Edgy Conversations: Introspection, Nonsense, and Hoping for More.

Since when did sales come down to the fine art of improving your quarterly performance? To improving your quota by that 4% margin of victory.

Since when did we start looking back (on the worst sales year of 3 generations) to decide whether we were getting the right results.

Since when did we fool ourselves into the nonsense of arbitrary analysis.

OK. Let me lighten up a little.

As a former CEO of a fast moving technology company, I get it. I buy into the idea that you need a rolling 13 month plan of action and that you need to to measure the heck out of anything for which you can make a tick with a #2 pencil.

What you measure you can fix.

That’s partly because once you measure, you know what you need to fix.

You move past the nonsense of unabashed introspection — past the island of hopeful intentions. You get to a place where you see what really is.

It’s now fact instead of fiction.

You can stop hoping to do better and start working on being better.

And here’s where it gets fun. You get to decide what “better” even means.

You probably know what that means. Right now you have five or six things you are thinking about. And that’s key because you know your situation better than anyone else. But here are a few things you might want to look for:

1. How many times did you go the extra mile to provide creative solutions to your customers?
2. Did you increase your intensity around prospecting for new clients?
3. Do you enjoy doing what you are doing?

It’s introspection at it’s finest. None of the numbers. Just a focus on you and your ability to play at a high level.

It’s a look at the core you and pushing yourself to be the best “you” possible.

So what’s the deal with comparing yourself to a spreadsheet of hopes and dreams?

Who cares what happened in 2009 or the first six months of this year? Well…. you do. And I do. And frankly, we all do.

Just care enough to do it better these next six months.

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This article first appeared at the Sales Bloggers Union, where each month Dan joins the world’s top sales writers to share their perspective on a single selling idea.