Sales Leaders Rule #13: Be a Comfort Zone Buster.

Have you ever run into a situation where somebody on your team was killing it? They were doing everything that they had to do and more, whether they felt comfortable or uncomfortable doing it. They were the complete package in how to become a top producer. Then, at some point they stopped going above and beyond and defaulted to just coasting.

While some people are aware that they're coasting, the vast majority of people don't even realize it. Why do they coast? There are a couple of reasons:

1. They're just tired.

A rest can become a way of life and that's a problem. Great sales people need to do things in their sales world that make them uncomfortable. A sense of entitlement can set in that they've earned the right to always be comfortable and cease to challenge themselves to greater success.

2. An economic comfort zone.

Once a person meets an income that they are satisfied with, they might develop an attitude of "I killed myself to make enough money to support my family and/or the way of life I desire. I'm not going to do any more, and I won't do any less." They hit this plateau of "good enough". They default to working at 70% of capacity. If they could just break that, they would be awesome.

Here's the problem. Comfort zones happen for everybody including you as a sales leader. How do you break your comfort zone? Create a cookbook. If you set a recipe for success that sets a daily action plan for your team, they'll do it.

Many sales leaders are too vague saying something like, "You need to increase your productivity by 30%." That might sound unrealistic to the sales person and it's difficult for them to build a plan around that, so they are reluctant to commit to it. But if a sales leader says, "Here's what you have to do every single day. . , " and lists out a set of behaviors that they co-created with the salesperson, it's a defined plan they are likely to commit to.

It's kind of like using a Fitbit. Telling someone to walk six miles in a day will likely get a reaction like, "You're insane. I'm not doing it. I don't have time." But the Fitbit breaks the goal down into simple steps. It challenges the user to gradually improve their activity level but on such a small scale that it's not overwhelming. When they do the steps, they look back and I say, "Oh, my gosh, I went 10 miles today. It's awesome." They got out of their exercise comfort zone by making improvements every single day.

The same thing holds true with the cookbook. Break up what the sales team needs to do in a daily behavioral plan. What you'll notice is they're going to take a little step, but that behavior drives attitude. Ultimately, comfort zones are an attitude issue and making gradual steps to improve that will result in exponentially better results.