Take a good look in the mirror to make sure you're doing everything possible to meet your goals.
Rice crew team training in mock shells before mirror. Bain News Service, publisher. Library of Congress.

Sometimes, reality sure does stink in the media sales world. If you are making a living in sales, certainly in media sales, most likely you are nodding your head in silent agreement without even realizing it. If you have been in the business a while, you may even fondly remember the “good ol' days” when things were different: you could make a solid living and the job was so much more fun.

But this is the case in many careers. Reality can stink because we analyze our present status quo compared to the vision we have in our heads of what we want our life situation to look like. If there is a large gap between reality and our vision…well….you get the drift.

If we want to change our status quo into our vision, how do we do it? The first place to begin is to look in the mirror, and to do so honestly. The first person who will benefit from honest introspection is you.

• Are you doing everything you can each day to move your current reality towards your vision?
• Are you working with accounts where the client benefits from a relationship with you and your product or services?
• Do you “fit” with your current accounts and your prospects?
• If you do your best work with these accounts, how does that work turn into results for them and sales for you?
• Are you analyzing where and how you are spending your time and energy? The activities you are involved in each day?
• When you arrive each day do you have a plan of attack, or do you create a sales plan on the fly and in the moment?
• Activities are certainly important, but also look for the outcomes of those activities: are you productive or unproductive?
• What are you doing that if you repeat consistently will produce results, and what do you need to stop doing that will also move you towards your goals?
• Do you surround yourself with positive people, activities, and thoughts, or do you get caught up in a negative mindset or are influenced by negative people in your environment?

You may be saying to yourself, “Man, you are asking a lot of questions. I just need answers.” Asking questions like the ones above will help you to begin to take a hard look your sales reality. Figuring out where your time is being spent and what activities are resulting in opportunities will help you take a realistic look at your sales processes and should allow you to take a big step toward narrowing the gap between your sales reality and sales vision.

The good news for you is that just by beginning this process you are on your way to reaching that picture in your mind. This process and your analysis can also get a big assist from many of the quality contact relationship management (CRM) software programs that are out there available in the business space today. When properly engaged, media software tools can provide you and your sales organization as a whole with better transparency and metrics so that you can judge just how productive your new reality can be.

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