️ ️⚡ Today’s level up ⚡

You need to take different steps to experience different results in the year ahead. That starts with taking radical ownership of your approach. Here are five simple ideas that can help.

New year, new approach

It's going to be a new year.

Why not a new way of operating to come along with it?

Maybe you'll start a new role at a new company. Or are you ready for a reboot in your current one?

Either way, following these five steps will help shape your strategy to ensure you set yourself up for the most successful year in your career.

Let's go...

1) Think like a CEO

The beautiful thing about being in sales is that we are like mini entrepreneurs. It's important to operate like one every day.

As you start a new role or redefine your current one, you'll need to be effective in developing strong internal relationships, understanding your product, becoming an expert in solving challenges for customers and managing a system for generating consistent new business.

CEOs don't shoot from the hip; they have a plan. Before you can develop a plan, you need a set of personal guiding principles.

• What do you stand for?

• What makes you unique?

• How have you achieved success?

Knowing these things about yourself will allow you to think more like a CEO. Take the quiet time to write out your core principles before things get hectic.

2) Be disciplined with your "launch" strategy

Once you've developed the CEO mindset, you have to prepare for your "product launch." When starting in a new role, your company's product is brand new to you. You, selling this new product is also new, so you need to "productize" how you do that. Don't wait and be reactive. Take a proactive approach to ensure you launch yourself successfully.

Here's how you do it: A week before your official start date, comb through your new company's website. Could you write out a detailed memo on your findings?

• What does your company really do? (Put your own words to it)

• How is it different from other suppliers in the space?

• How have other companies benefited from using the product?

• How can you put your personal spin on it?

I'd like you to dive deep into answering these questions. This will allow you to show up to your orientation and onboarding one step ahead of the pack.

Before I joined LivePerson back in 2018, I did just that. I also leveraged my existing network, including contacts on Apple's Business team who connected me on my first day to an executive who went on to buy from me in my first year. We were able to launch something special, but it would have never happened if I hadn’t been proactive in teaching myself about the product and leveraging my network.

Also (this is important), when you start, be thoughtful and intentional in monitoring your sleep, optimizing your energy, and managing specific blocks on your calendar for strategizing on your account list while keeping the rest of your calendar open for meetings (internal and external) and training.

It’s important to find your own flow—be fast when others are slow, and slow when others are frantic.

3) Make your account list mean something to you

I averaged earning seven figures a year final three years of my corporate sales career. I did it uniquely, relying on a personal operating system, but more importantly, I took control of my destiny.

If you're in strategic tech sales, you'll benefit from SDRs helping build your pipeline and setting appointments. But if you want to earn the big bucks, you need to take more control of your account list.

Back in 2019, when I earned over a million dollars for the first time, the best thing I did was to refocus my account list and align it with the things that were important to me, including my strengths.

This will allow you to better team up with your SDRs on outreach to your top pursuits and enable you to pursue key accounts that are meaningful to you.

If you need help, feel free to steal this four-step process I call The Diamond Hunter Framework:

1) Understand the Diamond Hunter framework.

• Review the Venn diagram.

• The goal will be to hone in on accounts that are inside the Diamond, or close to it.

2) Create 5 criteria that are important to you personally 

• Ask yourself key questions (what motivates you, what you’re good at, what the world needs, etc.).

• Define what each criteria means so that others can understand it.

• Check out mine if you need an example.

3) Plot your accounts on the Venn diagram, based on your criteria.

• Start placing your accounts on the diagram based on what criteria they fall under.

• Achieve one point for each ring it touches.

• A Diamond Account would be equal to five points (the highest possible score).

4) Score your account list, so you’ll have prioritized targets to pursue.

• Now, rank your top accounts based on their score.

• Focus your time on developing a strategy for nurturing these accounts.

4) Don't wait for perfection to have business conversations

Balance the discipline in planning your launch approach with the flexibility ("flexipline") to engage with prospects immediately.

You don't need to be a product expert to learn what your prospects need. Say yes to every meeting, and learn key insights from those conversations.

The worst situation you can put yourself in is wasting the first 90 days to get entirely comfortable knowing everything about your product. By that point, it's too late. You should already have a few strategic opportunities in your pipeline that you can count on closing in the second half of the year.

Besides, getting all of the "bad" calls and meetings under your belt early is better so you can fine-tune your approach. As you eventually find your feet, you can be more thoughtful about what you say yes and no to. The tide will turn where saying “no” becomes more important than “yes”—classic “addition through subtraction.”

Always remember, it's about progress, not perfection.

5) Act like a content creator

Now that you've been having several conversations with business executives, start to systemize those learnings and get good at addressing what you hear is a problem for everyone.

Then, start acting like a content creator. This will be the foundation for your personal operating system that helps you become a recognized leader in your industry and have opportunities start coming to you rather than constantly chasing them.

To do this effectively and efficiently, this is what you should do:

• Write down the top 3-5 things your prospects tell you are a problem

• Begin creating content and writing articles on LinkedIn talking about how you can solve these problems with your company's solutions

• Be consistent, and post every week

• Use the posts and articles as a foundation for your distinct point of view and talk track in meetings

Do this for six months, and in the second half of the year, you'll start seeing results. And by being an active content creator, you'll naturally become an expert in creatively solving challenges using your company's product. That will be useful when meeting a C-Level executive for the first time or negotiating to close that massive deal in Q4.

P.S. If you liked this, consider upgrading to the full experience.