Sometimes we just start digging. We get dirty. And we're up to our knees or even our head before we stop and ask "What are we doing? And why?!"

And that's when it's time to talk about tactics and strategy.

I see a lot of confusion about the difference between the two. And most of the time it’s not because people don’t understand the difference, it’s because they’re not even aware there are differences.

Strategies are defined plans you put in place to achieve a major company goal. Tactics are the specific actions you take to fulfill that plan.

Example:

Goal - $5 million agency revenue
Strategy – Educate targeted audiences on how to improve their businesses/jobs
Tactic – Write blog posts focused on safety management and HR operations

In order to achieve your desired results, you must have all three of these clearly defined and actively in place. Strategy without tactics is just an idea. Tactics without strategy is just activity. When you do get all three aligned, a couple of very powerful things happen.

1. It becomes very easy to decide if a new idea is worth pursuing. It if doesn’t fit the goal or the strategy, then it gets cut. If it does help the agency achieve the goal, then it’s worth considering as a new tactic for a current strategy or as a new strategy itself.
2. Your entire staff only spends time working on activities that directly tie back to the company goals.

Let’s focus this particular discussion on marketing

As we’ve established in previous posts, getting started with marketing is a common place for agencies to be, and it’s often new territory. Many don’t understand the scope of options, which questions to ask, or how to effectively incorporate it into business processes. It’s more common to see a group of fragmented activities, which may, or may not, be getting the agency closer to its goals.

Let’s look at a couple of examples of tactics vs. strategies.

Example 1. You’ve heard you should be online, so you might say, “let’s set up a Facebook page.”

Is this a tactic or strategy?

Tactic. Facebook is not a strategy. Having a fully defined education campaign incorporating online and offline activities is a strategy. That strategy might include a Facebook presence if you determine through research that your target audience turns to Facebook for educational material.

Example 2. You’ve decided you want to create a brochure. Maybe your agency has always had one, or maybe the owner used one when she/he was on the front lines back in the day.

Tactic or strategy?

Tactic. A brochure is not a strategy. A defined sales or recruiting process that is intended to inform and educate prospects or potential employees about the benefits of doing business with your company is a strategy. A brochure might be a specific step in your process if you’ve determined through research that prospects and/or potential employees like to have a generic, printed brochure they can keep on file.

Example 3. You set up a whole group of online social activities – blog, Twitter, Facebook, newsletter.  You promote each of your service offerings (personal lines, P&C, employee benefits, financial services, etc.) via all of these channels and mostly overlap the content.

Tactic or strategy?

Tactic. This might seem like a tricky one because it’s such a robust set of activities that is taking a lot of time to manage. But social networks and pushing content are not strategies. Back to Example 1 – creating a fully defined education campaign incorporating online and offline activities is a strategy. A key to this one is very clearly defining your multiple audiences and targeting your content to each one vs. just sharing all of your content indiscriminately across all platforms.

Example 4. Last one. In order to achieve your aggressive growth goals, you need to be proactively promoting your services to local businesses. You want them to know about the array of knowledge your team has and how that knowledge, combined with your processes, can help them improve their businesses.  This is imperative for improving sales efforts.

You decide you have three distinct audiences – HR managers, Risk Managers, and CEOs.  You do your collective research and find that your clients in these three groups look for answers, education, and networking opportunities in three separate places:

• Online (e.g. LinkedIn, blogs and specialty sites)
• At local business events/groups (e.g. CEO forum, SHRM, Contractors group)
• From their attorneys and accountants

You also find out the type of information and answers they’re looking for when they’re out searching.

You decide that an online presence is a valuable place to be. You create a team to manage this effort directed to your targeted audiences and create an editorial calendar to deliver on the targeted content.

You decide that an active presence in the local groups is a valuable place to invest time. You determine who will participate in each and how each will participate.

You decide that developing strong connections with local attorneys and accountants is a valuable use of time. You decide who will pursue each niche and how you will go about developing and maintaining each relationship.

You have follow-through, accountability, and an expectation from the top of the agency that this is mission-critical work to focus everyone and achieve agency goals.

Tactic or strategy?

Strategy. You defined what you are trying to accomplish with your marketing efforts and why it’s an important use of agency resources. You defined your audiences, identified their individual needs, learned where they are going for information, and you developed a plan of what you intend to do and accomplish in each of the targeted areas (who will be involved, what the content will be, and what the timing/frequently will be).

Slow down to speed up

It’s really true. Instead of pushing ahead with an ad-hoc group of activities because you feel you’ve got to have a presence somewhere, it’s better to just stop and do some strategic planning. If you don’t have a strategy, which ties to a defined company goal, you are wasting a lot of your staff’s time managing projects that may or may not be moving you closer to your company vision.

With an average payroll efficiency factor of 63%, there is enough wasted time in the day that you don’t need to have your staff pursuing activities that don’t directly tie to the company goals.

Stop.

Define your agency goals.

Determine what the major strategies are that will help you get there.

Work with your staff to create the specific tactics that they’ll be implementing and maintaining in pursuit of your strategic vision.

Photo by Lollie-Pop.

@wendykeneipp

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I’m concerned about the social media activity I see from so many benefits and insurance agencies. In the quest to say “we’ve gone social!”, unfortunately many have gotten off on the wrong path because they got started without really understanding what they were getting started doing.

Social media:

It is like a relationship – two people have to actively participate and be interested in one another in order to make it work.

It isn’t a one-way marketing activity where we just put our promotional information out for others to see and hear.

Have you ever been in a meeting or maybe at a dinner party where you just sit and say nothing because the other person does all the talking? They don’t really care what you have to say, and don’t even need any social queues to keep going.

I don’t know about you, but when I’m in a situation like this, I often end up not listening because my mind has moved on to any thought that doesn’t involve the current “conversation”.

When people or companies choose to participate in social media and they don’t understand that it’s a two-way relationship, then they are guilty of committing this very same social flaw.

Take an assessment of your own or your company activity

If all you do on social media sites is log on, Tweet or post your seminar information, blog post, or most recent charity contribution, and then log off, you really don’t understand the purpose of social media. You’re losing out on valuable opportunities to connect with others, build relationships, and keep current with your clients.

Interact with others

When you log on, you can do each of those things I mentioned, but you should also:

• read what your clients are doing and saying.
• read what your industry partners are doing and saying.
• check out your center of influence folks and see what they’re up to.

What are these people looking for? What’s going on in their worlds? What kind of needs do they have or things to offer?

Once you’ve read this information – you should respond. Say something.

• Tell them congratulations.
• Click the Like button.
• Tweet or share their article - tell others to check it out.
• Comment on the importance, relevance, or interest of their topic.

Share your ideas

Your stream of activity tells a story. A story about you and what you’re like – as a person, as a businessperson, or as a business if you’re tweeting under the company name.

Be intentional about what that story says. Have a plan.

• Decide who your target reader is on the platform. Maybe you share B2B information on LinkedIn and Twitter and share your personal lines/individual information and tips on Facebook.
• Decide what topics you want to be sure to cover. For what topics do you want to be known as the go-to resource? Sure you can have other information included – we like it when you mix it up a bit, but have some type of continuity.

Ideally, you want to provide ideas and share articles that compel people to read it and hopefully respond to you. Challenge people by making them think about ideas they’ve not previously considered.

What story are you telling?

Look at your own stream of activity. If you were a client, would you find it interesting and compelling? Would you learn something new? Would you recommend a friend also follow because what you share is so relevant to their business and makes them think?

If it doesn’t immediately catch your attention as being interesting and interactive, then you’re probably being glossed right over as people take a few minutes to catch up on activity. There are people you follow who you know always have something interesting to say.

And then there are those whose avatars you see and skip right past without reading because you know they have nothing interesting to say – they’re the infomercials of social media and thankfully you’ve got the TiVo remote.

Let’s look at an example

If you chose workers’ comp as a regular topic and talked about it, shared your ideas and thoughts, offered helpful tips, and found relevant articles then you’d be building your story as being a go-to resource for workers’ comp. Then when you wrote a related blog post I’d want to read it because it’s obviously in your niche. And if you were holding a seminar or webinar, I’d be interested in attending. Because you’ve proven you are genuinely interested in this topic, find it important, and want to help me improve my situation. Now your information is interesting to me as a reader.

Don’t make your own business promotion the center of your activity.

Instead, build your base of contextual information for your go-to topics and then you can share your own business information around that established foundation of relevant and useful topics.

@wendykeneipp

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This is the third of 10 challenges for you to consider embracing to create a new year that is more productive for yourself as well as for those around you.  I have borrowed ideas from a book I read last year, The First 90 Days: Critical Success Stories for New Leaders by Michael Watkins.

Read previous challenge articles:
First Challenge – Promote yourself
Second Challenge – Accelerate Your Learning

Third Challenge – Match Strategy to Situation

Arriving at your desired destination always has to start with a clear picture of where it is you are currently standing.  If you don’t take the time, and allow yourself to be completely honest in clarifying your current situation, it is impossible to identify the right strategies to improve your circumstances, let alone achieve the ideal situation.

It is only with this honesty that you can clearly see both the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead of you. This also provides you with the ability to clearly identify which resources and strategies will be required to achieve your new reality.

When we’re aware of what the typical challenges and opportunities are that often accompany a transition, it makes them much easier to recognize, and in turn, much easier to create a plan to either mitigate the impact or embrace the potential. Let’s take a look at what those areas are that we need to carefully evaluate when making a transition.

Typical Challenges

1. Behaviors no longer contribute to high performance - Look for these behaviors and either modify them or eliminate them.
2. Change is not seen as necessary - You and everyone involved have to be convinced that change is necessary. Do not move forward until this has been addressed (some people may get left behind).
3. Commitment to the new reality - You and everyone on the team must refocus all of your efforts on a new desired outcome. You will have to remind and recommit yourself and your team to your new destination on a regular basis.

Typical Opportunities

1. Areas of strength - There are significant areas of strength within yourself and your team members on which to draw. Identify what they are and utilize them to the fullest extent possible.
2. The positive side of change - The right people want to continue to see themselves as successful and will do what’s necessary to get there. The definition of success may change but you (and others, if applicable) will adjust accordingly.

Acceleration Checklist as suggested in The First 90 Days (paraphrased in places)

1. What are the implications for the challenges and opportunities you will likely face?
   • How will you address each as an opportunity/challenge to accelerate/slow your transition?
2. Which of your skills and strengths are likely to be most valuable in your new situation and which have the potential to get you into trouble?
3. What is your prevailing frame of mind?
   • What adjustments need to be made (if any), and how will you bring them about?

Once you are clear about where you are going, and just as clear about where you are now, the strategies required to connect those two points will become much more obvious.  You will get “there” much faster by spending time analyzing “now”.

Photo by Stefan Erschwendner.

@kevintrokey

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This is the second of 10 challenges for you to consider embracing to create a new year that is more productive for yourself as well as for those around you.  I have borrowed ideas from a book I read last year, The First 90 Days: Critical Success Stories for New Leaders by Michael Watkins.

Read previous challenge articles:
First Challenge – Promote yourself.

Second Challenge – Accelerate Your Learning

If you have committed to being a professional, whether you did it consciously or not, you committed to a lifetime of learning.   And I don’t just mean the learning that comes with experience.  I mean the type of learning that only comes as a result of a determination to always be the best at what you do.

Learn with a purpose – Whether you are taking on a new role, or just committing to execute your current role at a higher level, stop to think systematically about where you have knowledge gaps.  Prioritize the need to fill those gaps and use this as your guide for focused learning.

Analyze your early wins/losses – Whenever you have a win or a loss, dig in and analyze why you won or lost.  As difficult as it may be, being honest about a loss is the surest way to avoid future losses.  And, as strange as it may sound, be just as determined to find out why you truly had a win.  It’s the surest path to replicating the win.

Schedule your learning – There are almost always tasks that seem to be a higher priority in the moment than learning.  This makes it way too easy to procrastinate.  Make learning part of your job description and, like everything for which you are responsible, block out time on your calendar to make it happen.

Become the teacher – The surest way to learn something new is to commit to teaching it to someone else.  Put yourself in the position to have to make a presentation, teach a class, or just mentor another individual.

Be the student – Identify someone (or multiple people) who is already in the role to which you aspire, and ask them if they are willing to answer some questions, provide guidance, and help fill your knowledge gaps.

Know your learning style – Some of us are visual learners, some are auditory, while others are tactile.  In reality, we are all some combination.  Experiment with various techniques and learn what is most effective for you.

Acceleration Checklist as suggested in The First 90 Days (paraphrased in places)

1. Are you guilty of assuming that you already have “the answer”?

If so, how will you avoid doing this?

2. What is your learning agenda?

Compose a list of the knowledge gaps that stand between you and the knowledge required for you to better perform your role as you would like to.

3. Given the knowledge you would like to acquire, which individuals are most likely to provide you with solid actionable insights?

4. How might you increase the efficiency of your learning process?

What are some ways you might extract more actionable insights for your investment of time and energy?

There is no better time to start learning than right now.

Photo by Alan Levine.

@kevintrokey

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Changes - they're generally things we’re either excited about and committed to accomplishing, or they’re things we feel we should do and only put forth a modicum of effort to attempt the changes.

One way will likely include planning and commitment to the end goal, a lot of hard work, reality checks along the way, plan adjustments, and hopefully an end result that is somewhat in line with the original vision.

The other will likely include a half-hearted attempt to describe “an ideal scenario”. This will be more wishful thinking than an actual goal. The effort will lack commitment and will eventually be abandoned in favor of the status quo because it’s just easier, and the other is a potentially painful path of hard work and consequences you may not want to encounter.

By not setting a firm end goal and going all-in with your commitment, what happens is you just see flickerings of the new way, but not enough to sustain it and turn it into a fully burning flame. 

For example, if you’re trying to change a child’s behavior and get them to stop whining, you might draw the line in the sand and say, “No more whining. Find a different way to communicate your feelings.” Of course this might work once or twice, but the child will continue to whine because it’s ingrained. If you find this process exhausting to constantly remind him of the new expectation and you give in during a moment (or a few) of weakness, you’ve not only not established a new behavior pattern, but you’ve actually reinforced that whining is, in fact, the best way to get what he wants.

It’s the same at work with a new process. If you give in to the demands of complaints that the new way is “hard” and make an exception, again, you’ve reinforced that the new way isn’t really expected; it’s just a suggestion, and apparently not one that you’re really committed to making happen. Plus, you’ve just let everyone know that you don’t follow through on what you say you’re going to do, and you’ve taught them to not follow your directions because “this, too, shall pass.”

So, without a firm commitment to that end goal and steely nerves to sustain all of the attacks you’re sure to receive along the way, you shouldn’t even get started. You’re better off maintaining the status quo until you’re really, really ready to stand up and fight for what you believe is the best course of action for everyone.

Photo by Christine Szeto.

@wendykeneipp

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For regular readers of our blog, this list may be familiar.  Unfortunately, the strategies listed are all too familiar and, given the time of the year, we thought it a good time to share once again.

Here we sit in January with all the promise of a new year ahead of us, convincing ourselves that this is the year that we will make “X” happen.  Don’t get me wrong, I love that kind of optimism, but I also want you to take an honest assessment of whether or not you have built a plan that will make “X” happen.  In terms of your plan, there are a couple of ideas I would like you to keep in mind.

First, while you certainly need to clearly know what your end goal is, your daily focus should only be on the next step towards that destination.  While the distance to that goal may seem paralyzing, find confidence in knowing that you can always take the next step.

Second, don’t give up too soon.  All too often we give up when our efforts don’t produce immediate results.  Instead of making necessary adjustments to our plan, we jump off one horse (often too soon) and on to another, and then another, and then another, and…well, you get the idea.

However, there are times when your horse is dead. As hard as it may be to admit it, it’s time to get off the horse and move on.

The following “dead horse” strategies (original author listed as unknown), no matter how perfectly executed, will not produce desired results.

1. Buying a stronger whip
2. Changing riders
3. Threatening the horse with termination
4. Appointing a committee to study the horse
5. Arranging to visit other sites to see how they ride dead horses
6. Hiring outside contractors to ride the dead horse
7. Harnessing several dead horses together for increased speed
8. Donating the dead horse to a recognized charity, and deducting the full original cost
9. Doing a time-management study to see if lighter riders would improve productivity
10. Declaring a dead horse has lower overhead, and therefore performs better

I’m sure as you read this list you chuckled a little at the absurdity.  However, I’m also guessing that the list may have made you a little uncomfortable as you see a bit of yourself in some of these strategies.

My challenge to you is:

• Define your destination
• Identify the fewest and simplest steps to get there
• Commit every week to the next step you will take
• Once a month or once a quarter, review your progress to your final goal
• As GPS Mayhem says, sometimes you need to “recalculate” your plan
• Go back to step 3

By the way, if you’re paying attention, you should never find yourself on a dead horse.

Photo by Micky Aldridge.

@kevintrokey

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2011 was an incredibly busy and blazing fast year for us. Or it sure feels that way! We have been very involved with creating and training, and time seems to be defined by each of those mile markers along the way. We’ve learned a lot of great lessons and continue to incorporate each of them back into training, resources, and blog posts – where you’ll find our experiences and lessons diligently documented!

We started out the year launching our new sales system and digging into training sessions throughout the spring. Then there were on-site strategic planning sessions we conducted with individual agencies. That definitely kept us moving and thinking a lot about agency business models and the need to evolve that model. We rounded out the first half of the year with our networking conference, BGNLive.

From the conference we had several takeaways to develop for the remainder of the year. That included additional training and vetting new strategic partners. Another big project was getting an internal social networking site up and running for agencies to discuss ideas and share files & best practices with one another.

While we’ve learned many things along the way, here are a few key summarized lessons that we met again and again this past year which have been invaluable:

• Set your mind to it, create a plan, and commit to getting it done. Persistence, persistence, persistence.
• Making public commitment statements to your clients/community is a great motivator to keep going even when it’s difficult.
• Listening to clients’ struggles provides great opportunity to develop new/improved solutions/offerings.
• Asking for accountability is an amazing way to get things accomplished.
• Repetition, repetition, repetition. One time and one method of communication is not enough to learn something new or change thinking and behaviors.

Coming Up Next

As we move into 2012, we are looking to go deeper and get more specific on training, both at the network level and within each agency. Another area that will receive increased attention will be driving more interactive agency networking as a means for faster and more effective implementation.

We have our sights set on transforming agencies into independently thriving businesses regardless of the outcome of the various economic and healthcare challenges we face. You can be sure that we’ll continue to take every opportunity to learn and incorporate those lessons back into what we do every day to make our member agencies and brokerages more successful.

Thanks for a great year and here’s to another one to come!

Photo by Dharmit Shah.

@wendykeneipp

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Continuing the planning theme, here is one of our most popular planning articles. Originally published in March 2010.

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In a previous article about Managing Employee Performance, I talked about helping supervisors proactively manage their employees by engaging with them in a meaningful and productive way. When you help your employees take responsibility for their own success, you will feel the results in their level of return on engagement, as well as the positive impact on your company’s productivity and profitability.

To create this level of active engagement, it is critical to tie the vision of the company to the expectations of the team with specific, measurable goals and objectives.

Cascade the Vision: We all have responsibilities in our organizations to contribute to the overall vision.  Unfortunately, all too often we have no real idea of what that vision is, much less how it connects to our role and subsequent performance.

Start this cascading communication by finding and then communicating the answers to the following questions. As a result, many of your performance management issues will become obsolete or, at least much easier to address.

• Organizational values – What is important in our organization?
• Organizational vision – Where are we heading?
• Organizational goals – What are we going to accomplish?
• Organizational objectives – What results are needed to hit goals?
• Organizational behaviors – What is required to hit objectives?
• Organizational tasks – What job description activities are needed to hit objectives?

After you’ve identified the components of the company vision, the next step is identifying the basic building blocks of performance measurement and how they relate to the vision and goals of the company. 

Goals (of the company): We start by understanding the goals of the company. This is what drives the subsequent objectives and tasks we expect employees to perform. The goals tend to focus on profitability, employee satisfaction, client satisfaction, and/or growth. The example here could be for the company to create a minimum of 20 percent annual, organic growth.

Objectives: Objectives are the results you want your employees to strive to achieve and they are based on the goals of the company. For a producer, this may be to work on high-probability prospects, resulting from formal introductions. Objectives should be SMART:

• Specific – Who? (producer), What? (write $100K), When? (2010)
• Measurable – Numbers, frequencies, timelines
• Attainable – Reasonable, yet challenging
• Relevant – Has to be a difference-maker
• Trackable – Must be monitored and reportable

Tasks: These are the daily activities for which an employee is responsible, and they’re usually included in the job description. An example for a producer may be to build a network of individuals whom she can count on for those introductions.

As you can see, performance objectives are the critical link in connecting the individual to the organization. As with any tool, it is important to recognize what objectives are and what they are not.

Performance objectives:

• Help a company meet goals
• Help employees be more productive
• Assist in giving one-on-one communication
• Help employees be successful
• Give direction to management on financial increases

Performance objectives are not:

• A tool used just for compensation
• A system to find where employees are not doing their job
• A system to grade people

In order for objectives to be properly measured, there has to be a well-defined measurement scale, which takes the uncertainty of performance out of the equation. When establishing your measurement scale, it is important that "expected" isn’t at the top, it lies in the middle. There needs to be a mutual understanding of what outcomes are reflected at each level.

Measurement scale
5  -  Far exceeds expectations
4  -  Exceeds expectations
3  -  Meets expectations
2  -  Falls short of expectations
1  -  Falls critically short of expectations

Now that you’ve written the objectives, it’s time for everyone to get to work. And for the supervisor, it means having a monthly one-on-one with each employee. If everything has been set up properly, these check-ins should last no more than 10 or 15 minutes. The purpose isn’t for a full-out review, but just to review the feedback that the employee has tracked for the last month. As the supervisor, it is your responsibility to provide guidance on what they can be doing next and to give recognition for what they have already accomplished.

The monthly one-on-one sessions are imperative to connecting and engaging with your employees. This time investment is what creates the payback at year-end because you’ve been monitoring and reviewing performance throughout the year. Now, the year-end review is simply another review session, and there should be no surprises for either you, as the supervisor, or the employee.

As with so many challenges, the answers can be relatively simple, it just takes a commitment, a little discipline and a fair amount of effective communication. The return on this investment will be significant. Just ask yourself, “How badly do I want it?”

Originally published on agencyfuel.zywave.com © Copyright 2010 Zywave, Inc.

Photo by Jeremy Vandel.

@kevintrokey

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As we move into the Fall season, it's feels so natural that we're also moving into the planning season. The two just go hand-in-hand. We're definitely in that planning mode here, distributing new guidebooks to member agencies for Producer Annual Planning and Sales Team Development to help get geared up for the coming year.

So, in light of the season, we felt it was a good time to bring out a couple of our past posts we've done regarding producer and agency planning to help you get in the planning mode, as well!

This was originally published July 22, 2010.

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As I coach producers, I see one common theme that really seems to hold them back: a lack of planning and accountability.  It’s a shame really, and completely unnecessary.

For whatever reason, producers within agencies seem to be off limits when it comes to setting expectations and monitoring (the right) results.  I always hear, “As a producer, I have the ultimate accountability because I am paid on commissions.”  I get that, but by the time you can measure production, it’s too late.  Production results (versus behavioral results) are a lagging indicator and only tell you what has (or hasn’t) already happened. 

If you hope to have an opportunity to make adjustments, you have to identify the behaviors (leading indicators) that drive the production results.

To make matters worse, many of the same personality traits that make producers successful, at a certain level, also become an impediment to even greater success.  Producers tend to approach their days, weeks, even the year in too random a fashion.  They wander into the day or the week and just wait to see what finds them now.  While the good producer will stay busy, and probably even hit their sales goal, they will miss an opportunity to become a great producer because they aren’t purposeful enough about how they are spending their time.

The answer is really simple, or at least part of the answer.  If, as a producer, you would take time at the beginning of the week, plan for those critical “have tos” you need to accomplish for the week, and then make yourself accountable, you will become that great producer.  If you will do the following for four straight weeks, you will see the results (behavioral and production) I mean.

• Before the week starts, identify the top 2 accomplishments you need for the week in the following areas.

• Sales Development (example - develop a new 30 second commercial, role play my presentation, or attend a seminar to further my business acumen)
• Prospecting (example – schedule 5 new opportunities, make X# of cold calls, or ask for X# of referrals)
• Clients (example – have a Healthcare Reform overview meeting with 2 clients or take a referral to your best client)
• Centers of Influence – COIN -(example – set up a lunch with a potential COIN or take a list of targeted prospects to a specific COIN)

• Now, share your list with someone who can/will help hold you accountable (your support team, your sales manager/leader, other producers, etc.).  Tell them that you want them to “ambush” you from time to time and ask about your progress.  You’ll do this if you really want to move from being a good producer to a great producer.

• As you share your to-do list for the next week, also report the success/failures you had from the following week (reporting your success/failures from the previous week can be as simple as “did it” or “missed it”).

This does not have to be super detailed and it doesn’t have to be time consuming.  In fact, once you have done this for a couple of weeks, you should be able to do your week’s planning and the prior week’s reporting in less than 15 minutes.

The bottom line is if you plan for your week once and then spend the week executing on your commitments, the week, and you, will be a success.

What kind of planning is most effective for you?  Daily, weekly?  Do you have an accountability partner to keep you on track?


Photo by koyochi.

“One thing. Just one thing. You stick to that and everything else don’t mean &*$#.” That is the secret of life according to Curly in City Slickers.

Now, I don’t know if that is truly the secret of life, but I do think it is a great start to finding the secret to your success. Okay, maybe there isn’t just one, one thing. Maybe your sales success is a series of “one things.”

In my article Willpower vs. Self-Discipline I discussed the difference between willpower and self-discipline. The main difference between the two being that willpower mostly focuses on a single act while self-discipline delivers repeated actions. Getting to that consistent, structured self-discipline takes a lot of work, and sometimes the hardest part of that is just getting started. So, I’ve got some suggestions to get you off the fence and start down your path toward self-discipline – one step at a time.

After all, you can do anything once, right? So, let’s talk about the things that if done “once” will deliver you selling success.

Daily ONE Things

Read
Read ONE article/blog from a source that understands your industry. You will be shocked at the opportunities you find to share what you learned.

Personal brand management
Share ONE idea/link/retweet via social media to enhance your personal brand. Give your prospects something powerful to find when they search you online, because they will.

Weekly ONE Things

Suspecting
Identify the ONE suspect (someone with whom you want to do business, but whom is not yet aware of that fact) you will contact this week to set up a meeting. Nothing is more important than filling your pipeline.

Prospecting
Identify the ONE prospect (someone who knows you want to do business with you and with whom you are having ongoing sales discussions) in your pipeline who you are going to move to a final decision. A stagnant pipeline is worse than an empty pipeline because it gives a false sense of security.

Client relationship management
Proactively contact ONE client this week for no reason other than sharing an article, an idea, or to just check in. Goes so far in building the personal connection.

Thank you
Send ONE handwritten thank-you note to someone who is making a difference for you. It may be the only piece of mail they actually read that day.

Referrals
Take ONE client or center of influence to lunch this week for the purpose of asking for a referral. Of course, be sure you have earned the opportunity to ask for a referral.

Practice
Role play ONE part of your sales process, with a partner, each week. Be prepared to execute your process, as well as to answer questions and objections that are sure to come up with prospects and clients.

Planning
Plan out your weekly activities. Instead of meeting each day not knowing what it holds, decide ONE time, at the beginning of the week, what things are the most valuable use of your time.

Monthly ONE Things

Team member relationship management
Take ONE team member out to lunch this month to learn how you can help them be more successful at what they do. I promise, the more you help them be successful, they more they will be able/willing to help you be successful.

Prospect research
Get online and do some in-depth research to find a group of potentially viable prospects. Search through your connections, your connections’ connections, your local marketplace, or industry resources to identify suspects and find possible links to get a referral or introduction.

Quarterly ONE Things

Personal development
What is the ONE business book you will pick up and read this quarter? Never stop learning.

Annual ONE Things

Planning
Take time to plan out your upcoming year with goals for prospecting, keeping prospects moving through the sales process, as well as sales goals. Outline how you plan to achieve these goals with your own personal marketing plan.

Book of business management
What is the ONE segment of your book of business you are going to pass on to someone else? I know this one is tough for producers to get their arms around, basically “firing” some of their clients, but it’s typically the right thing to do. When I profile books of business (ranking the accounts from most revenue to least revenue), I will almost always see that the bottom 25 percent of a book usually only generates 1 percent of total book revenue, many times only averaging a few hundred dollars of revenue per year. These accounts slow your growth more than you recognize.

So there you have it. If you need a little help getting started on that path to self-discipline, use the power you already have in willpower to get it going. You don’t even have to do all of the ONE things, just pick a few. But really, I think you have enough willpower to tackle them all. You just have to be honest enough with yourself and ask, “How badly do I really want it?”

Photo by Lululemon Athletica.

@kevintrokey

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