Sales Driven Marketing Hub

When you think about making your best better, think about the people you’re going to talk with along the way. What I’d like to introduce right now is the kinds of conversations I’ve had over the years that have pushed me along to this ever elusive goal of making my best better. And in the meanwhile being very confident, satisfied and content that where I’m going and how I’m being is on course with all of those things.

I want to discuss the ways you can fulfill a goal, the ways that you can deliver on a promise; again the kinds of conversations that will come in when that happens. To start with, think back on the last five days. Think about the conversations you had with people around you. This can be family, friends, people at work, and people that you go to for advice or ideas.

When you think about where you’re going, ask these three questions: What do you need? Who do you need? When do you need it? The navigation techniques I’ll introduce here all answer those three questions. So when you think about making your best better, you’re going to think about transactions, plenary sessions and strategic planning.

What do you need?

When you think about what you’ll need when you get from where you are to where you’re going, the three questions I want you to ask are: what do you need by when, what can you learn from who and what is available by resource; a book you can read, a class you can take.

As you make this list of things you will need these will be actions you’re going to take. They are going to be the physical visible tasks; so, how you go about doing what you need done during the day. If there’s something you’ve been procrastinating about; you know you need to make a phone call, you know you need to schedule a meeting, send an email; I would suggest you set a due date of when you’ll have that done. If you really want to up this, call a coach, a mentor or a really good friend and tell them when you’ll do whatever it is you need to do. I call these the transactions. Most people’s to do list are a list of what I call transactions; calling people, emailing, sending things.

Who do you need?

This will lead us to the second part of this post and that is engaging in planning conversations; plenary discussions. The kinds of questions you’ll ask here are; who do I know who…, who can you ask for help, and who is doing something like you are doing. I’ll put one of those poster size sticky notes on the wall of my hotel room, my office and I’ll literally stand in front of it and draw on the wall. I like to put names of people, places and events that I can go to that can give me some ideas. 

Planning for me is another way of saying you are putting seemingly disconnected thoughts together in useful ways. When I’m planning I like to think about who I can call, who I can invite into my space, who can I get to introduce me to someone else?

When do you need it?

The third thing I want to discuss is strategic planning. The questions here are all going to be time based. When can things be different? When will you make things different? When is the next milestone approaching? These time based questions fall into the strategic planning side.