthrough in a manner others don’t, there is no way you will be successful.

Life is about connecting with people and having a positive impact on someone else. It is about making a difference not just for a day, a month, or even a year but rather a lifetime. Harnessing passion and energy, as well as being productive as possible, is a key way to lead from the front versus leading from behind.

“REGARDLESS OF WHO we are, where we live, or the resources we have, none of us can change a simple fact—there are only twenty-four hours in a day.”

Your three greatest assets are your time, mind, and network. If you can effectively manage these three areas, the more success you will achieve and the more excited you will be for Monday and the rest of the working week.

The first asset to focus on is time. Mastering your time is about getting the most out of it and prioritizing your time wisely. Many salespeople believe that they will be successful if they just do enough of something, which is a complete fallacy. 

Never assume activity will equal results. The question to ask, at least once a day, if not more, is if what you just spent time working on made a difference with a customer or helped you achieve your goals. 

There is a strong belief that early risers are more productive and successful. If you are motivated, you will want to get up early to take advantage of the day. You also need to create a plan for each day; otherwise, getting up early will be a waste of valuable sleep.

Planning your day is just one element. You also need to review your day in terms of what you achieved and whether you generated profit for your company. Time is a wonderful asset that is dispersed evenly to everyone. The only decision is how you choose to use or lose time.

“With each passing year, we gain knowledge. The question is, how valuable is the knowledge and what do we do with it?”

How much are you reading? A simple idea to keep in your mind is you do not need to read until you are the ultimate expert on any given subject. A great goal would be to read enough to hold an intelligent conversation with another person. Achieving this level of knowledge is not hard; it just requires being disciplined at always learning. 

When you meet with customers, your goal is to have them ask you, ‘How long have you worked in this industry?’ This means that the customer feels confident that you fully understand their industry, which is a great honor. 

If you are like most salespeople, you will be selling to a wide range of people or companies. Each interaction will bring up new discussion topics, offering an opportunity to learn and share. This is the moment of payoff.

Are you able to hold your own in these types of conversations? The ability to learn from others is the most enjoyable part of sales. If you can ask a customer a question or make a relevant comment, this will elevate the conversation. Sales is about two parties having confidence in one another. Sharing knowledge is a key part of this process.

Your mind is also what drives you. If you fail to believe, you can be sure that your customer will too. Sales is not for the faint of heart for one reason; the faint of heart are also faint of mind. When we get the mind right, it is amazing to see how many other things fall into place. Ensuring Mondays (and the rest of the week) are the best they can be is vital.

“WHO ARE THE five people in your life who have the most impact on you and from whom you learn the most? The bigger question to ask is, who are the five people you have the privilege to impact and help teach the most?”

The greatest privilege we have in life is the ability to impact and help others in a way that allows them to achieve a higher level of success. This approach is critical if you want to be successful in sales.

Sales is not a solo activity. Sales is a team sport. We perform better when we are aligned with others, which is why your network is such a valuable asset. There are three levels of networks you need to have (known as the network triangle):

1. Mastermind – At the pinnacle of your triangle is your core group. These are people you mastermind with and to whom you are accountable. The mastermind group is like a tree, with each member a limb. Each person is there to share ideas and support one another. As each person becomes stronger, collective strength grows. 
   Accountability is key to any mastermind group. Without it, there is little chance for trust and integrity. The validation point and key to determining who should be in your mastermind group are knowing each other’s goals. Sharing goals and knowing you have support is great. Knowing you are helping others and their goals are motivating.

2. Subject Matter Expert – Second level and a larger group who you draw on regularly for expertise, as they draw on you. You should include people who are smart, authentic, integrity-centered, goal-driven and have divergent views.

3. People of Influence - The bottom tier is the foundation of your network and relates to those you influence and who influences you. People in this group may, over time, move up to become subject matter experts, then, in turn, become masterminds.

Who will you learn from today? Who will you help to learn something new today? Every person you spend time with today offers a learning opportunity. The value of your network will determine the value of your net worth.

“Great salespeople do not try to make all the decisions. I have always said that the person who is willing to involve others and benefit from others will win.”

Your sales team is comprised of both your customers and people in your company and industry. Look at your biggest accounts and ask yourself how many strong connections you have. Your objective is to develop relationships with customers and ensure the right level of focus across all your accounts.

One way to calculate this is by using revenue as a reference point, for example:

1. Revenue: $4,000,000

2. Total Customers: 30

3. Average sales per customer: $133,000

4. For every $133,000 in revenue, you should have ONE strong relationship

Using this number would mean your customer doing $1M in sales should have eight relationships. There will always be exceptions, but this formula provides guidance and enables you to capitalize on opportunities to create more value and sales.

You can build your team even more by having people within your company develop relationships as well. Many salespeople are protective of their accounts, but this can lead to the account never being maximized. Bringing other people in broadens the conversation and allows for more learning.

It is also a priority for your sales manager to spend time with customers and develop positive relationships. Focus on seeing the customer at the beginning of the year as conversations are more strategic and revealing. The objective is to uncover new opportunities and gain a competitive edge as sales managers develop deeper relationships.

If your customers are important to you, you should aim to learn everything you can about them – who they are and what they do. This extends downstream by knowing who they support and who they sell to. Information is power. If you see yourself as a sales leader, you owe it to yourself to gain insight into your customers.

One of the best ways to deepen a relationship with a customer is by sending them insights into their customers. This could be an update in a sales meeting or an email with a link to a newsworthy story about one of their customers. This is a great way to open new doors and deepen relationships with senior executives.

Having insights into your customer’s customers is priceless if you are selling to a department that is closely engaged with its customers. If they feel you understand fully who their customer is, you will be viewed more like a peer or partner than a vendor. Information creates information and opportunities. Opportunities create value. Value creates sales. 

If you are forced to deal with purchasing departments, this exercise will dramatically shift how you interact with them. The worst thing you can do is allow purchasing to be a gatekeeper and block you from doing your job. Push past this and gain insights into who their internal and external customers are, as well as the goals that each of these clients has.

“Software is a gas; it expands to fill its container.” - NATHAN MYHRVOLD

Apps and Hacks Don’t Control You. Control Them.

Sales enablement programs, including SaaS (software as a service) solutions, are viewed as the holy grail of sales success. While these tools can be really helpful, they are not a universal solution, and software will never make a sale on its own – that is your job!

Social Selling is Neither Social Nor Selling

Sales require having one-to-one conversations with real people, and social selling is not the solution for underperforming sales. Social media is most powerful when used in conjunction with the phone, takes online connections, and turns them into offline conversations.

What Your CRM Is Not Telling You

Use your CRM tool to proactively manage your time and help you with leading indicators (buying behavior, for example) rather than focusing on sales administration and reporting. You’ll boost your confidence once you have collated all the insights you have learned from numerous customers logged by the industry.

Quit Thinking Marketing Will Get You Leads

Your job in sales is to get leads, which you can turn into customers, and then close sales. Marketing creates awareness and operates in the big picture world of large audiences. Sales operate with smaller audiences. You cannot rely on marketing to provide all your leads, but you can work collaboratively with them to enhance sales performance.

Sales Is Not a Numbers Game. Sales Is a Quality Game

The only number that matters is the number of satisfied customers you create and their lifetime value. Sales is, therefore, not a numbers game but a quality game. The same can be said about leads; not all leads are worthy of your time. Leads have to earn their way to become prospects, and the sooner you qualify a lead, the better.  

Customer-Facing Time (CFT) is a quality number you want to measure. This is when you directly interact with a customer in-person, by telephone, or by email. You should split this into two categories. One category is existing customers, and the other is prospects, leads, and those who have not bought from you. Increasing your CFT will increase your sales.

Your Pipeline Needs To Be a Water Faucet, Not a Sewer Pipe

Know who your perfect customer is, and go after them. Do not waste your time on them if a lead is not consistent in at least a few areas. Pipelines can get clogged at the top with too many leads and the belief they are all prospects. In the middle, it can get jammed with prospects who have stalled / not responded. At the bottom, it can become blocked because a deal can’t be closed.

Focus on quality over quantity. Leads must earn their right to be in your pipeline. This is where you need to be assertive in asking questions, as the sooner you can qualify a lead, the better off you will be. Your goal is to spend more time with fewer prospects. This way, you will understand their needs and be able to close competitive deals.

“Multiple times in this book, I have stressed the value of time. In the same manner, you must grasp the value of your customer’s time.”

The faster you can close a sale, the more time you will have. Further, the faster you sell, the more value you create for the customer in terms of time saved. This does not mean you should not take time to understand the customer’s needs and ask questions. The objective is to use as much of your time listening to the customer as possible.

The amount of time it takes to respond to an incoming lead is critical. If you can respond quickly and be informed when you respond, you will find that speed sells! Internet searches will enable you to uncover insights on any company or person in less than 30 seconds. The better you understand the customer and their industry, the better questions you will ask.

When you are unfamiliar with a particular industry or demographic group, be mindful of not spending excessive time researching the company or industry. Be careful with your time as it may be wasted in a dead-end opportunity. Just spend a short amount of time (even one minute!) doing some quick research before making a call.

Another inbound lead you need to be mindful of is the quick price. The request is simple; they want a price and nothing else. The person asking is often not looking to buy from you. Most likely, they are looking to validate a buying decision they are working on. Never give out a price until you know you are dealing with a valid buyer.

Speed selling is also about making it easy for the customer to share their needs and respond flexibly to meet these needs. Never discount information you learn from customers. It may not be important right now, but it could be valuable later on.

“Don’t spend your time answering the questions. Spend it questioning the answers.”

When you are confident, you ask better questions. Likewise, when a customer is confident, they ask better questions. So when both parties are confident, there is a robust conversation. Your goal is to ask questions neither of you can answer. This typically leads to follow-up sales calls and opportunities, and it's also a great way to bring new people into the process.

The key to this process is to let the conversation go wherever it needs to go. However, you still need to keep the conversation on track. A good way to approach this is to let the conversation run wide open early, as this may uncover incremental opportunities. As you move further through the sales process, pull in the questions and keep them focused.

How do you handle a prospect who has no interest but lacks the confidence to tell you? Often these clients will ask you to send some information, and they will get back to you, which will likely not happen! It does not matter if the customer asked for information. We do not have to give it to them without first finding out more information. This is where you need to ask questions and not be shy about it.

Customers want a conversation. They want their questions answered, and they want to be challenged. You will never ask the tough questions if you hide behind a presentation or script. Ditch the presentation and focus on the conversation. When you reach a level of confidence where you no longer need a presentation, great things will happen. The customer gains trust and confidence in you, leading to new insights and bigger opportunities.

Allowing your personality to shine in these conversations is critical. This will relax people and allow for a more open conversation. One of the best benefits you gain from allowing your personality to come through is the added energy and drive from just being yourself. Suddenly, the conversation will become more open, and you will learn even more.

Another great way to ask tough questions is to bring your boss along on the sales call! The presence of your boss or another senior-level person automatically makes the conversation more robust. When there is a second person on the sales call, something unusual occurs. Questions and chats are almost always much better.

“No is merely a word. And best of all, hearing the word allows us the opportunity to never forget.”

When a person says no to you, it is one of two reasons. First, they may not have time to talk because they consider other things more important. Second, they do not see enough value to continue the discussion or buy. These are two completely different reasons, and it's a big mistake to see them as the same.

When someone says no because they have other things on their agenda, remember that this is their problem, not yours. Provide them with an option that better fits their time or schedule. The sooner you can continue the discussion, the better.

In contrast, if they said no due to a lack of interest or perceived values, this is a ‘no’ you can control. It is up to you to help them see the value, which is why you want to talk to them. Zero in on their needs by asking questions based on their biggest need in the past. If the customer has not provided you with an indication of their needs, ask a profile question. This is a question a person in a similar role would find valuable.

One of the best ways to decrease hearing the word ‘no’ is by engaging early in the conversation with questions about the customer. It’s not about you or your company; it is about your customer. Go on the offense to uncover their needs at the start, and do not shy away from tough questions. You want a conversation, so you need to engage them quickly.

When top performers hear the word no, they think the process is just getting started. There is no reason to be frustrated or disappointed if their “no” is valuable. No is never permanent. We have nothing to lose by asking questions after hearing a no from a customer.

“You can walk away from a prospect or a customer, and it can be the best thing you do.”

Understanding the correlation between your time and the value of the sales opportunity is critical. If the value of the big prospect you are calling on is equal to your annual goal, keep going. Your investment of time has the potential for a big payout. If that same opportunity has very little chance of working out, you need to question your time.

You may have smaller prospects you can reach out to quickly. Although the reward might be low, the time required is minimal. The key is to have the right balance in your pipeline with a mix of prospects. Keep your pipeline full, but make sure each opportunity has earned the right to be in your pipeline. 

Walking away from a prospect does not have to be permanent. Sometimes (for your sanity!), it is best to take a sabbatical and return to the client a few months down the road. The same thing applies to difficult customers, who you can never seem to please. You have three options in this situation:

1. Continue to be in pain over this customer!

2. Allow your competitor the privilege of serving the customer

3. Renegotiate the relationship

Before considering firing a customer, you need to ask how the situation arose in the first place. This can be due to a faulty sales process or false expectations, for example. If expectations cannot be met, it is best to cut ties. Allowing your competitor to stress over them should allow you to sleep better!

If the issue is merely a customer service issue requiring more attention, the solution may lie in a price increase. This is not a universal solution but one that is available in varying forms to many companies. This does not have to be complicated. You tell the customer the new price, and if they reject it, they just fire themselves!

You do not walk away from a stupid customer because you do not have stupid customers. It can be tempting to say that a customer is not deciding to buy because they are stupid. It is our job to educate the customer, so this viewpoint is more of an indictment of your inability to communicate. 

Sales is about influencing and impacting others. Your goal is to help customers see and achieve what they did not think was possible. In this sense, you need to prioritize lifting up customers and putting them in a positive light rather than viewing them as stupid. What you think doesn’t matter. The only thing that matters is what the customer thinks.

“When we close a sale, we are opening a relationship. It does not matter what it is the customer is buying from you. The last thing you want it to be is an end.”

The easiest business you will ever get will come from existing customers. They are either buying more or referring you to someone who will buy from you. You should already be planning for the next sale from the first sale to the customer.

When your mindset shifts to opening rather than closing, you’ll begin to look at things differently. You will be far likelier to contact customers. Reach out and stay in touch with every customer you have ever had, even those you were never quite able to get to buy. You will soon find opportunities to make more sales and secure referrals. 

Tracking the amount of business you receive from a customer and any additional sales created through referrals and other sources resulting from the original customer is vital. These numbers are a keen indicator of your reputation in the market.

If you are meeting and exceeding expectations, these numbers should always increase over time. The other important insight is how effectively you keep the customer engaged after the initial sale. You cannot afford to treat a consumer as a one-time transaction, regardless of what you sell.