The Center for Sales Strategy Blog

I can remember it so well—sitting in the grass with a bunch of other sweaty 5^th and 6^th graders, out of breath from running laps and drills. We were the St. Joseph’s soccer team, and we were great at running around and yelling and kicking the ball in the general direction of the other team’s goal. We were pretty good at joking around and drinking the Gatorade, too.

But this practice was a little different. Today, Coach Freer had a big pad of paper and a sharpie. She proceeded to tell us this fabulous story involving fullbacks, and halfbacks, and forwards, and strikers. And those white lines on the grass? She told us what they meant, too. 

“Whoa!” I said to myself. “There’s a strategy here, and a structure!”

This memory came back so clear to me this week, as I finished building our latest online course, the Lead Gen What & Why: Inbound. In presenting the top 20 terms related to inbound marketing and lead generation, a real structure, based on strategy, started to come into focus.

One, one thousand.

Two, one thousand.

Three, one thousand.

Where are you going with this?  

Four, one thousand.

Five, one thousand.

Ahem, I have more important things to do. 

Six, one thousand.

Seven, one thousand.

Get to the point!!! 

Eight, one thousand. Done!

The point is to illustrate—in words only—the interval of eight seconds.

Why? Because eight seconds is the average attention span of a North American, revealed last year in a study by Microsoft Corp.

Staying organized is one of the keys to productivity. If we're going to accomplish our important goals, we need to have a method for knowing what our priorities are and organizing our to-do list around them. 

By now, you have probably heard about Marie Kondo’s tiny turquoise book, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing. It has been published in more than 30 countries, and has spent the last 77 weeks on the New York Times Best Seller list. During that time, Kondo has launched a companion book, Spark Joy, which has joined her first book on the best seller list 15 weeks ago.

Perhaps you’ve read the books — or even been inspired to start your own decluttering binge! 

There is a certain freshness and energy that comes from sweeping away the unnecessary and unused clutter to reveal the meaningful, important items in your home and your life. The feeling of “a place for everything, and everything in it’s place,” is a reward unto itself, as so many have discovered through Kondo’s KonMari Method.

The movie Chef, starring Jon Favreau, John Leguizamo, and Sofia Vergara was in the theaters last year, and is now available on Netflix and for rental.

Some called it “the feel-good movie of the year” — and I agree — but it’s also a GREAT way to get up to speed on Social Media!