HERE IS A SUCCESS PLAN ANYONE CAN USE TO BECOME GREAT IN B2B SALES

So I'm starting something new this year. I'm going to have, uh, these podcasts, but I'm going to call it a flashcast. And what does that mean? It simply means that it'll be up for a very short period of time. Why? Because I'm putting a lot of effort into this, and I want to make sure that people value it, and the people who do value it consume it, and Apply it quickly. And I'll put it up for probably, I'd say, a couple days to 2 weeks. And I'll maybe have it on YouTube. I may not. So if you enjoy these, download them. You can use them and store them for as long as you want. Otherwise, you may miss it. So let's get into this topic today. Today's topic is really change. How do we make great improvements? It's the time of year where we talk about resolutions, but what is a resolution? It's basically just a decision. And why doesn't it last though? Here's the secret. We're mammals. We're mammals having a human experience. And how do mammals change? Is it by making a decision? Uh, we need more than that. We need to have either motivation and/or discipline. And what really makes change permanent or consistent or long-term is a habit. And this is something that we, we miss because habits seem boring. Motivation's exciting. Discipline is strong, tough. And macho, and we all think we have great discipline and motivation, and, and we do sometimes. But the challenge is that motivation and discipline are feelings, and that means that they come and they go. Sometimes we feel great, highly motivated. Sometimes we feel no motivation and depressed or lazy or tired, and we rationalize, and our subconscious mind even blocks us. by finding something else to do, like procrastination, and we avoid doing it. So then we rely on discipline. But discipline, a lot like motivation, is kind of a feeling. Do we feel like strong enough to do it? Do we push ourselves through it? Do we have to do it? And the problem with discipline is if we do it, And we don't get that reward, we exhaust that discipline. And with both motivation and discipline, you can increase these, but that turns into a habit. A habit is something that is automatic. We don't have to think about brushing our teeth or driving our car, or, you know, the sequence of things or eating it naturally. Happens. We've done it over and over and over again, and it has become a subconscious habit. We have a craving, we have a cue that, hey, it's time to go to bed, time to brush our teeth, time to snuggle in, and we don't put much conscious thought into it. It doesn't take much motivation or very little. Same with discipline. And how do we apply this to sales and selling? Well, isn't sales nothing but a sequence of micro habits? And teaching sales to myself and to other people, what I've learned is that even the tiniest little action can be interpreted many different ways, and The quality of it or the effectiveness of each of those varies greatly. And people think it's all about intelligence or knowledge. It's really about empathy and understanding how the recipient is going to receive that. And that takes a bunch of reps. Now, you don't— it's not a destination. Too many of us We focus solely on the outcome this time of year with our resolutions. We say, oh, I want to double my income. I want to be number one on the leaderboard. I want to get a 6-pack abs. I want to lose 30 pounds. I want to get up at 4 in the morning. Whatever it is, you decide that. And we tend to make those decisions haphazardly instead of thinking of the consequences and the implications and the change in our day, our time that it requires to do that. And here's kind of what I've learned about this, and here's the secret to it, is that we, we, we start too hard. Meaning that we go from zero to trying to go to the gym every day. We start from zero into cutting out 1,000 calories a day, and we rely on motivation and discipline. And I don't know about you, but about 2 weeks into it, that motivation and discipline wanes. It goes away, it evaporates. It comes and goes like waves, but it's not consistent. Some days it's high, some days it's low or almost nonexistent. So how do we build these habits? How do we do it in a planned, effective, reliable, dependable way? Because we think we're doing it already. And maybe we are, but it's not as persistent or permanent as we'd like. And here's kind of what I've learned over, you know, pretty much the last 10 years, taking this approach versus the discipline and the motivation approach that I took forever before then, because I, I listened to the motivational tapes or videos. And I thought I was pretty disciplined, but sooner or later you lose that to interrupts. You have a travel trip, you get sick, you don't feel like doing it, something else comes up and you end up skipping a couple days that turn into a couple of weeks that turn into a couple of months, and then you start the cycle all over again. And what causes that is this innate thing that we have internal to us called homeostasis. And homeostasis wants us to stay even, and this is a survival mechanism. So we really can't push it down with motivation and discipline. We have to kind of trick it With frequency and difficulty. Higher frequency, low difficulty at first. Then homeostasis gets used to it, and it's like an internal thermostat where if you just turn up the temperature half a degree a week, very low difficulty. Frequency's pretty good. What ends up happening? We adjust to the temperature. It's, it's not shocking. It's not even noticeable. And this is the secret to change in mammals, in people. What we have to do is build habits proactively and Intentionally, but it's counterintuitive to the way that we've changed. What do I mean about that? What you don't want to do is go to the gym every day. Why? Because that's high difficulty, high frequency. What we do want to do— let's say you exercise, get healthy is one of your goals, and you can apply this to prospecting or any Skill change or activity change. Because saying the decision, I want to be healthier, is nice, but without any action to back it up, it's just a wish. So what do we do? What we have to do is a habit starts with a cue, some kind of craving or reminder to take action. It can be an alarm on your phone. It could be the time of day. It could be when you're doing something else that you automatically do while you're driving, brushing your teeth, eating, whatever it is. And then you have to take the action. And this is where we make the mistake. We take too much action because that action sets off that homeostasis. Because if it's a big action, homeostasis says, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. This, this isn't good for us. Too much change too fast. Survival mechanism kicks in, brings us back. We don't even notice it, but all of a sudden we, we start finding excuses, procrastination, anything that'll get us away from doing that. So what we want is a tiny action, a small, barely noticeable action. Let's say you want a 6-pack of abs. You start off with doing a couple of sit-ups, 1 minute of sit-ups, 1 minute of crunches. That's it. Something that's very low difficulty, almost unnoticeable. And this, this is what tricks people up is they're like, well, wait a second, I feel like doing 50 or 100. And eventually you can get there. I'm not saying you don't get there. I'm saying until it's a habit, until it's automatic where You don't even need the cue anymore. You naturally want to do it. It's that time of day, or it's right after you do something else. And then here comes the other part. You need some type of reward, some type of dopamine hit. And this can simply be keeping track of the habit, which you should preferably on a physical piece of paper or checklist somewhere, because checking it off becomes a micro reward. And you can say, well, I'm not going to get very far doing just a minute of sit-ups. And you're right, but you're not going to get very far if you quit either. So the contrast is with the alternative. So they say the science here is a little vague and it varies on the difficulty in the person, but a simple habit takes about 2 weeks to start, meaning that after 2 weeks you don't really need the cue anymore. You'll miss it if you don't do it. Here's the magic of it, because now you're in Automatic land, meaning that it, you're automatically doing that 1 minute of sit-ups. And after 2 weeks, the cue isn't an interrupt. It's a natural part of your daily circadian rhythm, your daily activity. And this is the beauty because you don't need much motivation. And almost no discipline to get started. Now's the time where you can gradually increase the difficulty, make it 2 minutes, 3 minutes. Now's the time where you can, if you feel like doing 50, maybe you want to do 2 sets of 25. You, you definitely do not want to get into the cramping burnout stage yet, because to make a habit permanent, as the habit becomes more difficult, they say takes 66 days, which is roughly 2 months. And that may seem like a long time, but you have to ask yourself, do I really want 6-pack abs, or do I want to do sit-ups for A couple of weeks and then give up because we, we know what happens with the resolutions. You, you do it for a couple of weeks and then homeostasis kicks in and all of a sudden you take a day off, take 2 days off, and all of a sudden you quit and you wait till bikini season to get back into shape. And then you start the pattern all over again. Have you noticed this? So we become habitually failing instead of habitually building. Because once you have this habit, and I even suggest making it about a generic thing like exercise, so that maybe make doing sit-ups or a particular exercise every day. Is not either healthy or the most effective way. You need to alter it where you do stretching one day— and this is just an analogy, you can put in whatever you want— where you do cold calling on Tuesday and Thursday and then do LinkedIn or email stuff other days. But it's prospecting, so you have a habit of prospecting What you want to do is low difficulty, high frequency at the beginning to build the habit, to get your brain and your body used to this micro change to the point after 2 weeks, the cue and the reminder will happen almost automatically. You still have it there just to make sure after 2 months, It's part of your identity. It's part of who you are and who you want to become. And it's harder to not do it than it is to do it. This is the beauty of it, because you no longer need or rely on motivation and discipline, which is a feeling that wanes. And is not consistent. What is consistent is an everyday schedule, an everyday activity, because it's harder to not do it than to do it. And I'm sure if you look at the habits that you have today, especially the bad habits— bad habits are hard not to do. Why? Because bad habits Feed right into how our brain works. Our brain has a craving, let's say, for a cookie. That's— we miss the cookie, the sugar high, the buzz, the satisfaction that that cookie gives us. We eat the cookie, we get the sugar high, the reward. The eating's the action. And all of a sudden, the next day at the same time, we would like another cookie. But that's a bad habit. So a bad habit, what you want to do is reduce the frequency, have the cookie every other day or later in the day, or half the cookie. Increase the difficulty to get the cookie. Don't have the cookie in the house. You have to go to the store and get the cookie. Hide the cookie. Uh, have to do some work before you get the cookie. And all of a sudden the frequency and the difficulty can work to break that habit. Now, what do you get once you've got this? You can now stack habits on top of each other, having a prospecting habit, having a learning habit, having a health habit where it starts with just doing it a minute a day. After 2 weeks, you start doing it 5 minutes a day. After 2 months, you're doing it a half hour a day. It becomes naturally integrated into your schedule, and it no longer takes that discipline or motivation. Now, people don't do this because it doesn't have that excitement, and we tend to focus too much on just the outcome. We want our income to double. We want the 6-pack abs. We want healthy eating, sleeping, and to eliminate all those bad habits. But they take time. And that time and homeostasis mess us up each time. And this is the trap that we fall into. So think about this. When you're looking at what habits do you want to achieve your goal instead of just thinking about the outcome. I'm not against the outcome. I like the outcome. Write it down. If your outcome's to double your income, what are the habits, the daily habits that you will need to reach that outcome? List them and start not with the hardest but the easiest that will have the most impact, whether it's prospecting or making deals bigger or learning new skills. Whatever it is, list those and then start with high frequency every day, at least for the first 2 weeks, but low difficulty. After the first 2 weeks, slightly increase the difficulty for the next 2 months, and then you can dramatically increase the difficulty because it's now a burned-in habit into your operating system. Try this even, even if you don't believe me. This has been backed up with science. I've read 3 books on this. You're welcome to read those books, Mini Habits, Tiny Habits, and Atomic Habits. This is all the approach that people are recommending because it does not rely on motivation and discipline, and it tricks homostasis into Not interrupting that habit. I'll give you an example of how I've done this in running. Now, I used to try and go out and run, and I, the first day I felt like I could do a couple miles and I could, but then the next day I'd be all sore, so I couldn't go the next day. And even the day after that, I'd be sore and then I'd go again. But within 2 weeks, I typically had an injury. Or I'd get sick or something would come up. I'd have to travel. And then guess what? I had to start all over again because I had taken a week off. What did work for me, I'd go out walking and I'd walk every day, but it wouldn't— I'd say, just go out walking, do a minimum 15 minutes around the block, listen to a podcast, make it enjoyable. Check it off when you get back, but do it every day for 2 weeks. And then what I did is after the 2 weeks, I go, why don't I go run for a minute, walk for 5, run for a minute, walk for 5? Did that for 2 months, gradually increasing it to the point where I'd run for 10 minutes, walk for 5, run for 10 minutes. And then after the 2 months, It was all continuous running. And the crazy thing was I enjoyed it. It was harder not to do it. I craved going outside, getting that fresh air. I did it in the morning. There'd be beautiful sunrises, taking pictures of the sunrise. I could look at it on my phone before I got up as motivation to get going. And running became a natural habit for me to the point where I can go and run 7 miles and enjoy it. There's hard parts, but it became part of my identity, my daily routine. And when I didn't do it, I missed it because you did need to take days off. And on the days off, I would purposefully do, you know, extra stretching or do some rowing. Or walking something at the same time of day to keep the habit fresh in my mind. Try this. You'll be surprised how crazy effective it is. It may seem boring, but that's the beauty. That's why it works, not why it doesn't work. You're tricking your brain into adjusting into the new person you want to be. Keep a lookout for these Uh, flashcasts. I'll try and do one about once a week. Um, if you love them, let me know and I'll keep them up longer. But it's really just throwing out some great ideas that I've had with me and some of the people in the course. So I'll have different people on, but I hope it'll help you. We'll see you next time.