What self-improvement activity has been most beneficial to you?

What self-improvement activity that you've participated in has been most beneficial to you? What would you recommend to others? -Skip Anderson

Daily Affirmations of confidence for the proper positive mindset.

Role Playing and Objection Handling exercises has absolutely been the best activities that I have found for improving sales skills. We require these activities to be a scheduled event at various times throughout a month. Both face to face and phone.

Ride alongs with a sales rep that sells exact same product/service, however, outside of each others territories has proven beneficial as well.

Practice makes perfect.

Success,

Rory Wilfong -rwilfong

Self-improvement seems to be the story of my life and I don't mean that in any kind of metaphysical or trendy or cliched way. Beginning with reading the dictionary at the age of nine to learn words to the present I've never had a year or decade when I wasn't thinking about improving myself and doing something to do it.

At the same time, I've come to realize how easy it is to fool one's self into a delusional condition that happily goes about thinking and feeling improvement yet isn't improving anything - nothing from behavior to outcome is any different. My guess is that much of what people feel is improvement is what they want to believe to feel better about themselves when nothing has improved AND actually they're not doing as well as they once were doing.

It's important to understand these things if the topic of self-improvement is to make any sense or difference - superficiality won't do it, for most people.

Personal reasoning and thought analysis, reading, study, physical exercise and working on internal conditioning from the psychological and physical sources has improved my performance greatly - in some areas.

Getting very healthy physically has sharpened my mind and ability to see with greater clarity.

Continually reviewing what I consider self improvement to see if I'm not deluding myself has also been of value.

THEN comes the question of how we measure self improvement besides feeling or thinking we've improved - that's equally important.

Certain writers - thinkers - have opened my mind and cleared it uncovering things I needed to see.

AND coming to terms what I consider to be self improvement and benifits - how I value these things - has been important.

I recommend everyone do what I've done AND additionally what they already do.

MitchM -MitchM

I found that if I Practice Drill Rehearse consistently I stay sharp on the things I want to learn. Like Mitch personal development is my life also, and doing affirmations work great too.

PDR,

Rich -closingsalestips

I don't participate in re-affirmations much. As a trainer, my self-improvement comes from updating my forum of sales and management training articles, where I learn something new just about every day. I find if I keep those juices flowing in, as Tom Hanks said in a League of Their Own, "that lump 3 feet above my *ss" I constantly learn new ideas to be able to provide my students and forum members.

Now here's the trick to learning that takes self-improvement to the next level. Someone once said, "Knowledge is power." But knowledge isn't really power, it's the utilization of knowledge that is power. Because you can know everything about everything, but if you never use it, what good is it.

So I would say that more than anything, a person who yearns for knowledge and education, and continues to be a student of their craft, will improve just by shear osmosis.

Mahatma Ghandi said, "Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever." -Mike Whitty

Building the wealth of knowledge which enables me to combat any question/problem that arises. Knowledge is power...

I'd recommend both believe in and know your product like you created it. Having the knowledge behind you, you can assert yourself as the dominant representative of your product and the customer needs to look no further to get the answers they require. -MrCharisma

Well i read books on selling and this might sound crazy but, i have inspirational notes on my bedroom door on the front and the back as well as my bathroom door and mirror. ;st -MoneyMaker

Progamming my subconscious for success is definately numero Uno. -salespro

How did you do that salespro? -Seth

I only expose myself to positive people, situations, material, environment. It's all "CAN DO" in my world.

Peace.

Mike
salespro -salespro

Counting my blessings every day, usually in the morning, has helped me incredibly. Doing this reminds me of the good in my life. That is what I'd recommend to everyone. -Thomas

There have been quite a few stages of improvement during my professional career.
The one that has made the largest difference to date definitely belongs to joining the local Toastmasters Group.
Not only does this group teach you how to present and how to speak and how you involve and develop each and every skill that is neccessary for the sales process.
What they teach
motivation
how to prepare
outline your approach
tone of voice
body language
facial expressions
what to do with your hands
set goals
give gifts instead of critiques
How to say the words. Most of the time it is not what we say but how we say it.
social skills and professional skills with communication -rich34232

Biggest for me is writing down my goals. And I put them everywhere. I have sticky notes next to my alarm so they are the first thing I see in the morning and the last thing I see at night, I have them on the bathroom mirror and read them while I comb my hair and brush my teeth. I have them on my steering wheel and in the top drawer of my desk at work. I also reward myself for reaching certain goals. If I sell 8 units by the 15th I treat myself to a movie, if I do 15 units for the month I go out for the weekend. Small little incentives for reaching my goals. -jrboyd