To win more, is to fail more!

Paul Potratz
Potratz Partners Automotive Advertising
September 12, 2005
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The difference between getting the results you want and being average is action. To win more, is to fail more. Failing with rejection creates education. The more action you take; the more money you make. When you are in motion, you will be happier, more productive and constantly learning. You can’t add or delete time. That’s why the term ‘time management’ is a misnomer. You can’t manage time; you can only take more action and better manage your actions in your time.

Top performers must have a talent to succeed. Great sales people are made not born, you can’t make something from nothing. You can put make-up on a pig, but it’s still a pig. A top performer has the following abilities: relates to people, displays confidence, has a high sense of urgency, gets people to say yes to their product or service, utilizes goals and rewards, has a commitment to learn, and grows to become a top performer. If a person has the God given abilities that would relate well to the sales profession, they can begin to work on all their assets to become a top performer. Twenty-five percent of sales people account for eighty percent of the sales. Twenty percent of the remaining sales people are picking up crumbs.

Top performers aggressively pursue successful habits. Watch your thoughts; they become your words. Watch your words; they become your actions. Watch your actions; they become your habits. Watch your habits; they become your character. Watch your character; it becomes your destiny. Be willing to dream and design your goals. Think bigger. It doesn’t take much more to produce a lot than it does to produce a little. Producing little, actually takes more emotional and physical endurance.

Starting on Monday, monitor your current action with more processes than ever before. Have a written, hourly game plan using act or written planners (written planners are easier for me). Create a strong focus for each hour that you would like to accomplish. Next, create a to-do list, and write all the specific actions you would take to accomplish your hourly goals. Prioritize your actions from ‘must do’ to ‘why do’. If you write a review each hour of what actions you have taken, you will be amazed at how much time is wasted. Twenty percent of your actions get you eighty percent of your results.

You know about to-do lists, but have you ever created a stop doing list? What good is writing actions in a to-do list, if they don’t help you get results? Create a stop doing list, and at the end of each day, review your successes and failures, and write down the areas you will reduce or stop spending time in.

For the next 30 days, implement the 4D’s of action management: dump it, delegate it, defer it or do it. When anything comes your way that requires a decision, ask yourself, which of the 4D’s would benefit you most. If it doesn’t help grow you, your family, friends, our agency or happiness, don’t do it. Choose one of the other 4D’s. Some of the things that require action are better served being delegated to others. There is always a way. When you defer items, write them down, and put a date on the item as to when you will make a definitive decision on this item and then put it in a visible folder.

For the next 30 days, make a commitment to take massive action. Give more effort than you have ever done before, and monitor the results. Remember, it’s hard for good people to become great, but it’s really easy for a good person to become average.

I know these are basic ideas but sometimes we forget the basics. So this week we should try the basics.