Fanatical Prospecting: The Ultimate Guide to Opening Sales Conversations and Filling the Pipeline by Leveraging Social Selling, Telephone, Email, Text, and Cold Calling (Jeb Blount)

by Jeb Blount

“Desire is the starting point of all achievement, not a hope, not a wish, but a keen pulsating desire which transcends everything.”

“Desire is the mother of sales activity.”

Desire is the singularity of achievement. Anything truly worth achieving ...

To ignite, you need a clear definition of what you want and where you are going. This requires you to answer three questions: What do you want? How do you plan to get what you want? How bad do you want it?

If you don't have a plan, you will become a part of someone else's plan. You can either take control of your life or someone else will use you to enhance theirs. It's your choice.

Define what you want and write it down. This means gathering up the discipline to stop what you are doing, sit down, and actually think about your future.

The most successful people are constantly investing in themselves to increase their knowledge, gain insight, and sharpen their skills. They understand a principle that was true with my chainsaw and true in life. Sometimes you need to slow down to speed up. It is not always about trying harder. Sometimes it is doing or thinking differently.

Cicero said, “The cultivation of the mind is as necessary as food to the body.” Gandhi said, “We should live as if we will die tomorrow and learn as if we will live forever.”

when you outlearn your competitors (and peers), you'll outearn them. People who invest in learning are more motivated, develop a stronger belief system, and are invariably more successful than their peers.

For salespeople, the key to building mental resilience is using every spare moment to invest in yourself.

Your mental energy will always be limited by your physical resilience. You won't win consistently if you lack the endurance to outwork and outhustle your competitors.

Keeping yourself in great physical condition improves creative thinking, mental clarity, and optimism. It makes you more nimble and adaptive, and helps you gain the discipline to maintain emotional self-control in the face of endless rejection. It also boosts your confidence and enthusiasm—the two most important emotions in sales.

Physical resilience is built on three foundational pillar...

Reams of research8 indicates that 30 minutes to an hour a day of exercise keeps you healthy, reduces the chance of disease, and develops physical resilience. Most people can find 30 minutes a day to exercise. You've just got to commit and sometimes get creative. Maybe you don't have time for 30 minutes all at one time. That's okay. Studies9 indicate that 10 minutes here and 10 minutes there can be just as or even more effective than a single long session.

Sleep Nothing impacts your health and mental well-being more than sleep. When you get plenty of sleep, your physical and mental energy is at a peak state. You are more creative, more disciplined, and agile. You are more confident, can think on your feet, are more apt to push past adversity, and frankly, look and feel better.

Eat Healthy In the hectic, fast-paced world of sales, it can be difficult to eat well.

Healthy eating is a conscious choice. It is a commitment that is easy to break when you are not getting enough sleep or exercise. The good news is that these days, even fast-food restaurants have healthy choices.