“Deep listening is miraculous for both listener and speaker. When someone receives us with open-hearted, non-judging, intensely interested listening, our spirits expand.” ~Sue Patton Thoele

Post written by Jeremy J. Ulmer. Follow me on Twitter or LinkedIn.

1. Be Present & Stay Focused. Stop thinking about what you are going to say next and focus on what the speaker is telling you. Be curious and ask follow up questions to learn more about what they are telling you.

2. Pause Before You Respond. Take 2 full breaths before responding. It will ensure the speaker is finished and give them space to share more. It will also help you control the amount of talking you are doing.

3. Refocus If Your Mind Wanders. If you start thinking about your next meeting, travel plans, or what you have planned for the evening, bring yourself back to the moment.

4. Summarize & Bottom Line The Key Points. Play back to the speaker the key items you are hearing to ensure you are capturing the essence of what is being relayed to you. Make sure to take notes of these key items so you can revisit them as needed later in the meeting.

5. Focus On Listening & Understanding Versus Judging & Opinion. It is natural to want to share your 2 cents right away, or to be making judgments in your mind about what you are hearing. However, that is not focused listening. Stop yourself from doing this by placing your attention on learning, listening, and understanding. Ask open ended questions that begin with “What” to stay focused on listening and understanding.

6. Use Your Intuition. Whether you are on the phone or in person, you should be listening not only with your ears, but with your intuition as well. Notice the speaker’s breathing, tone, pace, and energy. There is a lot of information to be gathered and the more you pay attention to your intuition, the more effective your listening will be.

7. Never Talk Over Anyone. If the speaker is talking, simply wait your turn. Do not try to interject, and if you do, catch yourself, and say, “Sorry, please carry on…”

8. Ignore Internal & External Distractions. Image you are in a bubble with the person you are speaking to and they are the center of your universe. Try it out and watch what kind of impact it will have.

9. Resist Telling The Speaker How You Handled A Similar Situation. Pause yourself from sharing your own input and experiences until you have fully listened to what the speaker has to say.

10. Relax. The more calm you are, the more information you will gather from the person you are listening to since they will be at ease with you.

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“If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.” – Dr Wayne Dyer

Post written by Jeremy Ulmer. Follow me on Twitter or LinkedIn. Join the discussion and get free sales help in our New LinkedIn Group!

It is easy to get down on yourself in the world of sales if you have had a bad month, quarter, or even a down year. But if you hold onto those negative thoughts about your sales performance, it will not help you to achieve your sales goals.

As simplistic as this may sound, if you are a negative person, sales will always feel like a struggle. As a positive person, sales becomes much more enjoyable and can be very fulfilling. You will also produce far greater results with a positive mind-set in sales.

Being a positive person has been a significant part of my own success and below are some of the key practices I have followed to be a positive person in the world of sales:

• Believe that anything is possible and that you can form a partnership with any company in the world.
• Be aware of your inner critic. That voice that says, “You can’t call that CEO.” Notice the limiting thought, and then decide on the right action to take.
• Be thankful for the strengths and gifts you already possess.
• Smile more and laugh more.
• Exercise and eat healthy.
• Clarify your values and honor them.
• Don’t be afraid to fail. Look at mistakes as learning lessons.
• Surround yourself with positive and uplifting people.
• Be grateful for the opportunities you have, not what you don’t have.
• Ignore all people who say, “You can’t do that.”

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“My father said: You must never try to make all the money that’s in a deal. Let the other fellow make some money too, because if you have a reputation for always making all the money, you won’t have many deals.” ~Getty, J. Paul

Post written by Jeremy J. Ulmer. Follow me on Twitter or LinkedIn.

1. Create An Agreed Upon Agenda. Determine the following: What needs to be resolved? Who is involved? What are the major issues? What are the time frames?

2. Resist Committing Too Early. Do not lock in your pricing or commit to other items until everything is on the table and negotiated.

3. Resolve Any Major Issues Early. If the prospect has some major concern about your organization, it is best to uncover this early, so that it is not brought up at the end of the negotiation which will weaken your position and you’ll be tempted to give in to more concessions.

4. Determine What Can Be Shared. Determine the information you will disclose or not disclose with the prospect. Also, consider what types of information they are open to sharing and the information they are keeping from you.

5. Focus On Needs & Requirements. Don’t get caught up on the price alone. Ask to put price aside for a moment and address all other obstacles to find a solution.

6. Establish Value For Your Service or Product. Understand needs, challenges, goals, and then provide a solution.

7. Throw Your Ego Out The Window. If you view the negotiation as a personal victory or loss, your ego is involved and can make it difficult to remain objective during the negotiation process.

8. Buy Yourself Some Time If Needed. Be upfront, but if you can’t approve something yourself and you need a sales director to approve it for you, let the prospect know you need to check with your manager before making the change to the agreement.

9. Plan Ahead. Come to the table armed with where you are willing to give and where you simply can not make any changes.

10. Know When To Walk Away. You and your sales management team should have clear guidelines for what is profitable business and what is not. Be sure to know when you need to end the negotiation if it will be a loss to your company.

11. Be Patient. If you are in the middle of negotiations and significant decision are being made, don’t rush to finalize a decision in that meeting. Consider requesting a break to think it over and discuss with members on your sales team and schedule a follow up meeting.

12. Look At The Negotiation From Various Perspectives. Think about it from your prospects position and request the opinion of your sales manager or sales peers.

13. Make Sure You Are Talking To The Decision Maker. As sales professionals know, if you are not working with the decision maker, especially when it comes to negotiating the final deal, you are wasting your time.

14. Close Your Mouth. Learn to talk less and listen more. The more you listen and ask questions the better you will understand and be able to position your company effectively.

15. Provide Case Studies. If the prospective client has never worked with you before they may have some concerns. Bring written case studies of similar clients that your organization has helped. It will build credibility and help you initiate the partnership.

16. Remember To Give & Receive. If you are offering concession after concession without any commitments in return you are going to get run over in the negotiation. Remember that for each concession you make, there should be some commitment or concession made on the other side.

17. Be Optimistic, Confident & Positive. Expect more and receive more. Think big and aim high. It is easier to negotiate down, than up.

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“It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.” ~e.e. cummings

Post written by Jeremy Ulmer. Follow me on Twitter or LinkedIn.

1. Say “Thank You.” Thank one of your clients, team members, or peers daily.

2. Smile. Having a rough day at work? Just experienced a heavy dose of sales rejection? Don’t forget to smile, it will make you feel better and you might be the only smile someone else sees all day. Try it right now, and you will feel better.

3. View The World Of Sales As The Ultimate Test. View challenges with a customer, problems with your boss, and mistakes that you make during the sales process as “sales training” and valuable sales lessons. Learn to look at difficult experiences as lessons versus failures or mistakes.

4. Be Kind. Think about one thing you can do daily that would be a kind act and make it a ritual in your office place. ‎”It’s nice to be important, but it’s more important to be nice.” ~Author Unknown

5. Make One Positive Acknowledgment Daily. Simply state what you see in someone. It might be the only positive thing they hear all day or week.

6. Ask, “How Can I Be Of Service To My Clients & Prospective Clients?” Ask and answer this question daily. Then, take meaningful actions and you will be on your way to success like you have never experienced before.

7. See The Glass As Already Broken. Expect that some things in sales will go wrong, accept them, and you will be less disappointed when they happen. It will also force you to be more in the moment. Here is a great little story that illustrates this point:

“You see this goblet?” asks Achaan Chaa, the Thai meditation master. “For me this glass is already broken. I enjoy it; I drink out of it. It holds my water admirably, sometimes even reflecting the sun in beautiful patterns. If I should tap it, it has a lovely ring to it. But when I put this glass on the shelf and the wind knocks it over or my elbow brushes it off the table and it falls to the ground and shatters, I say, ‘Of course.’ When I understand that the glass is already broken, every moment with it is precious.” ~Mark Epstein

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“Absorb what is useful, reject what is useless, add what is specifically your own.“ –Bruce Lee

Post written by Jeremy Ulmer. Follow me on Twitter or LinkedIn.

Here are 20 quick tips to help you increase your sales productivity. Keep in mind, not every tip will be useful for every person. Just pick the tips that are helpful for you and integrate them into your routine.

Here are a few suggestions when reading through all of these tips:

-Don’t do them all at once. Focus on one at a time.

-Experiment with different tips.

-These are not in any particular order, so browse through them all.

So, here they are, 20 tips to increase your sales productivity:

1. Less is more. Focus on your most essential tasks each day. Eliminate or delegate as much as you can.

2. Exercise. Make this a habit if it is not already. For me, exercising is the key to my energy, health, and productivity. It also greatly reduces stress and can be a form of meditation. Here are some tips on how to make exercise a daily habit.

3. Stop rushing. Focus on what you are doing in the moment and don’t rush through it. It will be much more relaxing for you and in the end, your quality of work will be improved.

4. Fail. Don’t be afraid to fall flat on your face and fail. If you are afraid of failing, you will never take important first steps. Without failure there would be no success.

5. Find what you love to do. Find something you love to do, and your quality of life and work will improve. If you love your work you will become more productive and less stressed.

6. Wake up early. This is not for everyone, but it can make a huge impact on your life and what you get done in a given day. Here are some tips on how to wake up early.

7. Eat clean. Don’t buy junk and don’t bring it into your house. That will instantly help you stay lean and trim. Be aware of what you are eating, your mouth is not a garbage disposal.

8. Get organized. The more organized you are, the less time you will waste finding things and the more productive you will be.

9. Review goals. Don’t just set goals, but take a look at them each month to see what is working and what is not working. It is ok to change your goals.

10. Be positive. Focus on the positive. Focus on what you have, not on what you don’t have. Surround yourself with people who have positive energy. Here are some tips on how to stay positive.

11. Practice being compassionate. “Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.” – Plato.

12. Visualize. Envision your most positive future self. What would life be like for her or him? Where would you live and what would you be doing? Let that vision pull you into the future you want to have.

13. Set goals. Long-term goals are important to set, but also be sure you are setting daily and weekly goals as well. Here are some tips on how to set goals.

14. Get the toughest things done first. Aim to accomplish the 3 most important things of your day before 12noon. Give them top priority.

15. Be focused. Work on one goal and one task at a time. Don’t spread yourself too thin.

16. Enjoy the ride. Don’t just focus on the end goal, but enjoy the process and learning that takes place as you strive to achieve them.

17. Enjoy the little things. A joyful and happy person is a more productive person. Editors Note: I used to walk my grandma on long walks in her wheelchair and the little things gave her the most joy. Seeing a Cardinal bird, a beautiful flower, or simply getting some fresh air, made her day and taught me a lot about what really matters.

18. Single-task. Stop multi-tasking and this will instantly increase your productivity. Here are some tips on how to minimize distractions to focus on one task.

19. Be in the now. Be present and focus on being in the now more than the past or future.

20. Volunteer and help others. Just one hour a week of volunteering can make a huge impact on the world and on yourself. I find volunteering to be one of the most fulfilling things I do. Try it out, and you just might become hooked too! When you volunteer you will not only be helping others, but you will provide yourself with many health benefits that will increase your energy and productivity.

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Are you looking to hire a sales coach to improve your career, leadership, life, business and sales results?

Well, I’m going to tell you right now that there are many sales coaches in the field and it is hard to know where to start, or what to look for when hiring a coach. There are highly qualified sales coaches like myself – and then there are others who just jumped on the sales coaching bandwagon so they can profit from you even though they have not proven themselves to be worthy of getting you as a client.

Knowing this, how can you find the best sales coach for you and your organization? Simply ask the 10 questions below….

Here Are My Top 10 Questions to Ask Before You Hire a Sales Coach So You Can Achieve Breakthrough Results:

1. What is your personal track record of success in sales?

I was ranked #1 sales performer in the U.S. for 4 years at two global Fortune 500 Companies. I generated over $135 Million in Sales Revenue. I know what it takes to become a top sales professional.

This is not true for many sales coaches as they do not have the credentials of being a #1 performer in a large organization multiple times. And, many sales coaches do not have extensive experience building, developing and managing sales forces.

But what if those are your goals? See the concern? If they have not walked the walk, and proven they know what it takes to achieve great sales results, how can you expect them to know what it takes to achieve extraordinary results?

Now, it can be hard to find a sales coach’s past sales performance on his or her website or on LinkedIn, so be sure to ask or do your own online research and find out.

2. Will you customize your sales coaching programs around my particular needs and goals?

Many sales coaching programs simply place all individuals and businesses into the exact same sales coaching process. In effect, each business or individual is taught in a training format that starts with certain skills or techniques and moves on to the next set of techniques. They do not take into consideration the immediate challenges at hand, nor do they focus on customizing the program around the strengths of the individual or organization, while identifying and addressing weaknesses.

Before you hire a sales coach, ask how they customize their sales coaching program. If they don’t have some good examples to share, run fast, or face receiving cookie-cutter coaching which will greatly impede your results.

3. What is your general sales philosophy?

Sales coaches often have a very traditional perspective when it comes to sales and selling. This results in the coach teaching you to persuade, push, be very aggressive, and to forcefully change the mind of others. This will make both you and the prospective client feel uncomfortable. This will automatically lead to lost sales.

Many of the old persuasive selling techniques really are a thing of the past. They don’t work. Yet, many sales coaches are still teaching the same stuff. If you want to increase your sales potential then you need a sales coach who understands how to create a genuine, natural, customized sales philosophy for each individual they coach. If they don’t, watch out.

4. What professional coach training do you have?

You may find a sales coach who has a respectful sales background like me. But, in many cases they’ll have very little, if any professional coaching training. There is a big difference between calling oneself a coach, and having 100’s of hours of face-to-face coaching training. If they do not have this training, you may not receive all the support you need around motivation, focus, changing your mind set, accountability, and being able to support you towards success in your entire life. If you hire a sales coach who does not have professional training, do not expect the same results. You will not be supported holistically around all the intangibles that help people reach extraordinary results.

5. Do you offer monthly programs?

Many sales coaching programs involve a 6 month or longer commitment or a large upfront investment just to get started. Be careful, because if you don’t see the results you want with your sales coach, you are stuck. Look for a coach who offers flexibility. Including, month-to-month programs or packages that enable you to minimize your upfront risk as you initiate your partnership with the sales coach. When working with a top-level expert sales coach, you should quickly see results. Then you make the decision to invest in the coaching, versus being trapped in a long-term agreement with a coach who is not an ideal fit for you.

6. What experience do you have managing or leading a sales force?

Often a sales coach may have experience selling, but they will have little or no experience actually managing, developing and leading sales teams. If you are a business owner who is focused on building and developing your sale team, then you need a sales coach who has something of value to offer.

7. How did you end up becoming a sales coach?

Find out if the sales coach made the conscious choice to become a coach for the right reasons, or if they burned out of corporate America or fell into the position as a back up because they lost a job. You want a coach who loves coaching, sales and changing lives. Look for a coach with whom you connect with. Look for a sales coach who truly cares about your success and loves the work he or she does. If you do not sense a great deal of passion in their voice when they describe how they became a sales coach, talk to another coach.

8. How else can you support me to achieve my goals?

The sales coach you are thinking about hiring may know how to sell, but does this sales coach lack the necessary skills to provide the support you need when it comes to mindset, motivation, focus, productivity, effectiveness, and discipline. Teaching and sharing new skills is just one small piece of effective sales coaching. When an expert sales coach can support a client with all the intangibles, far greater results are possible. Pay attention to how they answer this question and ask for examples.

9. Can you show me new and innovative ways to increase sales?

If the sales coach is not aware of how to use social media, blogs, website marketing, SEO, AdWords, effective article writing and publication, LinkedIn and other similar tools to grow their own business, how can they help you to grow yours?

Technology is always changing and there are ways to use it to increase your sales results. Find a sales coach who is using these tools on a daily basis to grow their sales coaching business. Find a sales coach who can show you how to generate leads, contact new prospects and network effectively in the modern era of sales. If they don’t use these tools, keep on looking.

10. Do you have a coach?

I don’t know if I have ever been asked this by a prospective sales coaching client, but I share the information freely. I work with a coach. I get a tremendous amount out of it and I am convinced of the value of coaching. How can you be a coach, but say you don’t need a coach yourself?

Even the most successful people in the world have coaches to stay on top and reach even higher levels of success. As soon as you stop learning, growing, improving and developing, what kind of an example are you showing for your own clients? Find a sales coach who has a coach, believes in coaching, uses coaching to continue to become a better coach, a better entrepreneur, and a better person. Find someone who inspires you to do more and doesn’t just coach you, but leads by example. If they don’t have a coach, just ask them why. This is an important question to ask and I’m guessing you will decide to move on pretty fast after they say they don’t need a coach or don’t have one.

Find a sales coach who is right for you by asking these questions. Look for a sales coach who truly cares about you and your success. Make sure the sales coach you select takes the time to get to know you, your sales goals and challenges. Follow these tips and you will ensure you partner up with the right sales coach for you to achieve amazing sales results.

About the Author:
Sales Coaching & Business Coaching Expert, Jeremy J. Ulmer, has helped hundreds of sales professionals, sales leaders, businesses and entrepreneurs overcome sales challenges and achieve breakthrough results. If you are ready to dramatically increase your sales results then subscribe for your Free Tips or request a Free Coaching Consultation.

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Post written by Jeremy J. Ulmer. Connect with me on LinkedIn or Twitter.

“Nothing contributes so much to tranquilize the mind as a steady purpose–a point on which the soul may fix its intellectual eye.” -Mary Shelley

1. Get Inspired Everyday. Inspiration is one of the best motivators, and it can be found everywhere. Sources of inspiration can include, but are certainly not limited to: sales blogs, sales articles, sales online success stories, sales forums, peers, friends, sales books, and motivational quotes.

2. Hire A Sales Coach. Working one on one with a sales coach has proven to be one of the most effective methods to truly achieve breakthrough sales results. However, be sure to ask these questions of any sales coach you interview before hiring a sales coach.

3. Have Compelling Reasons For Your Actions. Write them down and know your reasons for wanting to achieve your goals and stay motivated. When you clarify why you want to accomplish certain goals, and what it will mean to you to accomplish them, it will help increase your motivation and keep you on track.

4. Be Ready For Negative Self Talk. Become very aware of that inner voice that says you should just quit and give up. One of the most powerful things you can do is to simply raise your awareness and recognize when it is happening. Just by naming the negative self talk alone, it will help you consciously decide what you need to do.

5. Get Back On The Horse If You Fall Off. Don’t beat yourself up if you slip up one day, but make it a rule to get back into your routine the next day. Don’t wait any longer. You don’t need to be perfect all the time, you just need to brush yourself off, and get back on the horse.

6. Visualize Your Sales Goals. Visualize the successful outcome of staying motivated in great detail a few times for 2 minutes each day. Close your eyes, and think about exactly how your successful outcome in sales will feel. Form as clear of a mental picture as you can.

7. Create A Daily Journal For Your Sales Goals. If you can become consistent about writing notes in your journal, it can be a tremendous motivator. You should focus on writing about what you got done that day and how you felt about the things you did or did not do.

8. Get Competitive. Many sales people are driven by competition. Take advantage of this natural drive by using it to fuel your sales goals. Take a look at your peers around you and see where you are ranking on new clients per month, revenue, or appointments set. Aim to be #1, or stay on top, if you are already #1.

9. Make A Public Statement About Your Commitments. Make a statement on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, or announce to your friends and family that you are going to achieve a certain sales goal by a certain date. You will get support and accountability automatically with this method.

10. Think Positive. Monitor your thoughts and become more aware of your self-talk. If you hear negative thoughts, notice them, and then choose to replace them with a positive mind-set.

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“Some cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever they go.” ~Oscar Wilde

Post written by Jeremy Ulmer. Follow me on Twitter or LinkedIn.

The majority of us have at some time in our career worked for a manager who we did not connect with, or who should really not be managing or leading sales people. However, we can’t always control who our bosses are, so here are 4 tips to survive working for a difficult sales manager.

Tip 1: Appreciate What They Do Well
Even if you detest your boss, you’re going to have to find a way to deal with the situation if you want to remain on the sales team. One of the best ways to do this is to tolerate his or her weaknesses and focus on the good qualities they possess, even if there are very few. Focus on how they can help you.

Tip 2: Make Sure Your Boss Knows You Are Fully Engaged In Selling And Want To Succeed
You need to find out where you stand with your manager and also to let him or her know about your commitment to success. Request a 15 minute meeting with your sales manager to talk about how things are going. There are four main things you want to accomplish in this meeting.

1. Ask your manager to evaluate how you are doing in your sales position.
2. Discuss any concerns they have for your performance and put together a specific action plan that addresses all concerns they have.
3. Make it very clear that you want to succeed in your role and do the best you possible can.
4. Schedule a follow up 15 minute meeting 2 weeks out to check-in again and review progress.

By taking the initiative to do this, you will not be guessing anymore. You will know exactly what your sales manager wants and expects from you. You will also know where he or she thinks you have weaknesses so you can address them.

“A good leader is a person who takes a little more than his share of the blame and a little less than his share of the credit.” ~John C.Maxwell

Tip 3: Schedule On-Going Follow-Up Meetings
The first meeting brought you and your sales manager onto the same page. Now the key is to continually schedule follow up meetings ever 2 weeks or so, even if they are just 5 minutes. This will ensure your manager sees your progress and also will help ensure you are not blind-sided by anything either.

Tip 4: Find A Sales Mentor or Sales Coach
Whether you have been selling for 20+ years, or are brand new to sales, you can always benefit from having an outside sounding board to help you take your results to the next level. Maybe there is someone on your team or within your organization whom you truly admire. Offer to take them out to lunch one time per month in exchange for being able to learn from them. And if you want to partner with someone specifically trained to help you achieve outstanding sales results, consider hiring a sales coach. But make sure you ask these questions before hiring and when interviewing a sales coach.

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“Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of.” ~ Benjamin Franklin

Post written by Jeremy Ulmer. Follow me on Twitter or LinkedIn.

1. Shower, get dressed, and eat breakfast.

2. Set your work hours. If you don’t set hours, you will risk sacrificing the balance between work and life.

3. Create a room that is dedicated for work only. It is essential you separate your work from your home life so that when you enter your home office, you know what you are there to do, work. It will help you change your mindset from, “I’m working at home” to “I’m at work.”

Tell your friends and family exactly what the room is for, and that even though you are in the house/apartment/condo, you are at work when in that office.

4. Close your office door. This will help remind you, and anyone else who may be at your home, that you are at work.

5. Clear your desk. Only keep what you need on your desk. The less distractions, the better.

6. Disconnect. Turn off your phones, IM, and email alerts when you need to focus on a task. This will not always apply, but try it out for certain tasks and see how it works for you.

7. Don’t quit. If you are having a rough day, it will be tempting to go find something else to do. Train yourself to work anyway.

8. Take breaks. Block out 15 minutes multiple times per day for a break. Your focus and productivity will increase.

9. Drink water and eat multiple times per day. Your brain is made up of about 85% water and you need water to stay alert, focused, and productive. To keep your energy levels and productivity at the highest levels, eat 5-7 smaller meals per day instead of 3 large meals. Plan ahead to make this happen. Also, be sure to eat some protein with each meal.

10. Give thanks! Be grateful you are able to work from home and don’t have a commute everyday. Use that gratitude to help drive you to work harder and stay on task!

You might also like to read: The Dangers of Sales Professionals Working From a Home Office

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“Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain and most fools do.” -Benjamin Franklin

“He has a right to criticize, who has a heart to help.” – Abraham Lincoln

“One mustn’t criticize other people on grounds where he can’t stand perpendicular himself” -Mark Twain

Post written by Jeremy Ulmer. Follow me on Twitter or LinkedIn.

Criticism from your sales manager (or from anyone) is not easy to handle, however, learning to deal with it can be a valuable skill. Here are some ideas to practice and keep in mind next time you receive criticism.

Take A Deep Breath & Pause Before You React

If your first reaction is to lash back at your sales manager or to become defensive, take a moment before speaking. It is natural to feel a little angry or to be on-guard. However, if you can teach yourself to take a moment before simply reacting, it will give a chance for logic to sink in and not just raw emotions. There is certainly nothing wrong with emotions, but when people are upset, they are more likely to say things they will regret later on.

Turn Lemons Into Lemonade

Sure, it may sting to hear negative feedback, but in most criticism, you can find a suggestion for improvement. For example, this criticism: “You are talking too much on your sales calls with prospective clients and just overloading them with too much information.” Can be interpreted as: “I need to listen much more, ask more questions, and talk less.” That’s just one example of course — you can do that with just about any criticism. View criticism as challenge to improve your sales skills.

Say, “Thank You For The Feedback.”

Even if your boss is tough on you, just say “Thank you.” Your gratitude will probably catch them off-guard and they may even respect you more for taking it so well. Not everyone is as positive as you may be, and your manager might just be having a bad day, (not an excuse, but be aware of this) or have a much more negative personality than you.

Learn And Integrate

After seeing criticism in a positive light, and thanking the critic, don’t just go back to selling as usual. Decide what the key take-away is to improve upon, and determine how to integrate the new learning into your work.

Don’t Stoop Down To His or Her Level

It is so easy to take criticism as a personal attack. View the criticisms as an attack on your sales skills, not on you as a human being. You will be tempted to attack the attacker, but if you do this, you are just stooping to his or her level. When you do this, you are no better than the attacker and it will leave you with a bad taste in your mouth. Be the bigger and better person. Rise above the critical comments and respond in a calm and positive manner…You will feel better about yourself at the end of the day.

Give The Critic Some Background When Needed

Sometimes the situation might be much more complex than it appears on the surface. After you have followed the above steps, know that is ok to give more background that might be important for the critic to understand. For instance, You could say, “I understand what you’re saying, thank you for the feedback, and I want to make this work. But last time I tried what you are recommending, it didn’t work because of ________. What do you suggest I do to make it work this time?”

Bonus Tip: Keep All Of This In Mind When YOU Are The Critic

Remember what it feels like to be on the receiving end of criticism when you are the one dishing it out. Not everyone will handle it as well as you, so make sure you are clear that you simply want to help.

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The sun has not caught me in bed in fifty years. ~Thomas Jefferson

The time just before dawn contains the most energy of all hours of the day. This has helped me become an early riser and an early doer….

When I wake to see that it’s light out already, I feel like the world has started without me. ~Terri Guillemets

Post written by Jeremy Ulmer. Follow me on Twitter or LinkedIn.

For sales professionals and sales leaders, getting an early start on the day can lead to more sales and increased productivity over the course of a month, quarter, and year.

Here are 7 tips on how to wake up earlier and get more done before 12noon:

1. Make small changes. Start the process waking up 15 minutes earlier than normal for 1 full work week. Then cut back another 15 minutes the next week until you have reached the ideal time you wish to wake.

2. Go to sleep earlier. Follow the same process as in #1. Plan to go to bed just 15 minutes earlier than your normal time for one full week and then cut another 15 minutes the following week.

3. Put your alarm clock on the other side of your room. Make it so that you must get up and walk to the alarm clock to turn it off. Do not hit snooze.

4. Get moving right away. Don’t think about going back to bed. Get out of the bedroom and get your day started.

5. Have a reason to wake up early. Plan to accomplish something early in the morning that’s important and it will help you wake up.

6. Use the extra time in a positive way. Don’t wake up early and just waste that extra time. Use it to get some of your most important tasks completed for the day.

7. Review your progress. Review each week all that you get done in the early morning and take a look at your accomplishments. Be sure to celebrate the many things you get done from waking up earlier.

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“To be successful, you must dedicate yourself 100% to your training, diet and mental approach.” -Arnold Schwarzenegger

Post written by Jeremy Ulmer. Follow me on LinkedIn or Twitter.

Without the right amount of energy and the ability to manage stress, sales results will suffer. There is nothing better to increase energy and manage stress than exercise. Within our sales coaching programs, we are often asked for support outside of just sales to achieve incredible results. Often, fitness and working out, is a topic that pops up.

In my own experience, I have found working out consistently to be one of the most essential ingredients to great success in sales.

Here are some tips to help you make exercise a daily habit:

1. Schedule Your Workout. Find a time of day that will work for you. Determine whether that is in the morning, afternoon, or evening. If you plan a time to workout, it will increase the odds that you will follow through.

2. Remind Yourself. Place the event on your gmail or outlook calender so it reminds you 30 minutes before the event or leave a post-it note on your desk.

3. Baby Steps Are Good! Start small. If you over do it, you will risk burnout and quitting your new workout routine.

4. Make It Fun! If you find you hate running on a treadmill, guess what, that probably won’t change and soon you will not be working out at all. Find something you enjoy to do!

“After just 25 minutes of exercise, your mood improves, you are less stressed, you have more energy, and you’ll be motivated to exercise again tomorrow.” – Jasper Smits, PHD

5. Get Moving and Go! Just get started and take action. Don’t sit around debating whether you are going to workout or not, just get to the gym.

6. Rest. Many people overtrain their bodies and do not see the progress they want to see. Be sure you are getting the rest you need to recover.

7. Do Not Miss A Scheduled Workout Unless There Is An Emergency. It’s easy to say, “No problem, I’ve been working out pretty steady, I’ll just skip today.” But that will make your workout habit formation harder. Consistency is key, so do not to skip a single scheduled workout day. If your plan is to workout 3 days per week, 4 days per week or more, just stick with whatever your goal is.

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“One does not accumulate but eliminate. It is not daily increase but daily decrease. The height of cultivation always runs to simplicity.” – Bruce Lee

Post written by Jeremy J. Ulmer. Connect with me on LinkedIn or Twitter.

1. Cut Back Your Hours. Schedule how long you will work each day and in a given week. You will be forced to get things done faster and will notice an increase in sales productivity. To help ensure you leave at 5:00 pm, if that is your cut off time, is to make sure you have commitments after 5:00 pm. Have a recurring event to be working out at 5:30 pm each day with your workout partner, or to be home for dinner by a certain time, whatever it is, stick with it.

2. Work From A Virtual Office. The key here is to set rigid boundaries and to minimize distractions while working at home. You will save on commute time and save your company money, however, you will actually be tempted to work even more hours being at home, so you must stick with #1 above or this will not work.

3. Schedule Times To Check Your Emails & Voicemails. This will help you to increase your sales productivity because you will have less distractions and be able to focus more. Remember, you don’t have to be available every minute and second of the day…In fact, that just will slow you down.

4. Laser Focus. If you truly are committed to working less, then get more efficient at getting things done. This means you must shut off all distractions and focus on one thing at a time before you start the next task.

5. Set Time Blocks. Ever notice how tasks tend to fill up the time that you make available for them to be completed? Knowing this, limit the amount of time you have to complete sales tasks and you will get them done faster.

6. Accomplish The Big Tasks. The most critical sales tasks are the ones that give you the biggest return. Focus your time, energy, and effort on sales activities that will help you attain your goals.

7. Delegate As Much As Possible. Get as many tasks off of your desk as possible so you can focus on the ones that really count. You probably have more resources than you even know are available to you at your organization and you must leverage these to be a #1 sales performer.

8. Reduce Unnecessary Meetings. This is an especially important tip for sales managers. Go through your calender and find any recurring meetings that are not as productive as when they were first initiated. Consider removing them, or cutting the time for the meeting in half.

9. Shut Off Your Internet. Spend less time being distracted and surfing the web. There is always something new to read, a new email or a social media profile at your finger tips waiting to take you off track. One of the best things you can do when you are working on your biggest tasks is to disconnect from the internet or turn off your computer.

10. Find A New Sales Gig. Does your current sales position not give you the flexibility to implement these tips to shorten your week? Then, it might be time to consider exploring what else is out there. If you have sales skills with a proven track record of success, there are many great opportunities for you.

Decide to shorten your hours now and make a commitment to yourself. This can be one of the best things you will ever do.

If this article was helpful, please share it, thank you. Learn more about our sales coaching programs or sales seminars.

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” -Mark Twain

Post written by Jeremy J. Ulmer. Connect with me on LinkedIn.

1. Track Your Sales Progress. Decide what you want to specifically track and then create a printed chart for your desk, track information on-line, or write it down in a training log.

It is difficult to see how you are progressing if you have no data on where you have been. By witnessing your own progress, it will give you a nice little boost of motivation.

2. Don’t Try To Crush Your Sales Goal Right Away. Have you ever started a new workout and been totally pumped up for the first few days, only to loose momentum?

Well, instead of using 100% of your energy in such a short period of time, take some positive steps and give 75% effort, but don’t push so hard that you loose the energy and passion for the goals.

Retain some of that energy by pacing yourself effectively and slowly increase the amount of effort from there. This will help you ease into what is often a totally new positive habit you are forming, and it will keep you engaged and looking forward to getting more done the next day.

3. Join A Professional Group To Help Stay On Track. Whether the group is online or meets in person, find a group of like-minded professionals with similar goals. You will meet other people who have similar challenges that you are facing, learn from them, share ideas, get support, and celebrate successes.

4. Print Or Cut Out A Picture From A Magazine Of Your End Goal. Place it on your desk or refrigerator so you will see it everyday. As an example, if attaining a certain sales or career goal will enable you to do more traveling, print out a beautiful image of where you want to visit. Use this simple visualization technique to help you stay focused on your goal.

5. Find An Accountability Partner. Trying to stay motivated on your own can be a real challenge sometimes. Seek out a friend or peer who also has some important goals they would like to accomplish. Ask them if they would like to partner with you on staying focused on the goals you each would like to achieve. The goals do not need to be in the same category, the main thing is that you help challenge each other to stay on track. Be sure to set up a simple accountability system, such as a weekly 5 minute phone call to give status updates on your goals.

If this article was helpful for you, please share it below, thank you.

Curious about our sales coaching programs? Contact us for a Free Consultation.

Stress is the trash of modern life – we all generate it but if you don’t dispose of it properly, it will pile up and overtake your life. ~Terri Guillemets

Post written by Jeremy J. Ulmer. Follow me on Twitter or LinkedIn.

Identify Your Work Stress. Before you can eliminate or reduce stress, you must know what you are dealing with. Write down all the stresses that you deal with on a daily and weekly basis. Then create a top 10 list of all the things that cause you stress and determine which items you can eliminate from your list.

Shorten Your Scheduled Meetings. Consider cutting many of your 60 minute meetings to 30 minutes and your 30 minute meetings to 15. With a shorter time frame to work in, you will be forced to be more productive.

Stop Procrastinating. Allowing work to pile up will stress you out. Plan time to get things done and off your desk.

Get Organized. Disorganization can cause a significant amount of workplace stress. Block time to get things organized.

Always Be On Time. Being late will cause a lot of stress at work or in your life. Learn the habit of being early, and this type of stress will disappear.

Stop Trying To Control Everything. Trying to control situations and people does not work. In fact, when we are in the state of trying to control, it just creates more stress at work and in our lives. Learn to let go of situations that are out of your control. The only thing you can control is yourself.

Stop Multitasking. Doing multiple tasks at the same time might seem productive, but in reality it slows us down from completing tasks, reduces the quality of work, and creates stress. Learn to single-task and get more done.

Cut Out Negative People. You know who they are. They can drag you down and create more stress. Surround yourself with other positive minded people and you will feel less stress.

Simplify Your Work. Look for ways to make your tasks more streamlined and simple.

Give Back & Help Others. Whether you volunteer for a charity or just make an effort to be more compassionate to those around you, you will notice it lowers your own stress levels. Try it out for a day and see how you feel.

Take Mini Breaks. Studies have show that concentration levels decrease 25 to 30 minutes into a task. If you don’t take any breaks, your focus and productivity will drop. Plan and enjoy mini-breaks during your work day.

Exercise! This is hands down #1 in my book and it works like magic. Exercise reduces stress and helps prevent it. Also, a healthier and fitter person is better equipped to handle stress. The key here is to be consistent and make working out a habit, just like brushing your teeth.

If this article was helpful for you, please share it below, thank you!

Want to take your sales results to the next level? Check out our sales coaching programs, sales seminars, and sales coaching seminars or contact us to learn more about how we can help you or your organization.

“Productivity is never an accident. It is always the result of a commitment to excellence, intelligent planning, and focused effort.” – Paul Meyer

Post written by Jeremy J. Ulmer. Connect with me on LinkedIn.

In the world of sales, finding ways to increase productivity and get more done in less time is essential to achieving great sales results, making more commissions, working less, and having more personal free time.

Here are 10 sales coaching tips to boost your productivity to new levels:

1. Most Important Things First. The most important task you need to get done each day should take priority over all other tasks. However, we all know that interruptions can pop up and the important task often gets put off.

If you put the most import thing off until later in the day, they often don’t happen. Your goal should be to get your most important things done first thing in the morning before doing anything else.

2. Wake Up Earlier. Get up just 30 minutes earlier and you can get a jump start on some of your most important tasks for the day. Decide what you’d like to accomplish each morning, and design your routine around your most important tasks.

3. Streamline Information. Think about all the information you receive on a daily basis: emails, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, blog updates, newsletters, mailing lists, magazines, newspapers, and mail. Start to edit and remove anything that you no longer are using or benefiting from.

4. Clear Of Your Desk & Get Focused. Get rid of everything off your desk that you don’t absolutely need. Remove all distractions and focus on one thing at a time. With a clean and clear desk, it becomes much easier to be productive and organized.

5. Get To Work Early; Leave Early. Ever notice how much you get done when no one else is around? Consider coming into work a little early to start on your most important things without interruptions. The trick here is to make sure you set an end time to your day. So if you want to leave a 4:00PM, commit to it and it will also help you focus on getting more done before that time.

6. Schedule Your Meetings & Avoid Last Minute Meetings When Possible. Consider each situation, but in general, see if you can aim to always schedule your meetings instead of taking on the spot meetings in your office that will throw off your momentum. Remember that whatever is on your schedule for you to be focusing on, should be treated like a meeting that is already in progress.

7. Eliminate Non-Essential Work. You will only be productive in sales if you are working on activities that are going to move you towards your goals. Remove or delegate non-essential tasks from your to-do lists, and start to say no to new requests that are non-essential.

8. Do The Tough Stuff First. Do these first thing in the morning. If you put the tough tasks off, they will only become more and more difficult to accomplish.

9. Shut Off Your Internet Connection. Schedule times when you will be online to check email or research on the web. Working off-line can help you increase your productivity as you will be focusing on one task at a time without distractions. For many people, this one seems almost impossible, but challenge yourself to try it out and see what happens.

10. Get Passionate. If you truly care about what you are doing, you will work like a machine to get it done. It will flow and you will plow through your tasks without procrastination. Find the deeper meaning of accomplishing your goals and being productive. What will being more productive in sales enable you to accomplish, to do, to be?

Learn how our sales coaching programs and our customized sales seminars can help you or your organization increase your sales productivity even more!

If you liked this article and it was helpful for you, please share it…Thank you.

Post written by Jeremy J. Ulmer. Connect with me on LinkedIn.

1. Get Started! There will be some days you just don’t feel motivated to complete your sales activities and everything you do will feel like an uphill battle.

Instead of focusing on how hard the task is, or how long it will take you to complete it, tell yourself you just have to get started. Many times, getting started is the hardest part. Once you actually start, it is generally not as hard as you thought it would be.

2. Make It Fun. We often put things off because it feels like hard work. Though hard work might be a part of it, the trick is to find what would make it fun for you? If you can add some fun into the process, it will become easier and more enjoyable.

3. Have Some Patience. Many of us expect immediate results, and with that expectation, it can be more challenging to stay motivated when the quick results don’t take place. If you want to run a marathon, you won’t be able to do it overnight and the same thing is true for the sales results you desire. If you don’t see the results you want right away, don’t quit, and keep generating more momentum. Focus on any progress you are making and celebrate the fact that you are sticking to your goal.

4. Break It Down Into Mini Goals. Long-term sales goals can feel overwhelming. After a few weeks, it is possible to loose motivation, because there are still months or even years left to finish the goal. The best thing you can do is break down your goals into mini goals, so you have certain landmarks to reach and chart your progress along the way.

5. Celebrate Your Sales Successes Often and Reward Yourself. Celebrate and reward mini successes as well as long term goals. Consider having some reward set up for each mini goal that you accomplish. A simple process is to create a list of your goals, mini goals, and next to each one, list a reward.

If this article was helpful to you, please share it below, thank you.

Check out our sales management coaching seminars or sales coaching programs for sales managers to learn how to effectively coach sales representatives.

Post written by Jeremy J. Ulmer. Connect with me on LinkedIn.

Many sales professionals and sales leaders are so busy handling day to day challenges that they forget to formalize their sales career aspirations and goals. Make the time to do this today. Spending just 10 to 20 minutes on this 5-step process could make all the difference in the world.

You might already have some ideas floating around in your mind, and now it is time to get them written down. Or maybe you have even completed something like this before in the past, but you have not looked at your notes or updated your sales career goals in years.

1. Think about what you’d like people to say about you at your retirement party. This general concept comes from Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, “Begin with the end in mind.” Imagine you are at the end of your sales career, looking back. What would you like to have accomplished in your career? How would you like to be remembered?

Start acting now, how you want to be remembered. Be now, how you want to be remembered, and don’t wait! You want to be a VP of Sales for a major Fortune 500 company, then start acting like one. What do you think a top VP of Sales was doing when she was in your shoes?

2. Brainstorm and write down some specific sales career goals you would like to accomplish before you retire. This exercise should flow much easier after completing step 1. There are many areas you could focus on, but here are some general topics to get you started: responsibility held, freedom created, impact on others, income made, started own business, moved into sales leadership or management, #1 performer, helped others to be a #1 performer.

3. Pick 3 goals. Take a look at your list and choose up to 3 goals that really stand out to you. Pay attention to the energy around each goal and find which ones really get you excited. Don’t get rid of the other goals, but just pick 3 to focus on, for now.

4. Break it down and make these 3 sales career goals very specific. What do you have to accomplish in the next month, 6 months, 1 year, 2 years, and so on, to reach these goals? Plan it out step by step so you know exactly what needs to get done to accomplish your goals.

5. Action! Start with what you need to accomplish this next month and create specific action items or a to-do list for each week of the month. Ask yourself what can I do to accelerate these goals, and if I only get one very important thing accomplished each day this week, what would that be?

Follow this simple 5-step process and you will be taking positive steps towards your sales career goals and dreams. You might also want to check out: How To Set Sales Goals That Boost Your Energy. If this article was helpful for you, please share it below. Thank you!

Post written by Jeremy J. Ulmer. Follow me on Twitter.

Excuse #1: “I Don’t Have Enough Time To Prospect or Focus on Sales Related / Dollar Productive Activities.”

Solution: Create Time.

Sales professionals of all levels and business owners who achieve extraordinary levels of success have days just as hectic as everyone else, right? Yet somehow they make prospecting a part of their daily or weekly activities.

So how do they do it? They create the time. You can instantly create time if you begin to plan ahead and stay committed. This means planning your days and weeks. One of the best time-creating techniques is to schedule prospecting or selling time on your calendar and delete unimportant activities.

Schedule your most important tasks earlier in the day to ensure they get done. Ask yourself, “Where am I wasting time?” Make sure you remove those activities from your daily schedule right away. Set up a recurring event for prospecting and don’t miss it. To be successful with this, be sure to eliminate your distractions.

Excuse #2: “I Can’t Stay Committed.”

Solution: Find Compelling Reasons For Your Actions.

There is a significant difference between intentions and action. The difference is commitment.

Our commitment to our goals leads us to achievement, even during the toughest times. There is a direct relationship between motivation and commitment. If you are really committed to making a change now in your sales or business results, create a sense of urgency.

You need reasons that are so compelling and so intense you must follow through. So right now, ask yourself the following questions and come up with the three reasons why you must commit to your sales growth goals.

• What will this cost me if I don’t make a change right now?
• What has this cost me so far in sales results, income, and overall success?
• If I do start prospecting effectively and on a regular basis, how will I feel about myself?
• How will this impact my sales career, my business, my life?
• What will I gain as a result of this new commitment?

Your answers to these questions will help you gain an immediate understanding of what you’re committed to and why!

Excuse #3: “I Don’t Feel Confident That I Will Succeed. This Is A Waste Of Time!”

Solution: Break down your sales and business goals into measurable steps.

Sometimes trying to accomplish sales goals seems so overwhelming, the immediate temptation is to give up before we even start. Ouch. That kills self-confidence. And it’s true; we can’t gain confidence until we take action. Yet, we don’t take action because we are afraid to fail. See the problem here?

Take, for example, the intimidating obstacle of facing your sales goals or business goals for the entire year. Now that’s paralyzing, isn’t it?

To gain confidence, you must break your goals down into measurable steps. For example, if want to win 12 new clients within 12 weeks, then you could set your goal for 1 new client per week. It just feels easier and more attainable this way.

You don’t have to focus on the entire goal; but instead take smaller, manageable steps. This gives you a tremendous sense of control and achievement.

By the time you are nearing the end of your first couple of weeks on your new prospecting or sales plan, despite the ups and downs in progress, you begin to feel more confident because you have experienced some results.

Suddenly, as the fear dissipates, you will discover new found confidence. And best of all, you will have achieved what you once thought was impossible—proceeding one step at a time.

Excuse #4: “I Don’t Know What To Say. I Don’t Know If I Am Delivering The Right Message or Value.”

Solution: Seek Support & Don’t Try To Do Everything On Your Own.

It is understandable to feel a little confused. You may feel overwhelmed and paralyized. There are so many sales techniques recommended by so many “sales experts”.  So, whose advice can you trust?

Are you tired of trying to sort through all the information on the internet, sales books, business articles and tips? Well, you can stop right now and keep yourself from chasing every sales technique or theory.

So how do you find the answers?

When seeking support on these topics, make sure you are working with someone with a proven record of producing top sales results. But that is not enough. Just modeling the approaches of a highly successful sales person isn’t enough. You can start there, but you must learn your own style, strengths, and how to use them. If you can develop your own personal selling style, you will never come across as “salesey,” which is the last thing you want to do.

Start by looking towards those with great success in this field and then challenge yourself to develop your own sales style. I help my clients develop their own authentic selling approach that takes into account what makes them unique, as they incorporate my proven methods and techniques. This combination of proven expert methods in conjunction with a personal selling style produces dramatic results.

The bottom line: Seek someone who has achieved the “extraordinary” results you desire, learn the “winning” methods, and then integrate them into your own personal strengths to develop your own genuine selling style.

By committing to turning these mistakes and excuses into powerful success strategies, you will begin to create extraordinary sales and business results!

Don’t wait, make a commitment to yourself today!

Post written by Jeremy J. Ulmer

In a 2009 International Vacation Deprivation Survey from expedia.com:

One in three employees do not use their allotted vacation days each year, even though they said they are more productive after returning from vacation.

In the sometimes grueling world of sales, the negative impact of not taking vacations could be even greater.

Sales professionals are becoming less and less productive as they push on without vacations. They often feel compelled to keep working without vacations, to be available for every client call, and for every lead that may come their way. They don’t want to miss a beat. They end up “over working” and hurting their progress.

Here are 5 reasons why sales professionals should take all of their vacations days each year:

Avoid Burnout: We all need a break. Think about how refreshed and motivated you felt after your last vacation. If you keep going full force without a break, where are the rewards for all your hard work? Once you reach the burnout stage, you will often feel out of control and even less likely to take a vacation. Sales results will suffer and motivation will be lacking.

Reduce Stress: We all know stress can literally be a killer and no one is immune to stress. However, vacation can be one of the great ways to reduce stress and rejuvenate your energy and spirit. The bad stress won’t stop building until you give yourself some time to recover.

Increase Quality of Life & Work: We remember experiences more than anything. Science has even shown that material objects do not provide the lasting joy or happiness that positive experiences can create. Vacations are often all about experience and help to increase the quality of life. When a person experiences a greater quality of life, it is often the case that their quality of work will improve as well.

Creativity Boost: When we are constantly living on a schedule going from one task to another, it is hard to have the space and freedom to be creative. Think about when some of your best ideas came to you? Most likely, you were not at work. You were probably not even thinking about work at all, and were in a relaxed state. Those are the moments that creative genius can strike. But, it can’t strike if you are always on the go!

Productivity Spike: Think about what happens on a Friday when you have planned to leave early or take a half day. Ever notice how you get so much done in less than 8 hours? Funny how that works, but tighter deadlines and looking forward to something can sure help you get more done faster. Use the vacation as something to get excited about and to work very hard up until your last day at the office. This will increase your productivity prior to the vacation. And, after relaxing for a week, when you come back, you will be energized, stress free, and ready to make a huge impact.

Don’t wait any longer. Plan and book your next vacation now!

If this article was helpful for you, please share it on Facebook, Twitter or Email below. Thank you for your support!

Post written by Jeremy Ulmer. Follow me on Twitter or LinkedIn.

I have worked successfully from a home office in various sales roles in the past, and there are many benefits from working at home; however, there are also many dangers.

Sales managers and sales professionals need to be aware of potential pitfalls.

Avoid the following dangers and you will be able to create a highly productive home office environment.

Never Shutting Off The Work
One of the main problems with working from home for sales people is that you are technically always at work. It becomes very hard for your mind to separate your free time and your work time. This can result in an unbalanced life-style and addictive work behaviors. Some common negative habits that are formed consist of constantly checking emails, always taking calls even during non-working ours, and working well into the night.

To help prevent these negative habits, set up a separate office space, maintain set working hours with a clear start and end time to your day, shut your computer down, and turn off your work phone during non-working hours.

Not Getting Any Exercise
Sitting on your butt for 8+ hours a day is never a good recipe for physical fitness and health. If you do work from
home, then make sure you are scheduling time for your workouts or participating in some sports or activities to stay active. The body and mind are all connected. Without a strong body, your mind will lack the energy it needs to be productive day in and day out. Without energy and a high level of fitness, you will not produce the same results.

Lack Of Sales Motivation & Procrastination
When you are on your own working from home, it can be easy to slip into procrastination mode. You can help prevent this by setting weekly and daily goals. Make sure you complete your toughest work activity first thing in the day. Consider finding some accountability partners to help you stay on track.

Distractions
This can range from laundry, to cleaning, to TV, to personal calls, to running errands, and to nice weather. I have heard of sales professionals and sales managers who simply were so distracted at home, that they wanted to find an office away from home, even if it meant driving well over an hour each way. You must minimize your distractions and set clear guidelines of what you should be doing and should not be doing during working hours.

Not Feeling Like “Real Work” Was Accomplished
Despite working from home being more popular than ever before, a lot of people still don’t see it as “real work.” They think if you don’t commute an hour each way, dress up in a suit, drink coffee with your peers in the morning, and sit in a daily sales meeting, that it isn’t “real work.”

To others, working from home means you have a license to do what you want, when you want. Although this is not true, you need to make sure you set the boundaries with your friends and family. Just because you are at home, does not mean you are free to help them with favors. They need to understand the hours you work, and that you are serious and disciplined when working and can not be disturbed.

Trouble Getting Up Early
Most people don’t like getting up at 5:30AM or 6:00AM to get ready and drive into work. Working from home will
often give you some degree of flexibility in this regard, however, be careful that you don’t take advantage of this too much. Make sure you are getting up, taking a shower, getting dressed, and eating before the time you want to start working. Give yourself a solid hour to prepare for the work day. So, if you want to start work at 8AM, make sure you have an alarm going off at 7AM. Here are some tips on how to wake up early.

Trouble Sleeping
The fact that you can feel like you are always at work means it becomes hard to shut down. Too often sales professionals will check email a few minutes before going to bed. This means the last thing on their mind are emails from their management, clients, and prospects. This is not a good way to prepare and relax the mind for sleep. To avoid this, make sure you do not log into your email within 1-2 hours before getting ready for bed.

I love working from a home office, but it is not the paradise that many people presume it is unless you are very disciplined and regimented with your approach. Avoid these dangers, and you too can enjoy working from a home office productively and successfully for many years to come.

You might also like to read: Top 10 Tips To Increase Productivity When Working At Home

Post written by Jeremy J. Ulmer

As I was doing research on the sales coaching industry, I discovered there is a great deal of garbage about sales coaching on the internet. People who are posing as sales experts are infiltrating minds with myths that are absolutely false!

And, that’s exactly why I’ve written this article… To make some waves in my industry by debunking 10 of these myths right now.

Sales Coaching Myth #1: “Successful sales professionals and sales leaders do not need coaches.”
Sales Coaching Fact: Professionals have coaches and amateurs do not. Sales coaching helps the best get better, the good to become great, and the struggling to breakthrough.

Sales Coaching Myth #2: “I can coach myself for free or talk to my peers or sales manager.”
Sales Coaching Fact: Yes, you can and should talk to these people, but you will not get the same results you get from working with a professional sales coach. Your managers, peers, and friends will all have their own agenda, not be professionally trained in coaching skills, will be biased, and will not provide the same accountability or partnership that you receive from an external coach.

Sales Coaching Myth #3: “I get all the sales information I can possibly use right now from sales books, sales articles, and my sales manager.”
Sales Coaching Fact: Information and knowledge is helpful only if you can translate it into action. Coaching will help translate your knowledge, ideas, goals, and intentions into reality.

Sales Coaching Myth #4: “A sales coach is the same as a sales mentor.”
Sales Coaching Fact: Mentoring is important, but it is typically informal, open-ended, and the mentor is not professionally trained to best support you. Sales coaching provides clearly-defined goals that are created with you, learning, actions, professional support, motivation, focus, and on-going accountability.

Sales Coaching Myth #5: “Coaching is like going to therapy.”
Sales Coaching Fact: Therapy deals with the past and present. Coaches work with the present and future.
A coach’s role is to turbo charge your results, maximize your productivity and effectiveness. Coaching is based on partnership, goals, plans, and the alliance designed by the coach and client together. In therapy, the “treatment plan” is largely designed by the therapist.

Sales Coaching Myth #6: “Coaching fosters an unhealthy dependency on others.”
Sales Coaching Fact: Coaching helps clients to better self manage themselves, grow, and feel empowered, not dependent.

Sales Coaching Myth #7: “We do not need on-going sales coaching, we have a sales training program”
Sales Coaching Fact: Most sales training has a very short-term effect on performance and less than 15% of the information is retained and implemented. Sales Coaching provides on-going support, on-going results, growth, changes in behavior, attitude, implementation of new skills, new actions, accountability, improved productivity, and a customized approach. Bring a sales management coaching seminar to your organization to teach your sales management how to coach sales reps, or visit our sales coaching services to learn more about direct support for your sales team.

Sales Coaching Myth #8: “Coaching should only be a short-term solution.”
Sales Coaching Fact: A long-term partnership with the right sales coach will continue to add value for many years.

Sales Coaching Myth #9: “Sales Coaching focuses strictly on your sales career and professional life only.”
Sales Coaching Fact: The success in your professional life and personal life are all connected. The more balanced you are, the more energy you have, the more fulfillment you have in all areas, the more success you will experience. A good sales coach should be trained to support you holistically and ready to support you in all ways.

Sales Coaching Myth #10: “I need to be more organized or more successful before I hire a coach.”
Sales Coaching Fact: Coaching will help you get more organized and achieve more success faster than you can ever create on your own.

If all of these myths were true, sales coaching would have failed a long time ago. The fact is, the industry is expanding rapidly as individuals and organizations are looking for new ways to create more sales success, faster.

Sales coaching from a top level sales coach or from a sales leader who has attended a sales coaching seminar has proven to deliver remarkable sales results. It is our hope that by debunking these myths, you can find the right sales coach for yourself, organization, or sales management coaching seminar.

Post written by Jeremy J. Ulmer. Follow me on Twitter or LinkedIn.

1. Decide To Be Successful: Make the conscious choice to be successful. Own it now! Deciding to do something is the first step towards success. This is a critical step which is often overlooked.

2. Focus Your Mind: Get clear on what you desire. Ask yourself: What do I truly want? What does success look like to me? How will this achievement change my life, business or career? How can I use this success to make a difference for others? Understand what you want, why you want it, and what it will do for you.

3. Set Clear Goals: You may have heard of SMART goals before. The standard definition of SMART goals is as follows: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Time Sensitive. I prefer the following definition: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Resonant, Thrilling.

4. Commitment: Make a commitment to yourself to have success. Find an accountability partner or hire a coach to help you stay on course. Remember, the “best” surround themselves with support. And there is no “trying” in commitment. As Yoda once said to Luke, Luke: “All right, I’ll give it a try” Yoda: “No. Try not. Do… or do not. There is no try.”

5. Belief: This is sometimes the greatest challenge for some people to overcome to be successful. Most people have an entire series of self-limiting beliefs that will hold them back from success. Thoughts like, “I’m not good enough” or “I’m not smart enough” or “I can’t do this” are just a few of the self-limiting beliefs that people will often hold. I help my clients identify these thoughts and to shed these non-supportive beliefs, and replace them with beliefs that will help them to accomplish their goals.

6. Take Action: Put everything into play and execute your plans! Don’t let paralysis by analysis set in. Dive in, don’t hold back, and get started.

Go here: www.SalesCoachingHabits.com

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As a sales professional, sales leader or business owner, distractions can often be the main obstacle for achieving great success.

If you have too many distractions, you will never achieve your full potential.

It is important to continue to evaluate what sales activities will be most important to reach your goals. Then, you must focus on those activities first, and make a commitment to complete them each and every day without failure.

You must remove and minimize your distractions. You will then have the time to focus on what you have determined is most important.

Here are some tips on how to minimize common distractions:

Limit your number of social networks. Determine which social networking sites are most valuable to you. You may be a member of multiple forums, on line groups, MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and will be invited to join other networks as well. Pick a couple that are most helpful for you and drop the rest.

Do not log into social networking sites while you are working. Save social networking for times when you are not at work.

Block time to check your email. When you are working on a task, focus on the task. Emails constantly flying into your inbox can be a constant distraction. Schedule specific times during the day to read and send emails.

Send fewer, shorter emails. Also, don’t become dependent on emailing versus picking up the phone. There is value in the personal touch.

Shut off notifications. Are you constantly getting pinged with an email, or tweet, or text or IM? When are you actually focused and present in the moment? Don’t forget that the most important time you have is right now. Consider at times completely shutting off your computer or turning off your smartphone.

Clear off your desk. Only keep what you truly need on it. Keep it neat and tidy. Do the same for your computer desktop.

Do one thing at a time. Multitasking can be totally counterproductive.

Do the tough stuff first.

Have a cut off time. Make sure you have set times to complete your activities as well as set times to stop working. Have you ever planned a trip where you left work early at 12:00 noon? Remember how much you got done before 12:00 noon because you knew you had to leave early that day? Exactly.

The next step is to put these items into action and start minimizing your distractions today. Also, consider making a list of all other distractions you may have.

By minimizing my own distractions, I was able to be a #1 sales performer within multiple fortune 500 organizations. Now, as a sales coach, I help support my sales coaching clients achieve similar success by providing specific solutions to challenges that are holding them back from extraordinary results.

All too often, I see emails from sales professionals and business leaders that are 10x’s longer than they need to be.

They loose the attention of the recipient and the purpose is not always clear right away.

By learning to write brief emails you will save yourself time and save the time of the recipient.

Below are some tips for writing brief emails:

Keep it to a few sentences. 2 to 5 sentences max is a good rule.

Skip a long greeting. Their time is valuable so get to the point.

Focus on a single topic. This will help you keep it concise.

Re-Read & Edit. Remove unnecessary words and sentences.

Consider not sending. Sometimes, an email is unnecessary.

Shorten Your Sales Cycle So You Can Win More Clients, Faster!

By Coach Jeremy J. Ulmer

As a sales professional, entrepreneur or business owner, being able to effectively establish new client partnerships and increase sales results quickly is vitally important. When sales are going great it can be very exciting! When you have a great month you are filled with sales motivation!

But, after a while, things slow down and you hit a wall. You find yourself chasing after prospects and wondering why it is taking so long to convert prospects into clients.

You’re stumped!

You start exploring different techniques and try to find a solution. But, no matter what you try, the results are the same and the sales cycle is a much longer process than what you would like.

So where do you turn when you are stuck in sales quicksand and can’t get your prospects to move forward?

Here’s How You Can Shorten The Sales Cycle and Win More Clients, Increase Sales and Profits with 2 Simple Strategies:

1. Determine, Uncover & Clarify Challenges
If a prospect is not clear about their challenges and the impact of these challenges, this will greatly slow down the entire sales cycle. This is because the client does not yet believe their challenge is significant enough to take action, and guess what, because of this, they won’t take action! It is a waste of time for you to give information before understanding their needs, goals, challenges and problems. You are presenting a “solution” to someone who doesn’t believe they have a “problem.”

So, what do you do about this? Ask a lot of questions! Ask open ended questions. Get curious and don’t assume you understand their problem or challenge no matter how long you have been in the industry. Dig in and really find out what is going on, and ask follow up questions that focus in on the greater impact of their challenges. Uncover the impact of the current challenges on both the organization and the individuals or groups you are selling to. Your questions will help them understand and verbalize that they have a challenge or problem. Now you have the information you need to explain how you can help solve their challenge.

If you find yourself talking more than 20% of the time during your sales meetings with prospects, stop yourself, and ask a question!

2. Always Set A Clear Next Step
Have you ever heard this before? “Thanks for your time today, your product looks great and we will get back to you soon.” Yet, you never hear back, and end up having to chase, follow up, and make multiple calls, send multiple emails to no avail. That is not fun for you, nor is it fun for the prospective client.

How do you solve this?

Well, if you are a great salesperson or great sales minded business owner, you don’t need to chase. You don’t need to pressure. You don’t need to persuade. Really. You need to set up a clear next step, and if your prospect is not ready to take the next step, they will tell you, and you will determine if they are a serious prospect or not, on the spot.

Remember, give your prospects an option to say, “No.” When you do this, all the pressure is taken off of you, and more importantly off of your prospect. That way, they do not feel like they are being “sold,” nor do they feel any pressure from you. Many of the sales coaching programs and sales coaches still are teaching the same old techniques developed decades ago that involve pressure and persuading. You do not need to do that anymore and it does not work.

Simply set up the next step at the end of your meetings. The next step could be a follow-up face to face meeting or a scheduled phone call for example. However, make sure the next step is moving the sales cycle forward and has a scheduled date, time, and location.

Map out your sales cycle and know what steps need to take place. Here is an example of a 5 step sales cycle: 1. Initial appointment, qualification, discovery, 2. Agreement to conduct an in-depth analysis, 3. Demonstration of service or product, 4. Contract review meeting, 5. Signed agreement.

At the end of each meeting, you should be setting up the next meeting and next actions. Explain the next steps you both will need to take to start working together. Map it out for them and provide them with a simple document that explains the next steps with clear time lines. Ask them to commit to the next steps along the way. Guess what happens if you do this effectively? You don’t need to “close” or persuade, the sale will be made, faster, naturally, and more effectively.

I truly enjoy the art of sales and sharing sales tips to sales professionals, sales leaders, sales experts, and entrepreneurs just like you. I am lucky to be able to live and breath my sales approaches everyday for my own business, as well as witnessing my clients putting these techniques into action and reaping the rewards! These 2 steps will help you shorten your sales cycle and experience dramatically improved sales results. Don’t wait to make these changes, take action now, and make a commitment to yourself. Want more ideas, tips, coaching, and support to shorten your sales cycle? Contact me for a free coaching consultation or subscribe for free tips below.

About the Author:
Sales Coaching & Business Coaching Expert, Jeremy J. Ulmer, has helped hundreds of sales professionals, sales leaders, businesses and entrepreneurs overcome sales and business challenges to achieve breakthrough results. Jeremy has been ranked a #1 sales performer in the U.S. for 4 years at two Global Fortune 500 Companies, is the former Director of Sales at the #1 Outsourced Sales Company in the U.S., and is a Featured Presenter on Sales Skills and Entrepreneurship at The University of Chicago Booth School of Business. If you are ready to dramatically increase your sales or business results then subscribe for your Free Tips or request a Free Coaching Consultation at: http://www.CoachWithJeremy.com or visit Coach Jeremy’s Programs.

What if you could create all the positive habits you wanted in your life, business or career, right now, to make an immediate impact?

Well, you can, and below are 4 tips to get you started on creating new positive habits.

1. Identify What You Want To Change: Find the areas in your life, business or career that you want to change. Make a list of all the changes you want to make. Next to each item, write down the new habit or habits that would need to be formed to make the necessary changes. At this stage, do not worry about how you are going to form all of these new habits.

2. Pick One Habit: People often have a tendency to sabotage themselves by trying to change everything at once. Instead, just pick one major habit that you want to form. For the next 5 to 30 days, (depending on your plan) this will be the habit that you will create and focus your attention on.

3. Take Baby Steps: Now that you have the habit you want to focus on creating, design a daily and/or weekly routine that is easy to follow. For example, let’s say that you want to wake up one hour earlier so that you can be more productive each day and get more done. Instead of setting your alarm one hour earlier right at the start of your habit forming program, set it 10 minutes earlier each morning until you reach your goal. In this scenario, in about one week you will have created the new habit. Remember, the new habits you are creating will be forcing you to often make very challenging changes. Sometimes, yes, absolutely go for implementing the entire habit right away! However, in some cases it will be good to take it one step at a time to ensure you stay on course. This is especially true since you are doing this on your own.

4. Repeat The Process: Once you have created your new habit, move on to the next habit from your list that you want to create. Before you know it, you will have created a whole new life or business full of success filled habits.
Imagine where you will be in one year if you follow these four keys to creating successful habits. If you can form a new habit each month, you will have developed 12 new habits in one year!

1. Decide To Be Successful: Make the conscious choice to be successful. Own it now! Deciding to do something is the first step towards success. This is a critical step which is often overlooked.

2. Focus Your Mind: Get clear on what you desire. Ask yourself: What do I truly want? What does success look like to me? How will this achievement change my life, business or career? How can I use this success to make a difference for others? Understand what you want, why you want it, and what it will do for you.

3. Set Clear Goals: You may have heard of SMART goals before. The standard definition of SMART goals is as follows: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Time Sensitive. I prefer the following definition: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Resonant, Thrilling. Learn more about How To Set and Achieve Goals.

4. Commitment: Make a commitment to yourself to have success. Find an accountability partner or hire a coach to help you stay on course. Remember, Tiger Woods has multiple coaches. The “best” surround themselves with support.

And there is no “trying” in commitment. As Yoda once said to Luke:

Luke: "All right, I’ll give it a try" - Yoda: "No. Try not. Do… or do not. There is no try."

5. Belief: This is sometimes the greatest challenge for some people to overcome to be successful. Most people have an entire series of self-limiting beliefs that will hold them back from success. Thoughts like, “I’m not good enough” or “I’m not smart enough” or “I can’t do this” are just a few of the self-limiting beliefs that people will often hold. I help my clients identify these thoughts and to shed these non-supportive beliefs, and replace them with beliefs that will help them to accomplish their goals.

6. Take Action: Put everything into play and execute your plans! Don’t let paralysis by analysis set in. Dive in, don’t hold back, and get started.

Have you ever lost employees because they did not understand your company culture?

I have listed some ideas below that will help you get your new team members on board and moving in the right direction.

1. Friendly Welcome: Thank them for joining your team or company. Be sure they feel valued from day one!

2. HR Items: Cover HR policies, vacation policies, sick days, hours of work, pay periods, holiday pay, pension, medical benefits, lateness, safety rules, any unique company policies, etc.

3. Meet Their Manager: Have the new employee meet with their manager to get a clear understanding of expectations, goals, training, expected work ethic and teamwork. Make the bottom line objectives of the organization clear to the new employee. Share how other employees have had immediate success and explain / outline opportunities for promotion.

Make sure open communication is established. Make it a co-active process and get their feedback. Discover what drives and motivates them! Let them know you will be there to help coach them to success.

5. Training: Set out a clear training plan that will include hands on activities and background on the overall market as well as the competition. In addition to the formal training, place them with an experienced employee that they can shadow for a period of time.

6. Introduce To The Team: Consider taking your new team member to lunch with the entire team. Do something memorable that welcomes them and makes them feel connected to their new team members.