Cardinal Initiatives Newsletter Feb 11, 2023 4 min read

I share two (2) strategies I have used for quite some time in today’s issue. Both continue to prove their value to me today. I hope they serve you as well as they have served me.

Create a Motivating Environment

My #1 tip for anyone leading a sales team is to create a motivating environment. I view professional salespeople like one would view professional athletes. They require training and coaching. They will perform at levels exceeding even the most ambitious expectations when they are motivated. I have experienced this phenomenon repeatedly in my career. With every team, this is the first thing I do.

How do I go about it?

1) I make my Team my #1 Customer.

-- When I

---- Take Care of my Team

---- Train my Team

---- Love my Team

-- They go out of their way to

---- Take Care of my #2 Customer, my Accounts

2) My Accounts – the People who buy from us

-- They become raving fans of

---- My Company

---- My Team

---- My Customer Service

---- the products and services they bought from us.

Duh! Why can’t common sense be common practice?

The Best excel at the little things.

Notetaking

Notetaking is a common trait of successful people. I’ve always been a note-taker. It began for me in school, and I’ve never stopped. Here are some of the benefits I’ve found for business:

1) Better Absorption of the content

2) Better Listening to the Speaker

3) Better Memory of the content

4) Display of Respect to the Speaker

5) Encourages the Speaker to speak more while you Listen and take notes.

I have developed a Notetaking System to share best practices with others.

I use technology today as it enhances the capabilities and de-risks the System (with Cloud backup, etc.) But you don’t have to. I began with a pencil and a notebook, and my Notetaking System works well without my tech.

As for the tech, I use an Apple iPad Pro (10.5 inch), iPadOS version 16.2, Apple Pencil, and a notetaking App: Noteability v 11.2.2.

The App nomenclature is slightly different than I thought if I only used a pencil and notebook, so here are the terms I will use with a translation for a notebook approach.

Noteability uses Notes, Subjects, and Dividers. This is akin to note page(s), folders, and hanging files.

Follow these steps and be on your way to notetaking excellence.

1) Create the Subject: Daily Journal.

2) Create the following Dividers:

a) Accounts – for customer accounts

b) Opportunities – for prospective accounts you are working

3) If you lead a team, create a Divider called Weeklies for your weekly 1:1s with your team.

4) Create Dividers for Hiring, Partners, and Personal.

5) Within each Divider, Create only the corresponding Subjects for each Account, Opportunity, Direct Report, Employment Candidate, Partner, and Personal interest like Vacations, Family, etc. Example: I created an “AT&T” Subject for the “Account” Divider while doing this at Oracle.

6) Create the standalone Subjects: Leadership, Professional Development, and Business Development.

My approach to Notetaking

I take notes on almost everything I do. They are handwritten. If I need to use the notes to produce a more formal piece of content in text, I type a document. Occasionally, it may be duplicate work, but the benefits outweigh the lost productivity.

My Daily Journal is my “top dead center.” I begin each day by Journaling in a Note in “Daily Journal.”

Journaling is another best practice for successful individuals.

- Weekly – Write three (3) things for which you are grateful.

- Daily – Write down one positive experience in the last 24 hours, what You had to do with it, and what More you can do.

If I have more than one positive experience, I take the time to journal them.

Next, I write down the key events I have planned for the day, as found in my calendar.

I follow that with my 3:3:3 Plan:

- 3 hours on my highest priority

- 3 shorter, simpler tasks that I can accomplish

- 3 maintenance activities.

I now have captured what “good” looks like for my day.

In Noteability, I can use different colors to write in, so I alternate colors daily to help with the segmentation.

If a single day requires more than a single page often, I’d break it down and make a separate Note for each day to ease finding things later.

I developed some additional best practices for taking Notes when interviewing a candidate that I won’t cover here but will cover in a future lesson.

Enjoy, and good luck.

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Thanks for reading.

Whenever you are ready, there are 3 ways I can help you:

- Advisory: my time helps Early-Stage technology companies with sales performance

- Coaching: my time helps salespeople perform their best

- Digital: my online content helps business owners and sales professionals.