Over the next few weeks, I will delve deeper into the most important key to success and reveal my personal strategies on how I have accomplished what I have today.

Strategy 1: Double Impact

This is the art of manipulating your mind to believe there are two days in an actual day. This strategy creates an imaginary "48-hour" feel in a real 24-hour day.

Preparation

Create two planners; one is for 7am to 2pm, the other is for 3pm to 10pm. Whatever targets you have set for yourself, duplicate them across both planners. This means you are working towards double the goal target.

Bring an extra shirt and tie. For ladies, an extra blouse and perhaps a scarf. Ladies can make it more interesting by bringing an extra pair of shoes. The objective is to confuse the body and mind into believing you have pressed the reset button. It also works on the principle to convince you that you are beginning the day again. At 2pm or after your appointment, shower or simply freshen up and change your attire. Reset! Start work again.

WHY?

Why are 90% of salespeople not meeting their targets? When a salesperson is given the whole day, he or she either sleeps and starts the day at 2pm or comes into the office in the morning and reads newspapers, catches up on social media or just spends time on the phone talking to his or her fiancé.

He or she has bought into the limiting belief that sales can only be done in the evenings, or worse, we are considered productive if we do 1-2 appointments a day.

In my early years in sales, I did 4 to 5 appointments a day. I managed close to 25 appointments a week. This is only possible if we manage our time to the core.

You may follow this routine as an illustration:

6.30am: Wake Up
7am: Exercise or Read

8am: Breakfast and get ready tomake a difference
9.30am: Leave Home
10am: Sales Appointment 1
12pm: Sales Appointment 2
2pm: Lunch and wash up and change attire

(RESET!!!)

4pm: Sales Appointment 3
6pm: Dinner
7pm: Sales Appointment 4
8.30pm: Sales Appointment 5
10.30pm: Sleep

Can you imagine doing 5 appointments a day? Regardless of whether appointments get cancelled or you are cancelling when a previous appointment is overrun, you have maximized productivity. This strategy makes the salesperson effective at 7am. The same person who would have sat in the office reading the newspaper will now be at the train station doing surveys to collect leads. This happened because his day ends at 2pm and he has set his target on his planner.

When I got divorced in 2017, I had my children with me for most of the week. During weekdays, I could only work when they were in school. I had very limited hours. On weekends, I had to make my calendar look like I had 48 hours to catch up on weekday losses.

This strategy was so powerful that it always kept me on top of my game.