Why Johnny Can’t Focus

In my roles as adviser, trainer and consultant I get to talk to a lot of people. Business owners, salespeople, other trainers, managers – you name it, I end up chatting with them. One of the questions I typically ask is “What is keeping you from living exactly the way you want?” and more often than not one of the answers is “I just can’t seem to stay focused on my goals.”

Lack of focus seems like an American epidemic and I think I have the answer to the problem.

Focus is just another word for attention, that is, when we focus on something we give it our full attention. In today’s world there are so many things fighting for our attention it is no wonder we have trouble staying concentrated on the things that are important to us.

But sheer volume isn’t the problem in my humble opinion. The problem is a lack of passion.

Think about the last time you went on vacation. Once you decided to go it was pretty easy to stay focused on the places you were going to visit, the dinners you were going to eat and the fun you were going to have. Often you are so excited it can be hard to get any work done in the weeks before you leave.

The same thing happens when you have a baby, start a new company, get married or do anything that you are passionate about. You can focus just fine at those times.

If you want to accomplish your goals, you have to find a way to stay passionate about them.

Creating a vision board with pictures of what you are working towards is a great way to stay focused and passionate. Keeping a journal of the reasons you are working towards a goal is also helpful in staying focused.

For me, the best way to stay passionate is to make sure I get little tidbits of my big goals along the way. For example, I love to travel. One of my big goals is live in 10 world cities for at least a year in each city. You can imagine that I have to get a lot of things in place to make that happen.

To keep myself passionate about making that happen, I have started taking shorter working trips that give me a taste of what that big goal will feel like. Right now I spend at least 12 weeks per year living in another country, working and playing. I come back from those trips so energized that staying on track for the big dreams seems easy.

What can you do NOW to get a feel for your big dreams? Can you test drive your dream car? What about taking a tour of the house you want to live in? Can you go play one of the world’s great golf courses in preparation for doing it all the time? Make it a point each month (at least) to recharge your passion and you’ll soon find that inability to focus is a thing of the past.

Do You Have A Commodity Mindset?

If you don’t want to sell your product or service as a commodity, you have to stop acting like it is. Salespeople complain all the time that customers are just interested in price. And yet, their actions perpetuate the commodity mentality.

As a salesperson, price is only the deciding factor when you allow it to be. When someone calls you and asks for your price, what do you do? If you immediately respond with the price, you’ll only be compared on price. The only way to get out of price wars is to create and demonstrate value. You can only do that when you know what’s important to the prospect.

Many businesses throw away tons of advertising dollars, because they don’t know how to respond to calls from interested consumers. When a prospect calls in and says, “I heard your ad about XYZ service and I wanted to know how much it costs?” The immediate response is, “The cost is X.” To which the caller often responds with a thanks and a click.

Instead, the response needs to engage the other person and find out what’s important to the prospect. For example, the salesperson could start off with a response like, “Our prices vary on that service depending on what exactly you want. I’d be happy to give you a better idea of price. To help me do that, could you tell me…”

The same principle applies when salespeople call on a prospect and want to be allowed to provide a quote for an upcoming need. This happens frequently in many industries like insurance and printing. Salespeople will call a prospect and ask for an opportunity to quote on the next policy or order. Without taking the time to find out what’s really important to the prospect and what extra value they can bring to the table, the salesperson and his management are setting themselves up to be in the commodity business.

To remove yourself from price wars with your competitors that just erode your margins, you need to act differently. You need to engage your prospect. You need to establish a relationship based on trust and understanding. That allows you to ask the right questions. Besides finding out what your prospect needs, your questions need to dig below the surface to find out what’s important to the prospect and why. Then the buying decision is based on the value you offer, not the lowest price.

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