“Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve. Thoughts are things! And powerful things at that, when mixed with definiteness of purpose, and burning desire, can be translated into riches.”
-Napoleon Hill

If you are like me, the first time you heard this was when your Mom or Dad said, “You can do anything you want, once you put your mind to it!” But did you ever really believe it? Whether you did or not doesn’t matter. What does matter is your willingness now to give it a shot. Seriously! And it starts by not letting anybody around you determine how successful you will be. Think about it. Are some people born to be “bosses” and others the employees? Are some pre-disposed to being a top performer and others meant to be average? Are some born lucky and others SOL? The answer is NO. Nobody controls how far you will go in your career.

So this week, take 15 minutes in your office and ask yourself, “Am I reaching my potential?” Then ask whether it is you or others that are limiting you. If it is others, do NOT let them have any power over your thoughts. While they project negativity, stay focused, knowing that they have no control over your career or your life. Only you do. It’s time to put your greatest performance weapon to work, in ways you never have. Because once you understand the power of your mind, you will realize that you have been given the same gifts that make the world’s top performers who they are.

Let’s not overcomplicate this. In sales, there are only two ways to get better results. The first is to make more sales calls. The second is to perform better on each call.  So how many prospecting calls do you make each week? And as an FYI, “It depends,” is NOT an acceptable answer. Because those that say, “It depends,” or “I am not really sure,” have lost control over their sales territory and as a result, are at the mercy of whatever voicemail and email are telling them to do. The top performer, on the other hand, sets a call objective number and let’s that number drive the workweek. If he or she wants to increase their sales by 15% or more, they realize it means they may have to make 15 more calls. They then let that number haunt them. They don’t start the weekend until they made the last call.

Another way 15% more effort can create 15% greater performance is by investing in improving your sales, communication and leadership skills. Buy a sales book, attend a seminar, seek out top performers in your company and grill them! By increasing your knowledge and skill by 15% or more, you will become 15% more valuable to your customers, your company and your future.

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.

~Danzae Pace

The song says “It’s the most wonderful time…of the year!” But why do so many of us feel it’s the most STRESSFUL time of the year? Presents to buy, sales quotas to make, 2010 Objectives to set, in-laws to keep happy. HELP! So what can YOU do to control the stress so that another day does not pass by without you truly enjoying it? Try these tips:

• Laugh- Laughter releases endorphins in the body and act as the body’s natural pain-killer.  Make it a regular part of your day. Then schedule time over the next week to be around people who will make you laugh. And who knows, you may not need the Egg Nog. Although they DO go well together!

• Set Boundaries- Choose to let some things go. Don’t say yes to everything and everybody.  You can only do so much!

• Don’t Freak Out on the Small Stuff- So many of the things that we get hung up this time of year just aren’t that important. We often focus too much time and energy on making everything perfect. But if we don’t smile, laugh and enjoy the season, none of those details matter.

So this week, as you prepare for the Holidays and year-end, keep asking yourself if you are happy. I mean REALLY happy. And if you aren’t, start removing the things that are getting in your way. Because the greatest gift you can give others this season is not wrapped in paper, but instead wrapped in a happier version of YOU.

Ask the most successful people in sales, leadership, parenting and life how they got there and they will tell you that all the knowledge and skill they need lives in the minds and bodies of others. All they did was seek it out. And that is the consistent quality of top performers. They look at every conversation as a way to become smarter and more skilled. Whether they use that knowledge to sell more, lead more or serve more, it doesn’t matter. What does matter is that they realize that do not have all the answers.

These same people take pleasure in passing that knowledge on. Because they know by giving, they will, in fact, get more than they gave…either now or later. So this week:

• Seek out the three most successful people you know, or would like to know, and ask for help.
• Then prepare a list of three specific and well though out questions.
• Listen and learn.
• Act on that knowledge and record it
• Then share it with others who could also use it

By making this a habit, your value to everybody around you will increase. And in the process, you will build a network of mentors and friends that will do everything they can to make sure you get to the TOP…quickly.

The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing.
-Albert Einstein

“I’ve been in this business for over 25 years. I have run out of things to learn,” was one of the saddest comments I have ever heard from one of my recent seminar attendees. Stop learning? Don’t we need to learn from our customers so we can effectively serve them? Don’t we need to learn what our competition is doing? Don’t we need to learn how our peers and employees feel about working with us? Don’t we need to learn how much we DON’T know? Once you lose your hunger to learn, you lose the ability to positively affect everybody around you. And who would choose that? And it’s not enough to be open to learning; you have to aggressively seek opportunities to learn.

For example, this week try these three questions with your current customers…and family members:

•    What am I doing I should keep doing?
•    What am I doing I should stop doing?
•    What aren’t I doing that I should begin doing?

Because customers, peers, employees and family members won’t often seek you out to tell you how you can be more valuable to them, you have to ask. And when you ask, you show a willingness to learn. And once you create a habit of LEARNING, you will create a habit that creates some of the world’s top performers.

People fall down, winners get up, and gold medal winners just get up faster.

-Bonnie St. John

Bonnie St. John lost a leg at the age of 5. Several years later, she would go on to become the first African-American to win an Olympic medal in skiing as she was awarded a silver and two bronze medals in the 1984 Paralympics in Innsbruck, Austria.  This week on my radio program, I asked Bonnie to tell her story about how she won the Silver. She said, “I was leading in the slalom after the first run. Then in the second run, I slipped on an ice patch and fell down the hill. I thought for sure this would cost me a medal, but I got up and continued racing.  Several other competitors hit the same patch of ice and also fell…even the one who eventually won the gold.  The only difference, however, between her and I, and the Gold and the Silver, was SHE got up faster…and THAT won her the gold.”

So what about your business? In this tough year, do you feel like you have “slipped on a patch of ice?” Well if so, NOW is the time to get up…and get up FASTER than your competition. Because there is only one gold, and it’s either going to you or them.

Here are three ways to get up faster in your business:

•    Get out of bed 30 minutes “faster” and earlier each morning.  Then use that extra time to learn something new about your Product, Industry or Competition.

•    Stop procrastinating! It’s time to quit talking and start doing. Write down a list of high value activities that might be painful but necessary to make you famous in your company then schedule time each day to do those things.

•    Network and Cold Call more than the competition. If you are speaking to 10 accounts each day, pump it up to 15 accounts each day.

And remember, the common fuel to “getting up faster” is URGENCY. Make your body feel it, then help others use it to make decisions more quickly. And by this time next year, you will look back on the autumn of 2009, as the greatest FALL of your career…the fall that couldn’t keep you down.

“Let us never negotiate out of fear. But, let us never fear to negotiate.”
-John F. Kennedy

How do you feel about negotiating? Are you afraid to ask for a better deal when making a purchase? Are you also easy to give a deal to those who ask you? Well, if that’s the case, it’s time to change the formula. It’s time to make it a HABIT to ask for more almost every time you purchase something. It’s also time to ditch the habit of lowering your price or throwing something in immediately when somebody asks.  To get better at this, try this exercise.

•    Create a list with three columns before every “selling” negotiation
o    Column 1: What they might they ask for?
o    Column 2: What am I willing to give?
o    Column 3: What will I ask for in return IF I give?

•    Then bring it with you to the negotiation

•    When they ask, look at your list, find something you CAN give, then follow up but asking for something in the third column in return for your willingness to negotiate.

By using this exercise to prepare for your next sales negotiation, you will be prepared to give, but not without getting something in return. And if you give, but also get, you then have the “makings” of a negotiation that leaves two parties happy they did business. And that formula creates success that is non-negotiable.

“How’s it going,” were the words I casually used as I walked past a fellow vacationer in a hotel hallway. The bearded man responded reluctantly, “It’s going.” That was it! No “Fine, how are you?” …or “Great, how you doing?” “Oh well, perhaps the guy is just having a tough day,” I thought. The next day as I carried my 3-year old’s floatie to the pool, there he was. As I walked past him I tried again, “How’s it going?” Sure enough, he responded with the same apathetic grunt, “It’s going.”

As I walked away I wondered why he had chosen to make THAT his response to a simple greeting. Why did he CHOOSE to be cold and uninterested in a stranger who was showing interest in him? So how do YOU greet strangers and even co-workers when you pass them in the hall? Do you look down at your feet as if the answers to life’s problems are on your shoelaces, or do you make the first “warm” move? If you said the latter, congratulations!

So this week, pay attention to every casual encounter you have and be sure to deliver your best. Because with each warm greeting and smile you deliver, you increase your worth and value to your customers, organization and world. In other words, your “stock” value goes up. But perhaps even more importantly, you help others “stock” value go up as well. And don’t be surprised if the gift of good nature that you deliver is returned in the form of more knowledge, more money and more honor…whether you intended it to or not.

“Performance stands out like a ton of diamonds. Non performance can always be explained away.”
-Harold S. Geneen

Tuesday while driving home from family vacation I spotted a diamond behind the counter of a gas station register. While I walked into the 15×15 ft tiny room that held only a cooler and two racks full of snacks and candy bars, that “diamond” (otherwise knows as Jack according to his name tag) was delivering a dazzling performance. He leaned over a small microphone that could be heard through the speakers at the gas pumps and enthusiastically announced, “Hope your day is going great! For the next 10 minutes ONLY we have a buy two candy bars get one free special! Come on inside and treat yourself!”

Then as I approached the counter to pay for my daughter’s bag of pretzels he smiled and said to me, “Those pretzels might make you thirsty. Right now you can get two 16 oz Cokes for only $2.22.” I walked out of that store spending slightly more than I had planned but got an opportunity to watch a top performer in action. I had never seen somebody work a cash register and a mic with such passion. As I walked away, I wondered how many additional sales he created each day, month, or year just by LOOKING for additional sales opportunities with EVERY customer. Is there any doubt this sales HABIT will produce significant and sustainable results? Of course not!

So this week, be like Jack! Let NO prospect leave you without you having tried to sell and serve them more. So go for the add-on sale! Ask for the referral! And make it a HABIT. Because the only difference between Jack and the average “non-performing” salesperson is he knows the formula to becoming a Diamond. It’s to LOOK for diamonds in every prospect he sees.

“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.”
-Albert Einstein

According to a fella named Merriam Webster, the definition of miracle is “an amazing or wonderful occurrence.” So based on this definition, are you a “Miracle Worker?” Do you create amazing or wonderful occurrences for the people you touch every day? Do you leave every customer happier, every business associate more enthused, every family member more loved? Would these people say their day was more amazing and wonderful because you were in it?

One thing is for sure…none of us will be judged by the number of sales we make or deals we close. But we WILL be judged by the number of miracles we create in the lives of our family, friends, business associates, customers and strangers. So this week, let’s get to work spreading amazement. And by making a habit of miracle making, you will find that it really doesn’t take a “miracle” for you to be the type of person, at work and at home, that you always knew you could be. And THAT person is a TOP Performer in everything they do.