Coach Dan Foster | Purpose Driven Broker

I created this list of questions that I think all professionals need to reflect on as we come to the end of another year. I will be taking the next two weeks to reflect on the last year. I’ve been recording successes and challenges, prayer requests and answered prayers, frustrations and blessings in the hope that I will be able to see the bigger picture of what is going on personally and professionally for me. These 13 questions are not exhaustive but they are the ones I will be answering before January 1st 2010. On January first I will begin to put into action a plan to ensure that in the near future I am able to answer “Yes.” to all of these questions.

Last week I talked with a friend about three different realities facing leaders and sales professionals as we approach the end of another year. This year has been difficult and challenging for everyone. Having clarity around the reality of your situation is required as you plan for this next year. Most of us do not have trouble dreaming or hoping for better results, but if we do this without acknowledging the reality of our situation and planning appropriately, our dreams will turn into nightmares. Here are three realities facing professionals today:

I love sales and leadership conventions, reading books on success, and listening to motivational speakers. There is a thrill that comes from being around other professionals; listening to what they are doing right, what they need to improve on, and learning about the steps we must take to reach next year’s goals.

What I love more though, is the thrill of taking action and actually achieving results. So often, we get pumped up from one-time experiences and we develop wonderful plans to change the world but then we go home and reality hits us hard. We lose our enthusiasm little by little. We get back into the routine of doing things the way we’ve always done them, and we eventually find ourselves achieving the same results we’ve been achieving. We wake up six months later wondering what went wrong and asking ourselves why we lost the enthusiasm that we thought for sure would guarantee us success this time around.

One of the most important abilities of a sales professional or leader is the ability to make the complex simple. I’ve been thinking and reading about how some of the most influential leaders have been able to take their vision and boil it down to a key phrase or a few words. The ability to do this helps your message “stick” with the people that hear it. They will remember it, repeat it, and be able to apply it easier to their reality.

Each of us has a set of strengths and weaknesses. A friend recently asked me what he should do in order to improve on his weaknesses. We all have those areas in our lives where we have to work twice as hard as someone else who excels in these areas just to reach a level of success that we consider acceptable. My response to my friend was for him to stop focusing on his weaknesses and instead spend time working on his strengths and improving performance in the areas of business where he has natural talent.