In most areas of life, we are faced with the choice of the Pain of Discipline vs. the Pain of Regret. If you exercise regularly, you are choosing the Pain of Discipline over the Pain of Regret. If you make mostly good food choices you are choosing the Pain of Discipline over the Pain of Regret.
If you want to improve sales performance, you need to constantly push yourself to make quality calls on your biggest customers and best prospects. Quality calls are things like doing needs analysis work, discussing potential solutions, presenting proposals where you ask for big bucks, etc. You want to push for as many of these calls as possible each week—just make sure you don’t squander time doing this with little customers or unimportant prospects. Focus the effort where it will pay off! It’s ok to admit that there can be pain in this discipline of pushing for maximum quality calls each week, but it sure beats the pain of regret.
John Henley is Chief Operating Officer at The Center for Sales Strategy.
