“Without proper self-evaluation failure is inevitable.” – John Wooden
Hopefully, self-evaluation is something you do yourself or it’s a process your management team leads you through at least one time a year.
Do you self-evaluate every performance? Meaning, after every sales or service call that you make do you consciously ask yourself what you did well or what you could have done better?
If you are not doing this now, start! Conducting a quick self-evaluation immediately after a call will dramatically improve your overall performance.
Ask yourself, what did I do well? What things did I say, what facts, figures, or stats did I use that had a positive impact on the meeting? Did you complete your desired task for this call?
Likewise, was there any part of my performance that I wish I could undo? Did I spend too much time on small talk? Did I talk too much about our stations and not enough about his/her business? Did I cut him/her off? Did I talk too much, period?
Admitting to yourself that you did something wrong or that you have a flaw is never an easy thing. However, by doing so, it will help you to not repeat them.
There are hundreds of big and little things that we do on each call. By consciously asking yourself and conducting a self-evaluation after each and every call, it will help you better prepare for future meetings and ultimately make you a better salesperson.
How do you define hard work? How hard do you work?
As media reps and managers, we don’t typically describe what we do as “labor” in every sense of the word. Nonetheless, what we do is laborious.
One definition of labor is, “productive activity, especially for the sake of economic gain”. If you’re in sales, we hope that you are doing it because of the great potential for economic gain.
Another definition is, “physical or mental work, especially of a hard or fatiguing kind; toil”. While you’re probably not getting blisters, and the work we do is not physically toiling on your body, the task we perform oftentimes leaves you mentally shot at the end of a day. These last five and a half months has certainly taken its toll on everyone in one form or another.
This weekend, celebrate yourself for what you do and what you do for your customers and the economy. But, also celebrate those that make it possible for us to do what we do; the first responders (our police, firemen and women), those that work in the factories and fields, in the offices, retail stores, truck drivers, linemen, service and medical professionals, the stay-at-home moms, and dads.
More importantly, this weekend and always, celebrate and appreciate everyone, regardless of their political party and views, regardless of the color of their skin or the religion they choose to believe in.
This Labor Day, let’s celebrate us… all of us!
