Noted author and management guru Jim Rohn once said: “Success is neither magical nor mysterious. Success is the natural consequence of consistently applying the basic fundamentals.”
Understanding that success is achieved by applying the basic fundamentals in your business—and in your life—the question remains: What are the basic fundamentals we must master in order to achieve the success we desire?
I call these basic fundamentals “daily success habits.” If we train ourselves to focus on money-making activities on a daily basis, and get in the habit of doing them over and over, success will follow.
Here’s a list of habits that our coaching clients agree to early on in our coaching relationship.
1. Plan Your Day
The most important hour of your day is the hour you spend planning your day and working on activities that move you closer to your goals. No checking email, answering the phone, texting or handling transactions during this critical hour. Focus on your business and the activities that need your undivided attention.
2. Read
Knowledge is power, and the best way to gain knowledge is to read or listen to audio books. The elite hunger for knowledge and constantly improve their expertise in many areas of business and life by learning from others.
3. Prospect Daily
If you want to stay busy and eliminate the peaks and valleys in your business, you must prospect every day. This habit will get easier if you schedule time daily and simply do it. The hard part is not allowing yourself to become distracted by “fake work” during your prospecting time.
4. Emails and Social Media
Don’t just send generic emails or post random things to Facebook. Both email and social media can be a time waster, so block your time to follow-up on emails and update social media, and make that time purposeful by thinking through what message you want to convey.
5 Handwritten Notes
With the invention of email and social media, taking the time to send a handwritten note is fast becoming a lost art. Sending a handwritten note or birthday card in the mail makes a much better statement of your appreciation than an email or Facebook post saying thanks. Take the time to do it right.
6. Lead Follow-up
Today’s consumer has clearly articulated that the biggest issue they have with agents in general is that “they don’t follow up.” To have success in this business, you must have a clear follow-up system for all leads from every source. We call it the ABC’s of lead follow-up, where each lead is put into a system that methodically gets followed up with.
The bottom line is that if you start each day by simply heading to the office without a plan in place, your day will take on a life of its own and control you, resulting in frustration and the feeling of being out of control. But if you develop success habits, starting with planning your day, you’ll find each day has meaning, and you’ll progress toward achieving your goals.
Verl Workman is the founder and CEO of Workman Success Systems (385-282-7112), an international speaking, consulting and coaching company that specializes in performance coaching and building successful power agents and teams.
For more information, visit www.verlworkman.com.
