Slow Down To Speed Up! How The Right Action Can Make You Go Faster

As a leader in the sales world, you are always in motion, but sometimes it feels like you are spinning your wheels instead of moving forward.  Great leaders recognize when they feel this way, and go back to the basics, following these simple steps:

1.  Each day, make time to plan.  Easier said than done, right?  Except, studies show that thirty minutes of planning can save three hours of wasted effort.  Choose two or three really important tasks that will get done today. Put them on your schedule.  Don't let anything interrupt.  Do them. 

2.  Break your projects into small steps.  In Lord of the Rings, Frodo felt overwhelmed, but Sam kept saying, "Let's just get to the bottom of the next hill, Mr. Frodo."  Even if you can't see how you can possibly get to your final destination, start with the first step.

3.  Stay in motion.  Are you still feeling overwhelmed?  Turn off your email and do one of the small steps you listed in number two above.  Small steps prevent spinning wheels.

4.  Outsource.  Rather than do everything yourself, use what already exists.  Hire an outsider to do what you don't do well.  Travelers don't have to build the hotel they stay in.

5  Be bold, make mistakes -- fearlessly.  Sometimes you'll go down the wrong road or turn left instead of right.  Simply recognize the error, make the correction and get back on the road.

6.  Decide that the journey you are taking is fun, not a trial.  Ask, "How can we make this effortless?"  One executive told me that changing her perspective took an audit from painful to much less of a chore.