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Chapter 1

Self-Discipline: The Art of "Me Management"

Managing yourself is essentially managing your commitments-with others, indeed, but primarily with yourself. And, keeping track of that inventory these days is no simple task. It requires a system-an "external brain"-to keep yourself oriented to be doing the right thing, at the right time.

-David Allen, author of Getting Things Done

What's the secret to being a successful salesperson? Or a great one?

It's not the product or service you sell. Neither is it your competition, the market environment, your price structure, evolving technology, or any such thing.

It's you. Your ability to manage yourself, to exert self-discipline, spells the difference between success and failure in sales.

Let me rephrase that: self-discipline is the difference between success and failure. Yes, there are a lot of other components of the salesperson's mind-set, skill set, and tool kit, but without strong self-discipline, those don't matter one whit.

Most people don't fail because they can't do something. They fail because they aren't willing to do what it takes to succeed. This means they aren't willing to discipline themselves. That's why self-discipline, or what I call "me management," is the cornerstone element of sales success. Unless you are willing to take the actions that lead to success, in sales or anything else, it will always elude you.

Self-discipline is the fundamental attribute of all successful people. It allows them to take action even when they don't want to. It makes it possible for them to focus their time and energy on what must be done now, without procrastinating. It gives them the strength to pass up a little pleasure now in exchange for what they really want later. In sales, self-discipline is what separates the great from the mediocre.

It is vital that you take this first element seriously. Don't skip ahead to later chapters, thinking that there is greater value in learning about closing or prospecting. If you work on this one element, if you perfect it, all the others will fall more easily into place.

The First Commitment

Sales is all about gaining commitments from your prospects. But the most important commitments are those you make to yourself. And you are constantly making commitments to yourself, whether or not you realize it.

For example, you know you need to invest your time prospecting. But the little chime that lets you know an e-mail has arrived has just grabbed your attention again. So instead of making the calls you need to make, you spend an hour looking at your in-box. You've just made a commitment.

The biggest and best prospects in your territory already have someone selling them the same thing you're selling. You know you need to nurture these relationships, and you understand that it will take a well-coordinated, long-term plan to get one of these dream clients to agree to see you-just to see you! But you get caught up in office watercooler chatter, and time slips away. You've made another commitment.

It's time to visit a prospective client, but you've been so busy with other things that you didn't review your notes and prepare for the call. Now you are walking into the most important interaction you will ever have with this client without a plan and without some of the things you promised to provide. Yet another commitment.

What are you committing to when you skip your prospecting calls, fail to nurture your relationships, and neglect to prepare?

You are certainly not committing to yourself, your future, and your success. And since you did not make and keep these and other commitments, success will be but a dream for you.

Where There's a Will

I discovered the power of self-discipline early in my career. One experience that I've never forgotten occurred on my first day of work after leaving Los Angeles and rejoining the family business in Columbus. That morning, my sales manager walked up to my desk with two minions in tow and dropped a stack of papers in front of me. "These are our accounts, and you are not to call on any of them," she said.

I looked at the stack; there were pages and pages of company names. I was surprised at how many client accounts our little firm had already won. "We are serving all of these companies?" I asked, impressed.

"No!" she snapped. "But we are calling on these companies. You are not to call on any of them."

Now I understood: "we" didn't include me.

At 8:00 a.m. the next day, I closed the door to my office and started calling all of the nonexcluded companies listed in the business section of the phone book. I made cold calls until I went to lunch, and when I came back, I made cold calls until the end of the day. I did that the next day and the next and the next. My consistent, disciplined effort was rewarded with face-to-face appointments. The more calls I made, the more appointments I booked. The more appointments I booked, the more business I won. Within six months, I was the sales leader. After twelve months, my sales numbers were higher than those of the rest of the sales team combined. Soon after, the sales manager and her minions left the company.

I am not saying that I was a better salesperson than the other members of the sales team. I am not even saying that I was better at cold calling; I absolutely wasn't. I am saying that disciplined action made the difference between my results and theirs. While I was making calls, my sales manager and her reps were chatting about their weekends, the television shows they had watched the night before, and finding ways to pretend to be busy with existing clients. They were doing anything but prospecting.

My success resulted from nothing more than a willingness to commit to consistent and purposeful action. I forced myself to make thousands of cold calls and, in doing so, I discovered hidden treasures on almost every page of the phone book. It turned out that many of the most lucrative accounts in the city weren't the biggest or best-known companies. They were smaller ones that would never have been included in the list that the sales manager dropped on my desk and told me not to touch.

The sales manager left without understanding what I had done or why I had succeeded. But I learned a lesson that has served me well ever since: self-discipline is essential to sales success. Your good intentions are worthless unless they are coupled with disciplined action.

Reaping the Rewards of Me Management

Effective self-discipline, or me management, depends on three qualities:

1. Willpower: You will yourself to act without the prospect of an immediate reward. Countless distractions can divert your attention from what you need to do. It takes willpower to ignore them and stick to your work, which is sometimes difficult and mundane but always important.

2. Fortitude: You display courage in the face of adversity. You often hear "no," but you do not let that discourage you. You find the strength to keep going. You are committed to your chosen course of action, come hell or high water.

3. Accountability: You hold yourself accountable for your own results and keep the commitments you make to yourself as if they were commitments made to others. If, for example, you schedule an appointment to meet your dream client, you don't dare miss it or go in unprepared. In fact, unless and until you learn to keep the commitments you make to yourself, you will fail to be accountable for the results you promise to your clients. As Stephen R. Covey, author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, put it, "Private victories precede public victories."

From Three Come More

Willpower, fortitude, and accountability are the three qualities upon which me management depends. Once you develop these qualities and become a master of self-discipline, you reap many rewards, including the ability to be honest and courageous and to act with integrity. You also discover that greater future rewards are won by delaying gratification. Here's why:

Honesty: It takes willpower to tell the truth, especially when the truth hurts you. We were designed to avoid pain and seek pleasure. Because being honest can sometimes cause you pain, it can require fortitude to act in spite of the personal discomfort, risk, or loss that you may suffer. It's easy to sidestep the difficult conversation or avoid telling the truth, especially when something is your fault and owning up to it may damage your relationships. That's where self-discipline comes in. It allows you to be honest when evasion is the more comfortable choice. And your honesty, your ability to deal with the uncomfortable, makes you more trustworthy and more credible to your clients.

Courage: Courage isn't the absence of fear. It's taking action even though you are gripped by fear. Courage requires the self-discipline to put yourself in harm's way and ignore the internal dialogue that tells you to retreat to safety. Self-discipline gives you the power to be courageous and stand tall, even when you are quaking with fear. It shows that you are committed to something greater, to a higher purpose, and that you are willing to keep that commitment regardless of the price you have to pay.

Integrity: Consistently walking your talk-that is, saying what you mean and meaning what you say-can be tough. But that's the definition of integrity. Your word is your bond, and you can be counted on. It takes willpower, fortitude, and a strong sense of accountability to do what needs to be done, when it needs to be done. Sometimes it's difficult, and sometimes you just don't feel like it. Too often, pleasant distractions threaten to derail you. But self-discipline allows you to keep your word and always walk your talk.

Greater future rewards: The most important benefit of self-discipline is achieving greater rewards down the line by delaying present gratification. You reap nothing now, except maybe some pain, in exchange for a higher return later. For example, instead of luxuriating in the pleasure of nine minutes of extra sleep, you delay that gratification, get up when you should, and arrive at your appointment on time and well prepared, putting yourself head and shoulders above many of your competitors. Or, instead of being dishonest with a client about a mistake you've made and avoiding a little pain right now, you tell the truth, endure the discomfort, and are rewarded later with the client's trust and respect.

In short, willpower, fortitude, and accountability lead to self-discipline. And self-discipline gives you the wherewithal to be honest, act courageously and with integrity, and delay gratification for better returns later. This is why it's so important to master self-discipline, as it's the cornerstone of all the attributes that allow you to succeed.

Applying Self-Discipline to Routine Maintenance

We humans are novelty-seeking creatures, attracted to anything that is new, interesting, or exciting. In sales, it's true that some new tools and ideas can revolutionize your efforts and produce exciting results. These are certainly worth looking into. However, much of your success depends on simple, routine maintenance-that is, keeping your nose to the grindstone.

Many salespeople shy away from routine maintenance because it's not terribly exciting or new, and it guarantees that they'll hear "no" over and over again. But routine maintenance does produce predictable results, especially over the long run. It is the first area in which self-discipline must be applied.

The Routine Maintenance of Prospecting

Here's a basic law of the sales universe: the more desperate you are to fill your pipeline with opportunities, the more difficult it is to do so. You must be vigilant about prospecting on a daily basis so that you don't become desperate. Sporadic prospecting leads to stress, missed commitments, and anxiety that forces you to take on something less than your dream client. But when you are self-disciplined, with the willpower and fortitude to keep prospecting day after day, week after week, month after month, you are practically guaranteed a pipeline full of opportunities.

Make the commitment to attend to the routine maintenance of prospecting every day. In sales, you must continually open new relationships. Remember, no opportunity is ever closed that hasn't first been opened.

The Routine Maintenance of Nurturing

To succeed in sales, you must develop the necessary relationships before you need them.

Nurturing your dream clients is perhaps the most important activity you can undertake in pursuit of success-but nurturing and urgency don't mix. Once you find yourself desperate for opportunities, it's already too late to develop them. There is no way to rush relationships, and there is no way to rush trust. Both trust and relationships require time and careful, determined, and active attention.

Nurturing relationships, like prospecting, shouldn't be done sporadically if you want to produce predictable, profitable results. Nurturing as a part of routine maintenance builds trust and solidifies the relationships you need, before you need them.

The Routine Maintenance of Existing Client Relationships

You made promises to your existing clients back when they were just your dream clients, and you have since kept those promises. But that's not enough. Resting on your laurels is a recipe for disaster.

When your clients' needs change, or when the world throws something unexpected at them, you need to be there either to help them overcome the obstacles or capitalize on these new opportunities. Not being there and not proactively working to anticipate and adapt to their changing needs invites client dissatisfaction-the same kind of dissatisfaction that created an opportunity for you to work with your dream client in the first place.

Routine maintenance of your existing relationships demonstrates to your clients that you are a proactive partner for the long term and that you care enough always to walk your talk.

Prospecting, nurturing, and remaining proactive with existing clients are just a few of the areas that require a disciplined routine of maintenance. You could add other items, such as following up, updating your sales-force automation or customer-relationship manager, and sending thank-you cards. Take care of routine daily maintenance, and routine daily maintenance will take good care of you.

Five Ways to Develop Self-Discipline

Wait. You didn't think this was the kind of book you just passively read, did you? No, no, no. At the end of each chapter, you are going to dig in and start applying what you've learned!

Let's look at five ways you can immediately improve your me-management skills and strengthen your willpower, fortitude, and accountability:

1. Create a Discipline List.

You may have written out your goals on occasion, but it is unlikely that you have written a discipline list.