Post Words. Achieve Big. Build Success. Day-by-Day.
Last year I posted four words on my bathroom mirror: FINISH, WRITE, SHAPE, and YES.
My results?
I finished the 21.5 Unbreakable Laws of Selling.
I wrote 1,000 words a week and documented hundreds of ideas.
My shape is still plus 10 pounds, so that word will remain this year.
I maintained my YES! Attitude, but seeing the word every morning and evening in my bathroom mirror helped.
Not bad achievement results — but still being 10 pounds overweight shows a flaw in my self-discipline. Not good.
Based on last year’s success, this year I decided to create two four-word categories. One for achievement and one for improvement. Not “goals” in the sense that you may be thinking about. Rather, intentions that I consciously and subconsciously work on every day to build success all year long.
By posting the words on my bathroom mirror, I consciously see them each day, and subconsciously think about them and act on them regularly. Because they’re right in front of me every morning and every evening, they are inescapable mental confrontations. Oh, and the process works!
After I explain each word I have selected for this year, I’ll provide a lesson you can incorporate as you select your word(s). The lesson is the motive behind the word so you can use the same principle as you generate your words.
On the achievement side of life, my four words are:
ADVISOR — DIGITAL — POWER — TIME
ADVISOR — I launched the Gitomer Certified Advisor program in the fall of 2013. Instant success. I’ve certified more than 100 advisors. They’re independent businesspeople who are now marketing their sales and personal development services using my intellectual property, both online and in the classroom. In 2015 I will intensify the program and the process until there are 500 certified advisors globally.
LESSON: Once you have a successful idea, program, game plan, or process — strengthen it. Pick an achievement target, and figure out what you have to do weekly to make it a reality. What’s one word that describes your biggest achievement target?
DIGITAL — Convert all paper, CD, and DVD to digital. Create financial and distribution opportunities ONLY available to digital information dissemination. The world is not quite ready for all digital, but I will be.
LESSON: Don’t stay attached to old technology or products even though they have brought success and profit in the past. Companies like Yellow Pages, Blackberry, and AOL have buried themselves by not advancing soon enough. Companies like Amazon, Zappos, and Apple have marched to the head of the class by innovating BEFORE the market did, and they set the standard for others to follow. When someone says, “It’s just like an iPad” — what they’re really saying is, “iPad set the standard.” I want someone to say, “I’m just like Gitomer.” What’s one word that describes the standard you are trying to set?
POWER — This year I intend to capitalize on the convergent power of reputation, brand, intellectual property, and online distribution. Content is more than king. It is desired and bought by those in need. And with online, on-demand video, concentration on marketing and distribution are on the top of my list.
LESSON: Your experience has given you both success and expertise. What expertise and success can you combine that will give you a market-dominant opportunity? What’s one word that describes what you’re trying to capitalize on?
TIME — My most precious resource — and yours! This year I intend to take control of it and make it my own. Not manage it, rather allocate it to things I WANT to do, rather than things I HAVE to do. I want to write, speak, travel, learn, read, and have meaningful family time. It’s the subtle difference between “spending” time and “investing” time. I have written about time allocation before, now it’s a matter of taking ownership of it.
LESSON: Wasted time is at the top of lost resources for most people. Don’t let that be you. In 1889, Orison Swett Marden wrote, “Do not realize the immense value of utilizing spare minutes.” What’s a word that offers you greater investment in your most precious, non-recoverable resource?
Here are my four words about improvement. Improvement means GET BETTER at what you’re already doing. If you’re looking to start something new, and make it happen, that’s achievement. For example, when you want to achieve your sales plan, you must improve your sales skills, presentation skills, or your networking skills.
On the improvement side of life, my four words are:
INSTAGRAM — BLOG — SHAPE — BEST
INSTAGRAM — It’s the new Facebook. Thousands of teenagers are abandoning Facebook every hour and refocusing their social efforts on Instagram. Interestingly, Microsoft Word, the word processing program I use to write with, thinks Instagram is a misspelled word. That’s a pretty good indicator of where Microsoft is in the social media world: nowhere. You have to figure there’s got to be a pretty good reason Facebook paid a reported one billion dollars for Instagram. For you as a salesperson and/or a business person, there’s got to be a pretty good reason as well.
Here’s what I intend to improve this year: I already have a business and personal account. My personal account is jeffreygitomer. My business account is gitomer. I want to let my family, my customers, my friends, the readers of my books, the followers of my blog, the subscribers to my YouTube channel — all of my social connections — have a chance to view me as a person and as a business person. And you need to consider the same. Every day or so I post a picture to my personal account. And every day it is my intention to post one meaningful quote on my business account. My intention is to give my followers something to think about, something to learn about, something to smile about, and something to replicate. I try to be both a lesson, and an idea.
LESSON: All of your connections both business and personal need to see your human side, and her intellectual side. There’s an opportunity in Instagram for you to create a leadership position.
BLOG — I intend to make my blog much more personal this year. On salesblog.com (pretty good URL, eh?) I’ll be posting on-the-road insights from my travels, kitchen thinking, morning thinking, ideas I captured from reading, and the most important ideas I’m capturing from and for my daughters and granddaughters.
LESSON: A blog is a place to document and expose. When you put yourself out on the Internet, blogging is the best way to be found. Hundreds of millions of people have jumped on that bandwagon and will stay there. The key to blogging is consistency. At the moment I post two or three times a week. You should begin by doing the same. Just a paragraph or two, but make sure they contain keywords that others can find as they search about you, your products and services, and your company.
SHAPE — Last year I failed to lose the weight I promised myself I would. This year I have a personal trainer and a new eating habit set in motion. My mantra will be better health leads to increased wealth.
LESSON: I didn’t achieve my goal. I didn’t follow through on my own intentions. But the lesson is not failure. The lesson is persistence. Just because I didn’t do it last year, doesn’t mean I won’t get it done. If you don’t meet a goal, if you don’t achieve your intentions, keep moving baby!
BEST — One thing that the BEST people I know have in common — they’re all seeking to become better. My best skills on the business side of my life are: selling, speaking, writing, humor, friendliness, and creativity. The reason I’m excellent at those skills is that I seek to become better at them every day. My driver is very simple, I just ask myself this one question: Am I doing the best I can right now?
LESSON: Ask yourself this question after EVERY meeting, phone call, project, and social and social media outreach: Is this the BEST I can do?
Hopefully the words I have chosen for improvement and achievement, and the lessons I have provided, will inspire you to write and define your words for the year. Interestingly, you most likely mentally know what they are, but have yet to bring them to the visual surface as Post-it Notes on your bathroom mirror.
