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The Sales Stoic

May 23rd - It’s not about the hours, but how intentional your actions are

6 min

“Show me that the good life isn't about how long it lasts, but how it's lived, and that it's all too common for someone with many years behind them to have truly lived so little.” - Seneca

In both life and sales, it's easy to fall into the trap of simply putting in the hours. But a life well-lived, and a successful sales career, aren’t measured by time, but by how intentional and focused your actions are.

Are you busy or productive? Like a worker bee, you might be moving all the time without a clear purpose. Or you could be like a sniper, making every move count, with precision and intention.

Next time you feel overwhelmed, take a moment to step back, reset, and refocus.

A few minutes of movement can clear your mind and boost productivity, helping you approach each task with renewed energy. Make every hour count.

Actionable tips:

  • Review your daily tasks and see which ones are driving results. Prioritise activities that directly contribute to your pipeline and closing deals.
  • Spend 80% of your time on the 20% of activities that generate the most value. This could mean more time prospecting high-quality leads or preparing personalised pitches.

Remember you will die.

Subscribe to The Sales Stoic for daily insights: https://www.dealfront.com/resources/newsletters/the-sales-stoic/

Follow Jack & Zac: Jack: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jack-frimston-5010177b/ Zac: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zac-thompson-33a9a39b/

Connect with We Have a Meeting: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/we-have-a-meeting/ Website: https://www.wehaveameeting.com/

Disclaimer:

The Sales Stoic draws inspiration from the profound wisdom of Stoicism as presented in Ryan Holiday's "The Daily Stoic." As avid readers & fans, we deeply respect the work of Ryan Holiday, and acknowledge the significant impact of Stoic philosophy on our own approach to sales and life.

While The Sales Stoic applies the core principles of Stoicism to the unique challenges and opportunities faced by salespeople, it is an original work with its own distinct voice and focus. We aim to build upon the timeless wisdom of Stoicism to empower sales professionals with practical guidance and actionable insights for success in their careers and personal lives.

  • Jack Frimston

    Jack Frimston

    Co-Founder at We Have a Meeting

  • Zac Thompson

    Zac Thompson

    Co-Founder at We Have a Meeting

Happy birthday, Michael Thompson, 80 years old today. Wow. You would have loved vapes. It's still alive. It's still alive. Does he vape? My granddad? No, he doesn't. What does he like? What's his dirty little secret? He's not very politically correct. Oh, OK. all 80-year-old men. Yeah, fair enough. That's what he's doing. Show me an 80-year-old that is politically correct, and I'll show you a plant.

Well, thank you. Government or waterable? Either or. All right. It's your friend and mine. It's your favorite. It's Seneca. I love that guy. Not too long this one. So stay with me. Show me that the good life isn't about how long it lasts, but how it's lived and that it's all too common for someone with many years behind them to have truly lived so little. Well, and you use that in like everyday life because it's not it's not how long it lasts. It's about

Get your words out. It's about all good things. What do you mean? Yeah, carry on. OK. We've all got the same amount of hours in the day, haven't we? Yeah. But how many of us are coming in and saying, right, this is the day I can turn it around? I know we've all been there, haven't we? Like you've had to get the homework done, the coursework done, the uni work done. How many people do you meet who go, I actually did it all in order gradually.

throughout the term. And then because that there was no real rush at the end, but I just handed it in. That's Parkinson's law. You know Parkinson's law. Michael. Yeah, Michael Parkinson. The amount of time you have, you will fill the amount of time to complete that task. Yeah. So if you have an hour to do a task or you have all day to do the task, you'll take all day to do the task. Yeah. Yeah. That's Parkinson's law. And do know the, you know, one with mayonnaise and cabbage and carrots?

That's coleslaw. Yeah. Nice. I'm coleslaw will put their Instagram handle in the in the comments. So you say my I was in the day, right? But then targets a hit. Yeah. The looming target to hit everyone's like tennis month and like good luck guys month end. Yeah. If you just did the bit every day, there's no such thing as month end every day is days and isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. So the activity that would get you there, but I know I've been guilty of it where you go

Actually, I'm going to put this bit off till I'm actually ahead a bit now. I'll take that. I'll take the pressure off. What you really want to be doing is getting a repeatable set of habits and steps that you can do every day consistently without thinking, ⁓ I feel a bit burnt out now or without feeling demotivated because you're not doing enough. You with me on that one or not? I'm going to buy that over to you.

I think salespeople, this might be a controversial opinion so... buckle up. Take it with, we might have Michael Thompson and the Sova. It's opinion of the month, I think salespeople should front load their months. my god, that was so controversial. I think they should sprint at the start of the month. stop! I think they should try and get ahead. If you are in a meeting booking game, if you're in a revenue, I would try and the first ten days, get ahead.

So you're sprinting, sprinting, sprinting to your head. Then you go for a consistent pace and then depending on where you are, you have a keep with that consistency and then have a last minute sprint. Or if you're just a little bit behind, then you can sprint towards the end. What a lot of people do is start off slow, get consistent and then panic on the last end sprint. But because the panics there, that's when the mindset starts getting the way. And then that's when you stop performing. So like when you're at the start, you're abundant.

Well, I know I've got 30 days to achieve this, so I'm going to sprint now. I'm going to do the best I can. I'm going to get ahead of the game. And then I know that that's going to set me up for the rest of the month. So it's a case of like, wait for like a running analogy is when I was training to do the marathon, I could have, it was very easy, but I could have just like done all my training on like, it was like a six week training plan. I could have done it all on the backend, but actually I was trying to get my long runs in early. was trying to push myself in the early days because I was like, right, I know I can do that now.

So as it goes through, became easier and more consistent rather than just panicking at the last minute and be like, is this achievable? You're actually quite impressive. I think a lot of people don't realise that. I don't think you realise that. No, I do. I think very highly of you. I just wish you'd stop hurting me. I'm going to take you back to a story I've told before. I'm going to retell it because I think it fits really nicely here. So I knew when I started the business off, an amount of money has to be made to pay my mortgage, put food on the table. So there's this looming amount of money.

hanging over me or feels unattainable. The goal is too big. Yeah. So what I do is I just split it up into what needs to be done every day to get there. And what I thought was what's a reasonable target that I could hit and then take the pressure off and then just hit it again the next day, take the pressure off, hit it again the next day and do it consistently. Right. And what I said to myself was I want to book two meetings a day. Then I've got 40 a month and actually I only need four clients.

So have 40 conversations. If I can't get four clients, I'm in the wrong game. Crap. I mean, you would have been crap. But I wasn't, was I? No, you didn't do that. Look at the camera. Camera one, he wasn't crap. So that would be a way of basically looking at this in a practical way. Like, can I take the big target, split it up so actually it makes me accountable every day. If I don't do the thing today, then I owe it to tomorrow. And if you don't want to owe anything to tomorrow because if tomorrow never comes.

Well, I she haven't worked hard enough. What? I'm getting excited. You have tomorrow. There's a catchphrase that I love as well. If you want to buy something without looking at the price tag, you need to work without looking at the clock. What? That's really nice. We get a fact check on that. Is that true? Yeah, fact check from the audience. up in the background. Yeah. So if you want to buy things without looking at the price tag, you've got to work without looking at the clock.

Nice. Take that as you will. Thanks mate. Your accent has changed about three times during this episode. I've been Jack Frimston. I've been Jack Thompson. Remember you will die. No shoes in the house.

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