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All successful sales professionals or professionals for that matter, have one thing in common and that is ‘discipline’.
I heard the following, it says:
“Discipline is the ability to do what you have to do when you have to do it, whether you like to do it or not.”
Right?
And that reminds me of when I used to be in direct sales, my target audience were homeowners.
So, the day before the week starts equivalent to a Saturday here, is Sunday in North America, I’d want to make phone calls between 6:00 to 9:00 PM.
If I didn’t make the phone calls, if I decided to spend the time with my friends at the movies or, you know, goofing off, right?
I missed that window and I didn’t have appointments on Sunday, Monday or Tuesday.
Yet if I did the time then, I’d go to the later show for example.
I got this, I built that discipline to do what I have to do.
And then, later on, things became a lot better.
So the simple concept that helps discipline is understanding called delayed gratification.
A lot of times people want what is pleasurable right now.
And we refuse to wait.
To pay the price to get the pleasure a bit later on.
And a lot of time when we wait, we enjoy things more.
So I’ll give you a simple study done by, I believe Harvard school of psychology, where they did the marshmallow experiment.
You can quote, you can double-check the source on that.
But it was a story like they’ve given children, I think there were under five, give them marshmallows.
Maybe one marshmallow and told them:
“Look, if you wait for 20 minutes before eating the marshmallow, I’ll give you three marshmallows or two marshmallows later.”
So they explain the improved, let’s say the performance or improved the pleasure later on.
And what the child had to do is wait for 15 or 20 minutes.
Now, when they came back, they found that some children had already swallowed the marshmallow.
While others actually didn’t and they got that reward.
And as they followed these children in life, they found that those that were able to delay gratification were more successful.
They were achieving more, they were helping more people, they had made an impact on their communities.
And in fact, those that were not able to delay gratification in some occasions got in trouble with the law and they wanted things now.
And of course, you know what happens and then they wanted to get it by force, and then they got in trouble.
So, again, we’re not going to get to that extreme, but simply the concept of delayed gratification is your ability to be disciplined internally, to do what you have to do when you have to do it, so that you can get what you want.
So maybe the question for you today, when you watch this video, ask yourself:
“What must I wait on doing until later, or what must I do first, second and third, so that I get the results that I’m after?”
Until next time, sell more, sell faster and profitably, The Academy For Sales Excellence is here to help!
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