It is important to remember you have all summer

The latest issue of A Chip off the Block is The Garden Edition and talks about The Top 10 Things Sales Taught Me About Gardening here is my TeleSales Twist on Point #8.

It is important to remember you have all summer

I was lucky enough to have a reminder of this when I was running out of steam after a few hours of solid effort.

My husband walked by and said “you don’t have to finish that today; you have all summer you know”.

I learned in sales that a day, week, month, or even quarter – doesn’t make or break your career. When the effort has been put in and you’re getting tired for that day (or in that account) it is important to remember we have all summer.

Stop for a moment and look at what is on your desk. Have you been stressing out over NOT having something finished?

If not, you can probably stop reading here.

If you found something, let’s examine it together (virtually of course… unless you’d like to call me for some coaching):

1. WHY are you doing it at all?
2. Will anyone notice if it is never completed? (if the answer is no, STOP even thinking about it)
3. Pick one reason it isn’t done: stuck (ie: don’t know what to do), skill (ie: don’t know how to), priority (ie: other things get in the way), time (ie: too many activities daily).

stuck (ie: don’t know what to do)

• Here is the thing about being stuck, it is time to find someone to help. If you don’t know what to do, find someone you can work with and figure it out together… or choose a mentor with experience getting that goal done and work to modify their success strategy to fit you.

skill (ie: don’t know how to)

• Simple solution – identify what you don’t know how to do and pick one of two strategies: #1 hire someone else to do it or #2 learn how to do it yourself. I didn’t tell you it was going to be easy!

priority (ie: other things get in the way)

• This part is tricky; you have something on your desk,  you know why it is important, you know who it is important to – now you have to figure out how it is important to YOU. that is the key to putting it at the top of your priority list, keeping the why at the top of your mind.

time (ie: too many activities daily)

• I don’t mean to be rude (alright maybe I do) but time is NOT a renewable resource. You can’t make time, only spend it. On top of that we all have exactly the same amount available every day – it is about choosing how to spend it – and that is no different than choosing how to spend money. Now go back and re-read priority 😉

Hopefully you have an ah ha moment about what ever it is that is sitting on your desk. Now on to my husband’s point “you don’t have to finish that today; you have all summer you know.”

Instead of looking at DONE, lets pick a little tiny action you can take today to get you moving in the direction of DONE.

1. What is the 1st little tiny action you can take? TAKE IT before doing anything else (including reading the rest of this post)
2. Between where you are right now and DONE – what is the 1st milestone you need to reach?
3. Make a list of all the little tiny actions that will get you there.

Here is my crazy idea… go do that, then figure out from the 1st milestone what the next one will be. Don’t worry about mapping the entire thing out – rather get yourself moving in the right direction. Before you know it, you’ll look up and the next milestone will be DONE.