When you wake up every morning, what’s the first thought that pops into your mind? I’m guessing that you mentally run through your to-do list each morning as you brush your teeth and get ready for your day. I used to do the same thing. I’d sit at my kitchen table with my coffee and go through a mental checklist of all the tasks I had to accomplish that day, and it was an incredibly helpful way to plan my days.
But it’s not the warrior way.
I found that when I focused my day on multiple tasks, or one or two bigger tasks, I became overwhelmed and caught up in the details, which killed my productivity. I’d quickly get overwhelmed and behind the eight ball.
Every human being wakes up every day with a primary question. You might wake up on Monday, and your primary question is to work through a leads list. On Tuesday it might be to deliver a presentation. But instead of making those specific tasks your primary question, your primary question should stay the same every day. Your question should be the fuel for your job tasks, rather than the tasks themselves. So, what do I mean by that?
Every sales warrior has the same primary question:
“How can I move a sale forward today?”
Just the same, every sales coach has the same primary question: How can I coach a sale forward today? That’s the driving force behind everything a sales warrior does on a daily basis. It’s not about breaking the company sales record every day or setting some massive personal milestone every day. It’s about the process. It’s about moving a sale one step closer to the close every single day. It’s about making that next call, or handling that next objection, or creating that next raving fan.
One of my favorite stories I’ve ever heard is about Jim McCann, the founder of 1-800-Flowers. In order to keep the office focused, he posted signs all around his company that said three simple words: “Sell More Flowers.”
While he observed people working, he would randomly ask them, “Is this helping you to sell more flowers?” If not, he would redirect their behavior to something that did. He empowered employees to coach up, by asking their bosses, “but will this help us sell more flowers?” It was by this primary question that McCann built 1-800-Flowers into a billion-dollar company.
Your primary question isn’t about your specific tasks. It’s about your purpose. Think of it like the filter that those daily tasks run through. When the things you do every day filter through your primary question, they should either fall through because they’re beneficial, or they should be filtered out and delegated. The key is that your primary question is filtering through things that help you move a sale forward and filtering out things that don’t.
At FPG, every employee on the team has posters with their primary question hanging at their desk. “How can I move a sale forward today?” “How can I increase the speed and profitability of FPG?” “How can I strengthen FPG’s content today?” My team has an unbreakable focus on their primary question, and at the end of each day, they get to go home feeling accomplished about today’s work, instead of anxious about tomorrow’s. It’s the same for my primary question, which is, “How can I be leading-edge today?”
You need to be aware of your primary question at all times. When you prioritize tasks based on your primary question, you’ll be more productive, you’ll be happier, and you may find that you contribute more to the growth of your company every single day.
One of the immediate aftereffects of the primary question is that it dramatically improves your goal level. The way Behavioral Sciences Research Press defines goal level is the process of creating a reliable connection between your motivation level (the physical energy you have to accomplish your goals) and your goal itself (what you get out of it). It’s like the wire connecting the wall outlet (your motivation) to the TV (your goal).
BSRP says that there are three main aspects to connecting your motivation to what you actually want to achieve. The following definitions are my interpretations of what they are assessing.
1. The target. The level of clarity of your goal.
2. The strategy. The specific plan to achieve your goal.
3. The pursuit. How much energy you’re putting towards your strategy.
The entire purpose of your primary question is that it programs your mind to lock onto your target with your Reticular Activating System (something we’ll discuss more with our Lock-On strategy), gives you a strategy to achieve it, and pushes you to follow through on the pursuit.
In other words, your primary question is your vital goal achievement companion.
One of the greatest benefits of the primary question is the human need for certainty. Think about the most stressful parts of your day. What do they all have in common? Uncertainty. If you can’t prioritize your tasks based on that primary question, then you’re like the person who builds their house on sand instead of stone. Once a big enough wave comes along – a request from another department, an unexpected project, a tough conversation with a boss – then that house topples over.
The primary question is the stone foundation for the day. It mentally centers you as a sales warrior on exactly what you need to do that day. If you’re pulled away from moving sales forward, then you know exactly how to find your way back. This is the mentality that separates a sales warrior who moves sales forward from everyone else.
Traditional Sales And Leadership Training Fails To Address The Real Problem!
You’ve tried training your team in the past, but it didn’t really work. The old style of training just doesn’t seem to work anymore. It’s no secret that sales and leadership training is essential, but it can be hard to find a training program that actually works. Most programs are outdated and are not focused on changing behavior.
FPG Sales Training is different. We don’t use the traditional approach of lecturing your team for hours on end. Instead, we help your team understand their mindset and give them the tools they need to succeed. We help them remove their excuses so they can finally achieve their goals. Book a Meeting today!
Jason Forrest
Jason Forrest has disrupted the sales training industry by creating the first training program that changes behavior. This is done through 1) teaching tactical real-world processes; 2) the language of persuasion, 3) removing the mental excuses that hold people back, and 4) through a program-based training approach.
This philosophy is what led his Warrior Selling® and Leadership Sales Coaching programs to be ranked in the top 2 of the World’s Top Sales Development Programs, by Global Gurus. His provocative style of speaking his truth ranks him as number 5 on the Global Sales Guru list.
Jason is a Master Practitioner in Neuro-Linguistic Programming, the science of influence and behavioral change. He is also a Practitioner in Accelerated Evolution, the psychology of removing fear in high performers.
