124 – The Habit of Success: You Are What You Repeatedly Do | James Karanasios

124 – The Habit of Success: You Are What You Repeatedly Do | James Karanasios

As an Account Executive by day, James Karanasios spends his nights and weekends building his dream of changing peoples’ lives by getting to play music for a living.

In his role at QuickPivot, James experienced great success by building good habits into his routine schedule. For instance, his ‘10 before 10’ approach is a discipline where he makes 10 calls before, you guessed it, 10 a.m.

Rejection is inherently a part of sales and James has learned to reinforce the mantra, “You are what you repeatedly do. Therefore excellence is not an act but a habit.”

Outside of sales, James’ passion is music with his band, The Addition. The small things in life like balancing his musical pursuits while also building his career are based on the notion of creating great habits to accomplish big goals.

Hear James’ story and how the overlap of his love for music and his career impacts his ability to find success in sales.

Takeaways

  1. Ask the Next Question: By this point, we should all be used to hearing the word “no.” However, it’s what you do after hearing it that defines you as a salesperson. The word could be a stoplight and completely shut you down. Or, it could be a challenge to you to dig a little deeper and understand the context in which that specific prospecting is using it. What aren’t they interested in? How could the get budget if the found value? When does their current contract with a competitor end? 
  2. Build Your Own Following: In today’s world, it seems as if there are influencers popping all over the place. I mean, if I see another person at a sacred monument with a selfie stick, I might lose it. But, the reality is, there’s an opportunity for every salesperson to build the community they need to sell into. Whether it be as simple as sharing helpful articles and industry research or recording videos and sharing them on LinkedIn, it’s time to move beyond the seeing social platforms as just for your personal use and leveraging them to build your pipeline. 
  3. Figure Out What Makes You Tick: All the tips and tricks may help you with some short term gains, but if you want to survive the grind of sales, you have to figure out the ‘why’ that’s bigger than the day-to-day. What’s going to cause you to pick up the phone one more time? What’s going to help you shake off losing a six-figure deal that you were given a verbal yes to? There’s a reason why most New Year’s Resolutions fail within the first month of the year — the change a person is seeking isn’t connected to something big enough to drive the required continuous action. 

 

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