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The power of organizing and goal setting, we have always heard, is a great way to start the year. Out with the Old and in with New so to speak, and I have always gone along with it, more often than not, on autopilot. Well, this year my planning and organizing has been a bit different…so far. I have spent the last 15 days organizing, with some planning thrown in, for 2010 and have been experiencing some really interesting things. And while I wouldn’t recommend taking 15 days to plan and organize (I am a remedial planner & organizer with several years of disorganization to organize), it has been and can be quite a cathartic experience and have a positive impact on your Sales. In my particular case I closed 3 pieces of business because of my organizing!

OK you might saying to yourself, come on isn’t that a bit of reach, attributing the closing of deals to getting rid of stuff and planning. Well, yes it might be if that was the only thing I was attributing to closing the business. I just found it really interesting that as I organized, got rid of, burned, gave away and just released “stuff” my phone rang and these 3 deals that had been languishing in my funnel, closed. All this happened without much effort on my part, or at least it didn’t seem that hard.

So an interesting theory is emerging and one that I hope you will help me test. The more organized I become the easier it is to sell! Maybe a bit simplistic as theories go but why not give it a try and organize a few things in your life and let’s see what happens. Couple of suggestions to start with:

1) Paper Files - Go into your files (or in my case piles) and clean out stuff that you no longer need or that is so far out of date it isn’t relevant anymore. And/or move some of the paper files and notes into digital format so that you can keep them…until they are irrelevant…next year.

2) Electronic Files - Organize your Hard Drive(s) creating folders trying to keep ‘like with like’, so that you can find that proposal template you liked or contract you need to grab on the fly, next week.

3) Attack a Closet - Even if this closet has nothing to do with your business. I attacked (organized & added shelves) our kitchen pantry and it is amazing just the little bit of organizational sanity that gave me, not to mention messing with my wife’s head, as she didn’t think I knew where the pantry was let alone what was in it. (and it was while doing this ‘pantry’ work that I received calls closing 2 of my 3 deals..I am just saying!)

4) Business Cards - Clean out all your business cards, either get rid of them or add them to your contact database (Salesforce.com is a great tool for this). I took over 800 business cards I had collected at various networking and business events, and put them into my newsletter database. I anticipate that probably only 200 or so are still accurate or relevant but my first emailing will allow me to see who I to keep and who I need to delete from my database. This serves two purposes one I have a clean desk and second I am not constantly thinking “I should call that guy/gal” when I see their card sprawled across my desk. Minimized distractions allows for better focus.

Well that is a start anyway. I found that when I did these 4 organizational tasks things started to flow or at least they seemed to flow a little bit easier. So please help me test this organizing theory. Try one or all four of these suggestions and let me know what happens for you in your selling. Perhaps you will close that big deal that has been languishing or maybe your significant other will smile at you a bit more or perhaps you will just feel a little liter after getting rid of stuff. Whatever the result please do let me know.

Now I am off to attack another closet, perhaps my office closet this time, I am confident this will get the phone ringing.

Happy Selling and here’s to a Kick Ass 2010!

Tally Ho!

Tally Ho!

“Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any other.”
-Abraham Lincoln

“Develop success from failures. Discouragement and failure are two of the surest stepping stones to success.”-Dale Carnegie

“I don’t know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody.”
-Bill Cosby

“I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life and that is why I succeed.”
-Michael Jordan

“In order to succeed, your desire for success should be greater than your fear of failure.”
-Bill Cosby

“Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.”
-Winston Churchill

“Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can’t lose.”
-Bill Gates

“Success is getting what you want. Happiness is wanting what you get.”
-Dale Carnegie

“Success is simply a matter of luck. Ask any failure.”
-Earl Wilson

“Success seems to be largely a matter of hanging on after others have let go.”
-William Feather

“The ladder of success is best climbed by stepping on the rungs of opportunity.”
-Ayn Rand

“Sometimes one pays most for the things one gets for nothing.”
-Albert Einstein

“Few are those who see with their own eyes and feel with their own hearts.”
-Albert Einstein

“Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.”
-Albert Einstein

“If the facts don’t fit the theory, change the facts.”
-Albert Einstein

“If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.”
-Albert Einstein

“Information is not knowledge.”
-Albert Einstein

“It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education.”
-Albert Einstein

“It’s not that I’m so smart, it’s just that I stay with problems longer.”
-Albert Einstein

“Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.”
-Albert Einstein

“Once we accept our limits, we go beyond them.”
-Albert Einstein

“Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I’m not sure about the former.”
-Albert Einstein

“Small is the number of people who see with their eyes and think with their minds.”
-Albert Einstein

“We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.”
-Albert Einstein

“Aerodynamics are for people who can’t build engines.”
-Enzo Ferrari

“A business that makes nothing but money is a poor business.”
-Henry Ford

“History is more or less bunk.”
-Henry Ford

“I am looking for a lot of men who have an infinite capacity to not know what can’t be done.”
-Henry Ford

“If you think you can do a thing or think you can’t do a thing, you’re right.”
-Henry Ford

“Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is probably the reason why so few engage in it.”
-Henry Ford

“Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain and most fools do.”
-Ben Franklin

“He that won’t be counseled can’t be helped.”
-Ben Franklin

“Never confuse motion with action.”
-Ben Franklin

“Some people die at 25 and aren’t buried until 75.”
-Ben Franklin

“There are three things extremely hard: steel, a diamond, and to know one’s self.”
-Ben Franklin

“When in doubt, don’t.”
-Ben Franklin

“Wise men don’t need advice. Fools won’t take it.”
-Ben Franklin

“The buck stops here!”
-Harry S. Truman

“Things do not happen. Things are made to happen.”
-John F. Kennedy

“The only limits to the possibilities in your life tomorrow are the buts you use today.”
-Les Brown

“Don’t be afraid to give up the good to go for the great.”
-John D. Rockefeller

“The man who can drive himself further once the effort gets painful is the man who will win.”
-Roger Bannister

“Effort only fully releases its reward after a person refuses to quit.”
-Napolean Hill

“If you do not conquer self, you will be conquered by self.”
-Napolean Hill

“What the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve.”
-Napolean Hill

“A goal is a dream with a deadline.”
-Napoleon Hill

“It is always your next move.”
-Napoleon Hill

“Adversity is preparation for greatness”
-Andy Andrews

“Life is either a great adventure or nothing.”
-Helen Keller

“One can never consent to creep when one feels an impulse to soar.”
-Helen Keller

“Action speaks louder than words but not nearly as often.”
-Mark Twain

“It’s not the size of the dog in the fight, but the size of the fight in the dog.”
-Mark Twain