One of the most striking attributes of great leaders is their willingess to make decisions...and most of the time to make good decisions.
Do you know anyone who has trouble making decisions? They struggle with simple decisions (what to order for lunch) as if that decision is going to impact the rest of their life. From time to time I will simply ask the waiter or waitress to bring me something/anything off the menu just to remind myself of the power in making decisions and to remind me of the importance of distinguishing between important decisions (the God you serve, the friends you choose, the person you marry, etc.) and more trivial matters (what to order for lunch, where to go on vacation, what car to buy, etc.).
Which leads me to the sales people and sales managers I meet in my travels. Some of them are absolutely terrified to make decisions. Now I don't mean to even suggest that some of the decisions are not important. After all, deciding who to hire and who to let go often has a deep impact on the lives of good people. But if you are a sales manager, that is what you signed up for....so get on with it. If you know that one of your team members is not going to cut it...if you know they won't be able to sell in the current economic environment...then how are you helping them or your company by hoping things will get better? As I have written before on this blog, hope is not a strategy.
If you are a sales person, what decision do you need to make? Is it to finally decide to be 100% committed to your profession? Is to decide to stop wasting time on unqualified opportunities that clog up your pipeline? Is it to have the guts to pick up the phone and fire a prospect that you know has no shot of becoming your client? Is it to finally agree that your results or lack of results are due to one thing only - and that would be you?
I like what Havey Mackay wrote on his web site this week: "Don't be afraid of making decisions. Be afraid of not making decisions."
As always, it's up to you to decide.
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