I had 5 hours to get to the airport from Rimini, a town in Eastern Italy to Florence. Now when I got to Rimini from Florence, it took me 2 hours in the car. Now I figured 5 hours it is plenty of time. 

I woke up in the morning I was having breakfast and it’s espresso by the Italian Riviera. Some nice cookies. Okay, my nice Italian breakfast. And then I got on the highway and here I was on my way to Florence. Five minutes on the highway and all of a sudden there was like this unexpected traffic. 

Now I’m thinking, okay, fine. It will pass. It will pass, and about ten minutes later that traffic went away. But at the point where the traffic there was a bottom line, I noticed that there was no accident. There was nothing. There was just a car parked on the right hand side.

Just the guy maybe wanted to watch and enjoy the scenery and everybody driving got distracted by that car and that caused the entire traffic to take place. No, fine. I kept going. This same story happened nine times. There was nine different passenger cars that passed at certain intervals on the way to Florence from Rimini that caused this thing to happen.

And instead of taking 2 hours, it took me almost 4 hours. And I remember getting the car to the rental place, just doing the paperwork, running inside the airport to grab my plane. Thank God I made it. But what a close call that was. What a close call that was.

Hi. My name is Rames Helou. I’m the founder and keynote speaker of the Academy for Sales Excellence, where I simply speak at events and conferences to inspire, educate, and motivate sales teams to sell more, faster and profitably. So coming to you with another one of my sales tips and productivity tips to help you achieve more.

So this example was nothing more and nothing less than people who got distracted on the road and a life like a road. We can easily get distracted. So what are the consequences of being distraction? Actually, distraction is the enemy of focus. Focus is completely lack of distraction.

When your focus, you’re not distracted and when you distract, it definitely you’re not focused. Right? So one is the enemy of the other, and actually distraction robs me. Right?

Robs me Rames from opportunities that God provides me with on a day to day basis. So of course, my goal is to minimize my distractions and maximize my focus towards achieving the things that I really want to achieve. And you know what? You can do the same. So here are three things that I’m gonna quickly share with you to help you get to where you want to go quicker and faster.

Number one, I talk about it all the time is you gotta have it big enough ‘why’.  Your why, your reasons are the fuel that will help you overcome any obstacles. Number two is you got to know your limits. You got to know your limits. And number three is you got to know that if you cross those limits to go back to the limit, right? So make sure not to cross the limits.

So the site in advance what you are going to do and what you are not going to do. So if you’re one of my MBA students with Hult International Business School, a lot of time, it’s the beginning of the year now or even later on, we can get distracted or you can get distracted. So the question is to know what you’re gonna do, why you started this whole journey, and what are your limits? In some occasions, some people won’t spend too much time socializing or doing things that are not helping them get to where they want to go.

They might get lured by going to places, men and women that end up not being very good at even heard cases where people do some really crazy stuff, and they end up being deported from countries because they messed up.

Now, I’m not kidding on that. If you’re in sales and if you’re doing anything but being in front of a customer, you’re being distracted, right? And if you’re being distracted, you’re not getting the sales results. So you got to stop that distraction. And number three, if you are a sales leader and you find yourself doing a salesman’s job instead of teaching them or leading them to empower them to get their job going better for them, then obviously, you’re not maximizing your potential as a true sales leader.

Now, again, it’s easier said than done. And as you know, everything we have today is a result of the habits that we have formed. And the biggest thing here that you got to consider is what habits are you forming more of or less of? And if you’re not happy with any part of your life, who’s responsible for that? And the biggest question I have for you is, what are you going to do about it?

Three things: know your why, know your limit and stick to them.

Until next time. Sell more, sell faster and profitably.