Quit Flying by The Seat of Your Pants

.According to NFL.com’s Football Freaknomics, last year, quarterbacks who threw for over 300 yards in a game were 47–49, and quarterbacks who threw for over 400 were 3–11. A big reason? Their offense was in hurry-up mode because their team was behind. Good for fantasy football, but bad for winning championships. Statistics can be misleading.
It occurred to me the other day that were we better planners tons of money could be saved in wasted next day deliveries, multiple phone calls to get a little bit more information because we forgot to ask, and fuel to run back somewhere to get or do something that had we written it down would not have happened.
It does not matter how you do it but planning is essential in life and certainly in business and for sure when making sales
calls. A simple list in front of you with everything you what to accomplish on the call and then taking 2 minutes after the call to summarize in writing what you learned will be invaluable to you going forward. It can be as sophisticated as a CRM or as simple as folder in your Mail Folders but it is essential that you plan and retain the information that you receive. With the tools at our disposal today, it is so easy to plan and retain that there can be no excuse for not doing it.
Back in the day, I used a 30 day file ( I am sure not many of you even know what that is or was I should say) to organize my calls and put handwritten sheets in each day with my tasks and specifics of said tasks like pre-call planning questions. The point is that I did it and have a 40 year record of success in sales to prove that it works. My cousin and I are both licensed pilots. He flew by the "seat of his pants" and is very lucky to be alive based on the near misses with death he experienced. I took advantage of every technology development at my disposal and never had even close to an accident. Well, maybe some hard landings but as we always said " if you can walk away under your own power, it was successful flight.
Do yourself a favor and quit flying by the seat of your pants and plan your flight to success every day along the way. You will look back as I can today at many years of successful selling and a lot of fun along the way because it was much less stressful then had I not planned and been organized.