I’m a huge fan of the Showcase Wellshop Policy, and not ashamed to say it was a factor in my decision to join the Showcase team as VP of Sales and Business Development.
When I’m not extolling the virtues of our top notch software, I’m often training for an endurance run, from 1500 meters on a track to 100 miles in the mountains. Joining a company where exercise is actively encouraged and allows me to prioritize my time to pursue my work and athletic goals feels like an ideal fit.
There’s a handful of principles that carry over from my decades of training and competing that help guide me as Showcase’s sales guy.
Here’s a rundown of three guiding principles:
Start with the end in mind
If you’ve read “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People,” then this is very familiar to you. And by the end, I mean the end end - like what would you want someone to say about you at your funeral? Not to be morbid, but that type of long-term perspective can help keep you from chasing the latest fads that are sure to fade or questionable slimy-sales tactics. Kindness, humor, being helpful, building relationships and listening are timeless.
Be consistent
The surest path to being successful - at running or sales - is to keep showing up regularly over time. There are days when I absolutely do not want to put on my running shoes but 10 minutes into a run, that feeling has passed and I’m always in a better mood afterwards.
Prospecting is the same as going for that daily workout - even when you don’t want to do it. How are you going to connect with potential customers if you’re not prospecting? How else are you going to find the right people to build relationships with? Give it a go for ten minutes and if it’s not clicking yet, move on to another task but odds are good you’ll be in a better groove.
Continuous improvement
I once had a boss tell me, “I don’t expect you to be perfect, but I do expect you to keep improving.” What a relief that was to hear - because perfection is an impossibly high bar to live up to. We all want to deliver top notch results but we’re not hatched out of eggs delivering perfect emails. We have to work at it!
The best athletic coaches around will tell you that it takes 7 to 28 days to fully realize the benefit of the workout you just completed. You’ll get some immediate results in changing your mood and productivity at work but then you’ll get even more. That sales presentation you delivered works in a similar way; you’ll have some immediate feedback, and then even more that settles in over the coming days and weeks.
If you keep working out or keep delivering sales presentations on a consistent basis, before you know it, you’ve improved little by little and you’ve reached another level. That’s how you graduate from thinking “I can’t possibly run for 10 minutes straight” to “I bet I could do a marathon.”
I hope you find these principles helpful to you in sales and at the gym. And of course using Showcase for your sales presentations is a solid move too.
If you're keen to hear more about Showcase, why not grab a free demo?