Do you play a sport?  Actually, do you do anything competitively?

If you're reading this, it's safe to assume you do.  When you want to improve your skills, performance or results, who do you surround yourself with?  People like you with similar level of talent that you can relate too, those with inferior abilities so you can dominate, or do you demand of yourself to compete against stronger talent?

Most people play against similar talent levels or lower talent levels, and that's exactly why they never improve.  You see, when you your standard is set exactly at the level you're currently at you will never improve.  Even worse, when you compete against lesser talent your level doesn't stay the same, it DROPS. 

You actually get worse by lowering your competitive level.  Your standard winds up becoming that of your competition.  If that's the case then you must raise your standards and compete against, sell against, work with, and play against opponents that are significantly better than you.

You become who you spend your time with.  I bet if you look at and analyze your peer group, you probably earn within $5,000 of what the average is and you probably weigh within 5 pounds what everyone else does.  If you want different results, raise your standard and develop a higher performing peer group.

You don't have to say goodbye to your friends.  Help them raise their standards and bring them along for the ride.  Bottom line, you become who you spend time with.  So, do you want to compete against a lesser opponent, similar opponent or someone or some company that is significantly stronger than you? 

Here is a list of my most frequently asked sales, business and overall life questions.  The answers are distilled from years of failure, years of success, and also come from some of the most successful people on the planet.  Enjoy!

Question:  How early should I get up?
Answer:  At least an 1 1/2 before everyone else you're competing against.  You need that time to prepare mentally, emotionally and physically.

Question:  How come I always get the same objections?
Answer:  You're presenting the same way every time, delivering no value, making undue assumptions, not asking thought provoking and insightful questions and you're not prepared.

Question:  What's the best way to plan my day?
Answer:  Pick a system, one system only, and focus all your efforts on making it work for you.  Don't use two or three different methods.  There are dozens of great systems out there including just a pen and paper.  They all work if you use them.  Pick one and stick with it.

Question:  Is eating well and exercising that important?
Answer:  Let me put it to you this way - if there's no fuel, or the wrong type of fuel, in your car's tank you're not going anywhere.  Your goals, dreams and aspirations require fuel.

Question:  I can't get passed the gatekeeper, what should I do?
Answer:  Much has been written on this area.  Keep it simple.  The simplest way, connect with them through social media and build a relationship.  Earn the right to approach them.  Next easiest approach, find a salesperson at the company and have them introduce you around.  Salespeople love to talk and give you information.


Question:  What can I do to get my voice mails returned?
Answer:  Be creative, add tons of value, earn the right to receive a return call, and when all else fails - hang up in the middle of your message.  Curiosity will cause most of your messages to get returned.

Question:  What are the best places to network?
Answer:  Chambers of Commerce, local business mixers(Business Journal event, breakfasts, seminars), networking clubs(only if they make sense for your business model), health clubs, Toastmasters, civic organizations, the airport, social media, anywhere there are potential clients.

Question:  How do you stay in such a great, upbeat mood all the time?
Answer:  This isn't a Greg trait, but rather a trait of all high performers.  We take care of ourselves physically, emotionally, and mentally.  We read something inspirational throughout the day, we review our goals daily, we exercise on a regular basis(usually 5 days + per week), we fuel our bodies with high quality nourishment, we have a positive outlook on life and tell ourselves such, and we look for the good in every situation no matter how dire it may be.

Question:  What's the best method you've found to close someone?
Answer:  First, this isn't the 1960's.  Build a relationship and become friends with your prospect, build more value than anyone else, create a winning environment, act selflessly, and let them buy - don't sell.

There are dozens more questions, and these listed are condensed into what I get asked most frequently. Now, how can you apply them to your own life?

Top athletes, top business professionals, really anybody who's at the top of their game is typically performing at peak performance levels.  With peak performance comes peak physical health and peak business health.  Some of you might be saying, "but Greg, I don't have my own business.  I work for someone else.  Why should I care?"

It doesn't matter if you work for someone else.  You're still running a business.  You have to market yourself, you must master sales skills, you must know and manage your professional finances, improve your professional skills, and have enough fuel in the tank to manage it all.

I'll spare you the physical health lecture for today, and please know that it is critically important to the success of your business.  Your business does have a health level.  How often are you playing doctor and assessing your business health level?  How often do you get your metaphorical checkup?

All businesses, all skill sets, all successful people are constantly assessing their business and how it's living, breathing and functioning on a daily basis.  There are 6 critical areas to your professional and business health.  Neglect or abuse any of them, and your business and success will suffer.

The six areas to master are:

1. Sales
2. Marketing
3. Operations
4. Financial
5. Professional Skills
6. Health
   

Imagine your business is a high performance sports car, and that each of the 6 areas represents a section of one of the tires.  Rate yourself and your business in each area on a scale from 1 - 10; with 1 being you're in trouble and 10 being you've mastered the area.

If you're 8 or better in all these areas chances are your business is very healthy and you're experiencing success.  If not, your wheel is not going to roll smoothly and your high performance sports car, or business, is no longer high performance.  It's time to go to work on your business.

So what can you do?  

• First pick an area, any area that you need to improve 
  
• Identify 3 key variables that will have the greatest impact on improving these areas
  
• Decide if you can either do them yourself, delegate them to someone else, or outsource them
  
• Then, execute that decision - make your plan and get it done.

Your health, your business and professional health must be constantly monitored.  You cannot improve unless you take a step back and play the role of a doctor periodically.  Find out where you are really, and then create and execute your plan to drive to where you want to go.  Don't be too proud to get help elsewhere.  Delegate and outsource whenever possible.  

Make your professional life easier, more efficient, richer, and most of all - HEALTHIER!

Knowing what you know now compared to when you started your chosen profession or business, would you do all over again the same way?  Would you even be in the same profession, or would you make a complete overhaul tomorrow morning and start fresh if you knew you couldn't fail?

Anyway you look at it; most people would absolutely make the changes necessary; whether it be in their chosen profession or their own business.  Professionals have already made the mistakes and paid the price along the way, so they have the knowledge of what not to do and what to do. 

So why don't they, or you, re-engineer your business?   Why do you keep continuing down the same path, reaping the same activities and strategies, and sowing the same results you've always settled for?  The answer is fear.  Even armed with the knowledge that you cannot fail, most people are so overtaken by fear, that they won’t even do what they know to be right. William Shakespeare wrote in, Julius Caesar, “Cowards die many times before their deaths. The valiant never taste of death but once.

Experience is expensive and you always pay upfront.  Well, you've already paid the tab, so why not put that experience to good use.  Take what you know and re-engineer yourself.  You can become anyone you want.  Your business can become its ideal form.  

This economic climate is the absolute ideal time to reinvent yourself and re-engineer your business.  You must position yourself now to anticipate and take advantage of the upswing.  It will come, and when it does, will you be ready, or will you just be content to keep the status quo?

Don't be controlled by fear.  Dance with it, be friends with it, embrace it, and most importantly kick its ass and take your life and business to levels you keep day-dreaming about.  Harness your knowledge of what you've learned and transform now.

Forgive my rant, but I’ve run into a rash of entrepreneurs lately who want it all yet aren’t putting the necessary effort in.  It got me thinking about entrepreneurship, parenting, athletics, really anything worth anything in life.

Let’s say you’re in your local electronics superstore and you see a television you really want.  The only way to take it home is to pay the price, and the only way to pay the price and take it home is to earn money by paying the price in your profession.

That doesn’t mean waking up at 7 am after hitting your alarm 4 times, daydreaming 80% of the day about what you wish you were doing, spending an hour with friends at lunch or the coffee shop instead of clients and prospects, going home at 5pm, and it certainly doesn’t mean hanging out in front of the TV eating Cheeto’s and surfing the internet for meaningless nonsense.

If that’s the price you’re paying, you’re getting everything out of life you’re asking for – nothing; failure at your job, in your personal life, and your health.  Life will pay you any price you pay it. 

So, if you want real success on your terms with your health, your happiness, your relationships, your business, your sales, and success as an entrepreneur then it’s time to start paying the price necessary.  Here’s your American Express Black Card plan for success (pardon the metaphor):

• Get up an hour earlier.  If 7 is your normal time, get up at 6
  
• No internet, no television
  
• Read something inspirational and uplifting for 15 minutes
  
• Get some form of exercise for 30 minutes 
  
• Review your goals – they’re written out, right?
  
• Eat a healthy breakfast, skip the pork fat
  
• Glance over the days schedule
  
• Get to your office before everyone if you have an office
  
• Schedule a coffee meeting or lunch meeting with any prospect or client – have a thank you game plan
  
• Spend 2 hours prospecting for business, a new hire, or whatever is the most pressing issue for you.  If you’re in sales it better be prospecting
  
• Take a ½ hour and hand write, no email, 5 thank you cards.  You’ll feel better, no one else is doing it, and whomever receives them will never forget your elegance and class
  
• Spend your day hustling with actions that drive you towards your goals.  There’s no such thing as the 4-hour workweek if you want success no matter an author tells you
  
• When everyone else has quit for the day, make one more call, send one more email, review your successes for the day and reread your goals.
  
• Go home and commit that time wholly to your loved ones

Life will pay you any price you ask of it, but you must be willing to hustle, to work your butt off, and commit to do whatever it takes to make it happen.  Don’t be like the entrepreneurs I’ve run into lately.  Get everything you want out of life.  You deserve it. 

Image is everything, and how you present yourself paints that picture.  The best part is you can be your own Picasso. 

I don’t simply mean the clothes you wear.  It’s the whole package that makes up your image:  your professional attire, your business packaging, your social media contributions, and your reputation.  If any of these are out of place or incongruent, you image is in need of a makeover.

Here are 8 steps to creating a successful image:

1. Wear professional attire appropriate to career one level up, i.e., dress for the job you want.  You’ll perform better, be perceived better, and flat out feel better about yourself.
   
2. When you’re not working, still dress better than the norm.  You never know who you’ll meet.
   
3. Polish your shoes regularly. It speaks volumes about you.
   
4. Update your business packaging to reflect and benefit who your real customers are.  Your website, brochures, business cards (if you still use them), and your advertising must deliver a cohesive message that focuses on what’s in it for your customers – not how wonderful you are.
   
5. All your social media accounts need to be linked
   
6. Your LinkedIn profile and photo, should match that of your company website, personal website (if applicable), blog, facebook fan page, and twitter account.  When there’s incongruence, people sense it right away and lose confidence.
   
7. Deliver value messages to your target audience.  Stop spamming everyone with buy now offers.
   
8. Clean up your personal accounts.  If you insist on showing drunken, or inappropriate photo’s and posts, then set your privacy filters with restricted access.  But then again, how professional are you if the message you’re sending your network in private is not G-rated?  That will ultimately transfer to your work life and negatively affect you.  Clean it up.
   

These steps may seem simple, but take a look around.  You’ll find incongruence everywhere you look.  Use every advantage you have.  Image is everything, and you control yours.  What your customer sees, your family and friends and your colleagues is a direct reflection of your level of success.  Control your image and you start taking control of your destiny.

Do you have a weekly sales kick off meeting? 

I don't mean an elaborate over-the-top production, but rather a structured uplifting meeting that focuses on your teams goals for the week and celebrates victories from the past week?

It doesn't matter if you’re working for yourself or your sales team numbers in the hundreds or thousands.  Every team is broken down into divisions, so you can easily manage the process.

It's one thing to set goals for the year, quarter and ultimately the month as company.  It's an entirely different animal altogether to drill down even further and breakdown by the weeks and days.  Anyone can check in once a month and either praise or punish performance, but real leaders, real sales superstars need constant reinforcement and feedback.

They need to feel apart of something bigger than themselves. They need recognition on a regular basis, and the really competitive ones need effective coaching when they're not firing on all cylinders. 

Those not meeting expectations need consistent coaching and feedback, and it’s better to address specifics immediately rather than once a month.  And for these team members not performing, being apart of an upbeat environment surrounded by those who are winning, may be all the advantage they need.

Here are the 4 essential steps to structure a simple, yet effective weekly kick-off meeting:

1.      Schedule the start and stop time for every Monday morning
2.      Keep the meetings short, less than 20 minutes
3.      Have a set agenda (my recommendation):
         a.       Set the tone - play upbeat & inspirational music
         b.      Stretch & get your team movingReview & celebrate last week's successes
         c.       Share successful strategies
         d.      Give rewards if applicable
         e.       Go over this week's expectations
         f.       Congratulate & thank everyone - even the under performers
4.      When the meeting is over email all team members a follow up & thank them again

If your team is spread out throughout the globe you can still meet in smaller groups or via web conference. Technology today takes away that excuse.

Start your Mondays off on the right foot.  Set the positive success mood for your sales team and company for the week and the future.  You will be rewarded with greater sales, a tighter cohesive team, more loyal employees, happier clients and lest we all forget, bigger bottom line profits.   

If you really want 2012 to be your best year ever, you must ask yourself this question.  What am I absolutely committed to doing differently this year from last year to achieve my goals and make 2012 the best year of my life so far?

Forget worthless resolutions and empty New Year’s promises to yourself.  I mean, with deep sincerity, what behaviors and actions are you willing and capable of changing to make this happen?  All of us are capable and have the ability to achieve great things, but very few make the commitment to do so.

Start by asking yourself exactly what you want and why you want it.  When do you want to accomplish it by?  What must I do differently?  Who must I become to set myself up for massive successes?

It’s not who you are as a person.  It’s who you must become, what behaviors support your goals, and what type of person achieves the goals you’re after.  

Commit to being this person every single day.  Read and re-read these attributes every single day.  Vince Lombardi said it best; “Practice doesn’t make perfect.  Perfect practice makes perfect.” 

Perfect practicing the person you must become to achieve your goals, and you will be infinitely closer and on a far easier path to achievement.  Don’t be guilty of insanity.  Choose and take action on a different path.