#729

To have your best money year,

you have your best personal year.

I’m challenging you to have your BEST year ever. I’ve painstakingly gone through the details.

So far, I’ve given you 16 elements of how to have your BEST year ever:

1. Define yourself.

2. Develop a sales mission statement.

3. Have a deep belief in the three critical areas of selling.

4. Develop greater pride in accomplishment.

5. You are what you eat.

6. Get rid of one time-waster.

7. Read a book every two months.

8. Get your (sales) pipeline full.

9. Get your monthly sales quota met by the second week of the month.

10. Start branding yourself.

11. Get up earlier.

12. Begin capturing your thoughts and ideas in writing.

13. Give one speech.

14. Write one article our customers will read.

15. Make sales at breakfast.

16. Keep your present customers loyal to you and your company.

Here are the last of the 20.5 elements:

17. Double your testimonials. Testimonials make sales when salespeople (you included) cannot. Your customers can sell for you way better than you can. If you’re not employing video testimonials in every aspect of your sales process, you will not have your best year ever. And worse, you’ll continue to fight the silly “price wars” against your dirtball competitors. Testimonials make sales when salespeople cannot.

18. Double your referrals. Most people ask for referrals. Big mistake. The better way to get a referral is to earn a referral. The best way to get a referral is to give a referral. If you wanna have your best year ever, try to give every major customer one referral a month. When you ask for a referral and don’t get one, that’s a report card. Your best source for referrals are those people who were willing to give you a testimonial. Referrals are the easiest sale to make. One quick rule: NEVER call a referral on your own. Always ask the person who gave you the referral to call the referral. Have them call in advance so that your call won’t be a surprise.

19. Record your sales presentation. If you want to hear the funniest thing you’ve ever heard in your life, record yourself making a sales presentation. This will give you a combination of hindsight and insight. The hindsight will tell you how you just screwed up the last sale. The insight will tell you what skills you need to improve in order to make the next sale. If you wanna have your best year ever, you must record your sales presentation once a week — and listen to it the minute you get back in the car or hang up the phone. Not only will it be revealing, it will be painful. Once you get into the habit of doing it, you will also be in the habit of improving. This improvement will guarantee you to have your best year ever. Think of it this way: every recorded talk will put you on the path to a higher percentage of completed sales. At first it’s painful, but in the end it’s profitable. No pain — No gain.

20. Start every morning with attitude. Wake up tomorrow morning and grab an attitude book off your bookshelf. Napoleon Hill, W. Clement Stone, Dale Carnegie. Any past master who can give you continued insight into the way you dedicate yourself to the way you think. The late great Earl Nightingale said, “You become what you think about all day long.” The best way for you to have your best year ever is to begin to think and believe that you’re going to have your best year ever.

And finally, 20.5 You’re not alone. Create a mastermind. All salespeople are in the same boat. The Good Ship Lollypop. Unlimited income, rough (often uncharted) waters. The good news is: You’re not alone. Create a mastermind of non-competing salespeople and leaders to talk about problems-in-common. If you live or die by the numbers, why not have a support team to give you a transfusion once in a while?

Having your best year ever is not a matter of doing one thing right — or even making one thing better — it’s a matter or making everything better, so that you can get to BEST.

Now you have all of the 20.5 elements. I know it was slower than you wanted, but hey, it’s about having your BEST year ever, and I want to be certain you have all the information possible to make that happen.

This ENTIRE six-part series will be on my website. If you missed any of the parts, go to go www.gitomer.com, register if you are a first time user, and enter the words BEST YEAR EVER in the GitBit box. Print them out and post them so that you continually remind yourself of all the elements that it takes to have your best year ever. Having your best year ever requires both full dedication and constant reminders.

I hope you have your best year ever.

Jeffrey Gitomer, author of The Sales Bible, and The Little Red Book of Selling. President of Charlotte-based Buy Gitomer. He gives seminars, runs annual sales meetings, and conducts Internet training programs on selling and customer service at www.trainone.com. He can be reached at 704/333-1112 or e-mail to salesman@gitomer.com

c 2006 All Rights Reserved – Don’t even think about reproducing this document without written

permission from Jeffrey H. Gitomer and Buy Gitomer 704/333-1112