Productivity, Performance & Proficiency Lies and Your Solution

When it comes to productivity, you may think you have it mastered. You check tasks off your to-do list, multitask like the best of them, and stay insanely busy from morning until night. But it turns out, your so-called “productivity” may actually be a jumble of popular myths that make you think you’re getting more done than you actually are. Think you’re using your time wisely? Check out these four lies you might be telling yourself about being productive—and how you can free yourself from that false reality.

The Lie: My Day’s Full of Activity, So I Must Be Super Productive

These days, there’s no shortage of digital time-fillers that can make you feel productive. You can easily spend all day emailing, playing on LinkedIn, searching, instant messaging, texting, and whatever else it takes to stay in the online loop. But while your fingers are busy typing and your eyes busy reading, all you’re really doing is getting hits of information—over and over again—instead of working toward a goal.

Or, you might pack your schedule to the brim—coffee meetings in the morning and networking events after work—which forces you to spend all night responding to all the emails in your overflowing inbox. But are you really getting anything significant done?

The Logical Solution: The Done List
To make sure you’re actually accomplishing substantial tasks each day, keep a “done list”—that is, a list of tasks you’ve completed instead of things you have left to do. When you stop to recognize each day’s accomplishments, you’ll be able to reflect more constructively: Did you spend your time wisely? Did you make any significant progress today? Which allows you to reevaluate how you’re spending your time.

The Lie: The inspirational multitasking guru
Multitasking can trick you into feeling like you’re a productivity superhero. After all, if you have the skills to simultaneously compile a budget, listen to a podcast, and catch up on your email, you must be running circles around your single-tasking co-workers, right?
Actually, studies show that multitasking can make you perform worse in whatever you’re doing.

The Logical Solution: Dial in the Focus
Try focusing on one task at a time. Why should you work against what you believe are your natural multitasking talents? Yes, it might feel less productive to work on one thing at a time, but extreme focus will bring out your best.
To help you get out of your task-juggling habits, work in ones:

• Keep one simple to-do list.
• Complete at least one significant task toward the beginning of your day.
• If you’re really up for a challenge, try working in only one browser tab!

When you single-task, you’ll boost your brainpower and since you’re not spending partial attention on multiple tasks, you’ll get the task at hand done faster.

The Lie: Go with the flow? Planning & Schedules
Don't hold everything in your head. You may think that having a flexible and open schedule can be conducive to creativity (and it can be, to a certain extent), but that doesn’t mean all forms of scheduling should go out the window. A little structure can help you clarify your goals and think more clearly—so you won’t waste time trying to figure out if you overlooked anything from your mental to-do list.

The Logical Solution: Rhythms & Timetables
Create a reliable rhythm for yourself. Instead of scheduling your day down to the very last detail and task, try working with broader goals in mind.

With this strategy, I still recommend to-do lists—but not necessarily filled with specific tasks. Instead, list categories of what you’re working on.

This will allow you to work productively toward your goals without locking yourself into turn-by-turn directions. Then, set aside a dedicated block of time for you to work on each category, so you can minimize distractions and focus on actually producing.

The Big Lie: The Tomorrow Excuse
The power of procrastination is a powerful monster. Without much thought, the top task on your to-do list can get pushed to tomorrow, and then to the next day, and then to the next. And in your mind, you truly believe you’ll get to it eventually—but “eventually” keeps getting pushed further and further away.

The Logical Solution: Find an Accountability Ally
The root of procrastination is often a lack of accountability—if no one knows what’s on your to-do list, no one knows that you’re not actually making any progress on it. To stay on track, partner up with a co-worker or group of peers—people who are committed to helping each other do what they say they’re going to do—and plan to check in with each other at least once a week.

If you can’t find an accountability partner, technology can help you become your own coach. Check out apps like iDoneThis, Lift, and Email Game, which keep you updated on your progress toward specific goals and which can help keep you on track and motivated to stay productive.

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30 Ways To Use LinkedIn and Get Business

LinkedIn truly is a social media tool that when harnessed correctly will help individuals, brands and businesses succeed. The site isn't a personal favorite of mine - It is however, a tool I strongly suggest using to everyone because I have seen it work time and time again. Once you understand the key principals you can make the network work for you with a minimal time investment.

If you're like many people I speak with that has a LinkedIn account that mostly sits idle (signing in to accept connection requests or review endorsements) you should know that there is much more that you can do and should be doing. LinkedIn is the social tool that will promote you as an individual, grow your business and brand, maximize your relevancy and reel in new leads, clients and testimonials. In short, used LinkedIn for ROI. Here are 30 ways to effectively harness the social network successfully:

1. Start with your profile. It needs to be filled out completely and honestly. (Great SEO opportunity here!)
2. Use widgets to integrate other tools, such as importing your blog entries or Twitter stream into your profile. (Great SEO & branding opportunity here!)
3. Do market research and gain knowledge with Polls.
4. Share survey and poll results with your contacts. This goes into your contacts activity feed and builds your credibility.
5. Answer questions in Questions and Answers: show expertise without a hint of self-promotion.
6. Ask questions in Questions and Answers to get a feel for what customers and prospects want or think.
7. Publish your LinkedIn URL on all your marketing collateral, including business cards, email signature, email newsletters, web sites and brochures, so prospects learn more about you.
8. Grow your network by joining industry and alumni groups related to your business.
9. Update your status examples of recent work.
10. Link your status updates with your other social media accounts.
11. Combine your social media approach: when someone asks a question in Twitter, respond in detail on LinkedIn and link to it from Twitter.
12. Use the search feature to find people by company, industry and city.
13. Start and manage a group or fan page for your product, brand or business.
14. Research your prospects before meeting or contacting them.
15. Share useful articles and resources that will be of interest to customers and prospects.
16. Don’t turn off your contacts: avoid hard-sell tactics.
17. Write honest and valuable recommendations for your contacts.
18. Request LinkedIn recommendation from happy customers willing to provide testimonials.
19. Post your presentations on your profile using a presentation application.
20. Check connections’ locations before traveling so you can meet with those in the city where you’re heading.
21. Ask your first-level contacts for introductions to their first-level contacts.
22. Interact with LinkedIn on a regular basis to reach those who may not see you on other social media sites.
23. Set up to receive LinkedIn messages in your inbox so you can respond right away.
24. Link to articles and content posted elsewhere, with a summary of why it’s valuable to add to your credibility.
25. List your newsletter subscription information and archives.
26. Find experts in your field and invite them as a guest blogger on your blog or speaker at your event.
27. Post discounts and package deals.
28. Import vCards and contacts from other applications to find more connections.
29. Export your contacts into other applications.
30. Find vendors and contractors through connections.

Self Discipline Equals Success

There's one special quality that you can develop that will guarantee you greater success, accomplishment and happiness in life. Of a thousand principles for success developed over the ages, this one quality or practice will do more to assure that you accomplish wonderful things with your life than anything else.  This quality is so important that, if you don’t develop it to a high degree, it is impossible for you to ever achieve what you are truly capable of achieving.

Personal Management and Self Discipline
The quality that I am talking about is the quality of self discipline.  It is a habit, a practice, a philosophy and a way of living.  All successful men and women are highly disciplined in the important work that they do.  All unsuccessful men and women are undisciplined and unable to control their behaviors and their appetites.  And when you develop the same levels of high, personal discipline possessed by the most successful people in our society, you will very soon begin to achieve the same results that they do.

All great success in life is preceded by long, sustained periods of focused effort on a single goal, the most important goal, with the determination to stay with it until it is complete.

The Qualities of Successful People
Unsuccessful men and women are those who waste their time by wasting the minutes and hours of each day on low value activities.

The key to this attitude toward time and personal management is always self discipline.

There are several disciplines that you need to develop if you want to achieve your full potential.  The first of these is the discipline of goals.  This means that you sit down with a pad of paper, a pen and ample time.  You think through and then make a written list of all the things you want to accomplish in the next one, two, three, four and five years.  You organize the list into the various areas of your life; your career, your money, your family, your health and the other parts that are important to you.  You set priorities among your goals and re-write your lists so that your most important goals are at the top.  You then take a separate sheet of paper and you make a list of all the things that you can think of doing, right now, to move you toward the attainment of your most important goals.

Fully 97% of adult Americans are trying to live their lives without clear, specific, written goals.  This is the same as setting off across an unknown country without a roadmap.  You may get somewhere eventually, but it will take you much longer, and it is far more likely that you will get lost, and waste an enormous amount of time, than if you planned your trip carefully, with a roadmap, and full information about the future terrain, before you started out.

Successful People Complete High Value Tasks First
The second discipline you need to develop for success is the discipline of planning.  Ten minutes in execution for every minute that you invest in planning will get a 1000% return on your time investment by taking the time to think through, in advance, what you are going to do in the hours and days ahead.

Keys to Success in Sales: An Agenda

Your meeting date and time has been established.  You’re confident your product or service is superior to your competitors.  Your goal for the meeting is to convince the prospect.  You’ve planned to be there for 45 minutes.

The prospect checks their calendar and realizes a few minutes before that they’ve scheduled a meeting with some salesperson and they’re not sure of the relevance today.  They’re wondering why they agreed to the meeting and plan to make it short.  They’ll ask a few questions, get a brochure or sample and usher the salesperson out the door saying “they’ll get back to them.”  Fifteen minutes maximum and they’ll be able to get back to what’s important in their day.

It’s apparent from the two scenarios that the salesperson and the prospect each have a different agenda.  Can you imagine what the outcome of the meeting will be?  Have you ever found yourself wondering why there are two different agendas for the same meeting?  Did you both agree to the same thing?

Let’s diagnose where things may have gone wrong.

1. The appointment was scheduled without a clear intention of what each side was hoping to accomplish.
2. The amount of time allocated to meet was not established or may have been, however has now changed on the prospect’s side.
3. The real purpose of the meeting was unclear.
4. An agreed upon outcome was not discussed prior to the meeting.

In other words – it’s like showing up at the dentist for a cleaning and he’s ready to perform a root canal.

The Sandler Selling System refers to the concept of establishing an agenda for every interaction with a prospect as an Up-Front Contract.  It means prior to the meeting knowing what both parties are planning to accomplish in the time they are together.  A mutually agreed outcome is established.

Following are the components of an agenda:

1. Establish a mutually agreed purpose for the call or meeting.
2. Find out what’s important for the prospect.  What are they hoping to achieve in the time you’re together.
3. Share with the prospect what you as a salesperson would like to accomplish on the phone or in the meeting.
4. Agree to a specific time you’ll spend together and reconfirm when you arrive at the meeting.
5. Determine at the beginning of the meeting or telephone conversation what you both mutually agree will happen at the conclusion of your time together.

Establish on the phone what will happen at the meeting and once at the meeting, reiterate what you both agreed to.  This gives the prospect the opportunity to share any changes that may have to be made such as now only having 30 minutes vs the originally planned 45 minutes.  You can adjust your meeting accordingly or reschedule if desired.

Just like being in the dentist’s chair – you don’t want any surprises when you are face-to-face with a prospect.  Being disarmingly honest with the prospect and letting them know up-front what is going to happen in the time you’re together will save time, eliminate the prospect from giving you a vague response as to what happens next and it will move the selling process forward or conclude there isn’t a fit for your product or services.  And set another up-front contract at the meeting as to what happens next.

What will you do prior to your next call or meeting?

(A special thanks to Doug Cohen and Sandler)

Banking Success: Transactions and Interactions

When was the last time you stepped foot in your bank?
(A special article by Don Jones, Global Accounts Division, Global Training Consultant)

From drive-through bank windows to more recent banking amenities like online banking and mobile apps, banks have practically been encouraging customers to stay away for years. Along with the conveniences for the customers, banks benefitted from less overhead and an increased focus on compliance. So after years of being told there’s no need to come inside, it was as if everyone saw the light and stopped entering their bricks-and-mortar bank. Problem solved, right? Not so fast.

Over time, the banks realized a few drawbacks (withdrawals, perhaps?). For starters, selling was near impossible, let alone “upselling.” With just a quick click of a “No thanks” option online, customers are quickly able to bypass new products and services. Whereas face-to-face interaction would allow a bank representative to ask questions and employ techniques to garner interest. Another downside was that bank associates became less customer-service oriented – focused more on transactions, with very little interaction.

So, now what? Banks are working to turn things around and welcome customers back inside by creating an inviting atmosphere staffed with friendlier associates from diverse professional backgrounds (i.e. retail, sales, etc.). Many of the bigger banks are turning to third-party consultants, like Sandler, to train their teams to sell and to know what makes people feel comfortable to purchase – which is especially important when it comes to personal finance.

The more customers come inside and trust the person they’re interacting with, the more opportunities there will be to sell. Because, as you all know, people want to buy, they just don’t like to feel sold.