MAKE HABIT YOUR SERVANT

"Watch your thoughts, for they become words. Choose your words, for they become actions. Understand your actions, for they become habits. Study your habits, for they will become your character. Develop your character, for it becomes your destiny."


Psychologists tell us that we are governed by habit. If you are relatively new in the sales field, it's important to remember that it's as easy at this stage to develop good habits as bad. Mel H. Gregory, Jr., an outstanding marketing mind says, "There are four important habits every salesperson can and should develop at the start:

1. Punctuality - it saves you valuable time.
2. Accuracy - helps you avoid costly mistakes.
3. Simplicity - helps you to be understood and more effective.
4. Action - makes it possible for you to take advantage of opportunities which, if lost, are impossible to recall."

Perhaps you've been a sales rep for some time. Now, you find yourself plagued by poor habits. It will be encouraging for you to know that many successful sales reps one day awakened to a similar realization. Then, by careful planning, they jarred themselves out of the rut of negative habits and went on to achieve outstanding success.

To develop a good habit, you must form a clear picture of the ideal result you seek to achieve. You must develop the capacity to substitute a new habit pattern while you are striving to overcome any bad habit. Remember, habit is a quality that you must use positively to increase your selling effectiveness.

I AM . . .


• I am your constant companion.
• I am your greatest helper or your heaviest burden.
• I will push you onward or drag you down to failure.
• I am completely at your command.
• Half the things you do, you might as well turn them over to me and I will be able to do them quickly and correctly.
• I am easily managed, you must merely be firm with me.
• Show me exactly how you want something done and after a few lessons, I will do it automatically.
• I am the servant of all great men and, alas, of all failures as well.
• Those who are great, I have made great.
• Those who are failures, I have made failures.
• I am not a machine, though I work with all the precision of a machine, plus the intelligence of a human being.
• You may run me for profit or run me for ruin -- it makes no difference to me.
• Take me. Train me. Be firm with me and I will put the world at your feet. Be easy with me and I will destroy you.
I AM . . . HABIT

Consider this statement by Samuel Johnson: "The chains of habit are generally too small to be felt until they are too strong to be broken!"

Examine your habits. Where are they taking you?