Explore the transformative power of self-improvement in both your professional and personal life.
Each of you is perfect the way you are... and you can use a little improvement.
—Shunryu Suzuki
Every day on LinkedIn, you find all kinds of sales content, especially about strategies for cold calling and getting meetings. There is also a lot of advice about how to acquire more followers or game the algorithm to make your content more visible. It's important to recognize that some of the people who post this content are new to sales, meaning they are chapters behind others who have been working in sales for a long time. Rarely does a person come across content about self-development, even though it would improve people’s sales results and many other aspects of life. Who you are is a greater variable in your success than what or how you sell.
In the last few weeks, the content here has been about the importance of reading substantial and consequential books, which could allow you to provide a perspective that helps your clients make good decisions about their future. It is nearly impossible to be a trusted advisor without reading and researching. In Elite Sales Strategies, you will find the idea that you must be an expert and an authority, positioning that will increase your win rates and allow you to be consultative.
Enhance Personal Growth for Sales Success
It is unfortunate that most people believe that after high school or college, they cannot change. If you are reading this, you are not likely to believe this. Instead, you understand that it’s possible to continue to grow and develop into a better version of yourself over time. There are others who believe they must always be taking action to improve themselves in some meaningful way.
You must know yourself well enough to identify the areas where you need to improve, an endeavor which will increase your effectiveness at work and at home. If you have someone who knows you as well as you know yourself, that person may be able to see a gap that you can’t see or refuse to look at. Asking this person what they see can help you identify the area or areas that would improve you and your results.
Key Elements of Self-Development: Health, Wealth, Relationships
The big three pillars of self-development are:
- health
- wealth
- relationships
Your health is always going to be the most important of the three, as poor health threatens everything else. Sleep. Hydration. Exercise. Diet. Stress management. Mental health.
After health, comes wealth. There is a good argument to put relationships before wealth, but if you must take care of others, you need the resources to keep them healthy. If you have a gap around wealth, you may need a development plan to improve this important pillar.
Finally, you can improve yourself by working on your relationships. Those of us with large families will have to work harder, making time for grandparents and parents if you are fortunate to still have them. Covey taught us that relationships are the first things you put on your calendar, filling in around what is truly most important.
Plan Your Self-Development Journey
Self-development requires a project and a plan. Once you decide how you will improve yourself, you will have to acquire some way to improve whatever you have chosen to improve. You may need a course, a class, a book, a coach, a mentor, or some other way to progress towards better results. There are no right or wrong choices, if one doesn’t work, you can move onto another way to develop yourself.
You are better off tackling one self-development project at a time. Even if you believe you need to develop in several areas, trying to make more than one important behavioral change at one time can be too much to tackle all at once. You are better off succeeding on one self-development project before starting another. Prioritize your projects by determining their importance, and start with the most important one. This will make the biggest impact, and will probably make it easier for you to complete the others. You will not benefit from being overwhelmed by doing too much at one time and reducing your chances of success.
Align Development Goals with Personal Ambitions
You need clear goals on what your transformation will require and how you will measure your progress. To measure your progress, track a small number of KPIs so you can become the next, and improved, version of you. You never have to share any of this with anyone. You are doing this for yourself, even though your development will impact the people in your work and home life.
Embrace Continuous Improvement
The epigraph from Suzuki at the top of this post reminds us that each of us is inherently valuable, even though we have potential that we haven’t yet activated. You want to continue to grow and develop throughout your entire life.
Leaving this article, you should identify the development plan that is most important to you now. Once you have settled on what you want to improve, you need to acquire the resources you need to be able to activate your latent potential. In this way, you will improve yourself and realize better results in the future.
