Improving Focus For Salespeople

As a salesperson, there are few things we can control however we can control where we spend our time and how focused we are. This session explains the biology of attention and gives a real-life practice to better handle typical distractions and refocus on the most important sales tasks.

Transcript

Hello all my fellow salespeople, And welcome to our session on improving focus and reducing distractibility. I'll be your host, Danny Grico. A little bit about me before we jump into it. I've done tech sales for 12 plus years at all freaking levels, And I've spent the past four years doing both sales training and mindfulness training for everything from large organizations to tiny startups. And what I'm going to be sharing with you all is basically tricks and tips that have helped me, As well as the stuff I really wish I would have known much earlier in my sales career. So maybe you can learn from some of my pain in this today. But that's not why we're here today. We're here to discuss our key topic, Improving focus and meta attention. So let's talk about why this is important. As a salespeople, There are so few things we can actually control. We can't control what the buyers think. We can't control if an executive decides to leave the company at the wrong time. Sometimes we can't control if our email gets stuck in this spam inbox. But what we can control is where we spend our time and how focused and deliberate that time is. It's really one of the few things we can control. And so I've actually been sort of taking the notion of I'm going to work less, But the work I'm going to be doing is going to be very focused work. And so you could consider this and maybe consider how you spend your day today. I'm not trying to make a recommendation what you should do. It's just an invitation to consider how the day is spent with your distractions. And so it's important for us to understand first at a neurological level how our attention works. The bad news is we're actually hardwired to be distracted. It's an evolutionary and survival trait to realize, Oh, I'm going along my business. I hear something rustling over in the bushes. That could be a lion or that could be some sort of predator back in our caveman days. But things have changed. However, The distractions are still there at all types of levels, Everything from new emails in our inbox to Slack messages to people at our home now that we're working from home a lot to getting phone calls out of the random to getting an email from a client that says I need to get something right now when you're already working on something else where somebody else needs it right now. And so knowing that things are designed to distract us as well, Let's talk about what we can do a bit. The key is to become very aware of the moment we get distracted, When it actually happens or when we lose our attention. Basically, Developing an awareness of our attention itself might sound a little weird, But basically all that means is knowing when we're distracted, Actually being able to catch that moment. And that moment of being able to catch that attention is called meta attention. It's awareness of our awareness, It's attention of our attention. And that's what we're going to be working on today, Because if it's just happening unconsciously, It'll keep happening over and over again. And once we can catch it and be aware of it, Then we can actually do something about it. And so here's the secret that was really interesting. It's not about not getting distracted, Distractions will happen. It's the nature of the job. It's about being able to consistently catch the distracted moment, And then direct our attention where we deliberately choose to put it. And so there's a process for this. We're going to go through this and actually practice this. We're focusing on something to start with, Then something distracts us. Maybe it's an email, Maybe it's a Slack message, Maybe it's just our mind wandering about what we're going to be doing for dinner that night. Then this is the key part, We notice that that's happened. Oh, Huh, That's interesting. I just was working on this proposal and started thinking about what I'm going to be doing for dinner. And then we gently make the choice, Okay, I don't want to think about dinner right now, I'm going to bring my attention back to this proposal that I was working on there. And that's the cycle, It keeps happening. And really, If there is a goal, So to speak, It's just getting better at noticing when we're distracted, And then we can gently bring our attention where we want it. And the good news is, The more we do this, The easier it actually gets. There's a concept of neuroplasticity, Which says that the more we work on a specific aspect of our brain and behavior, The more proficient it becomes, It actually builds more neurons and pathways in that part of the brain. For example, Violinists actually have very overdeveloped parts of the brain that deal with finger movements and dexterity. Similarly, Monks who've done meditation for thousands of hours, The part of their brain that manages focus is much more developed as well. So that's where we're practicing today, And building that up for us as well. So here's how we're going to do that. We're going to make it very real. So I'm going to invite you now to think of what are your top three main distractions in a typical sales day. Take a moment to think about that now. You can feel free to write them down if you want. Okay. So remember those, And now we're going to do a practice of imagining that happening, And we're going to intervene and bring our attention back to strengthen that muscle of our attention. So I'll invite you to find a position to sit in that's both upright, Yet comfortable. The goal isn't to hold as uncomfortable a position as possible, But it's also not to be completely slouched down either until we might fall asleep. Great. Now let's take a few breaths at your own pace. You can either lower your gaze or close your eyes completely. I want you to envision that you're working on a specific activity. We'll say in this case, You're drafting a proposal for somebody, Making them think of one you were doing recently. Maybe you're typing in some descriptions in the sentence. Now to imagine, Get in that state. What are you typing at this moment? What are you doing actually? Feel yourself doing that. Good. And now boom, Messaging notification, Slack, Whatever messaging notification system you use, Flies up on your screen. I want you to stop and see what you can notice in your body at this moment. You see, Emotions manifest in our body initially. So in this case, We might feel something, A little tightening of the stomach, Maybe a little clenching of the fist or the jaw. Maybe our shoulders are raised slightly. Noticing what happens in our body is our first key that something's happening. It's important for us to know what our sort of triggers are, What actually happens in our body. Maybe you see maybe your heart rate increased a little bit. Maybe your fingers actually moved. So now I'm going to invite us to take a breath together. We've noticed something's happening. We notice there's distraction. Let's take a calming breath. Maybe in through the nose and out through the mouth. Just to do that stop, That intervene. We've noticed that we've lost our attention. That metatension moment has been achieved, Which is great. We're taking a moment to calm ourselves. And now we can make a decision. What do I want to do now? Maybe I want to leave it for later and go back to the proposal. Maybe I just want to see who it's from really briefly, See if I have to handle it, And then know that I'm going to go back to the proposal. But now we're just at least making a choice. So make your choice in this case. You can follow through with it there. Okay great. Let's try one more. Now let's imagine we're on a client call. Maybe we have our Zoom meeting going and we're in discovery mode. The client is answering some questions. We ask them about their current problems. They're responding. Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah. And then you notice you have four new emails in your inbox. You catch out of the corner of your eye. Okay first action of course is to stop and see what we notice in the body to know. Maybe it's a quick in-breath. Maybe it's holding the breath a bit. That was it for you when you kind of get that moment of being compelled to shift your attention. Now of course we take a breath to sort of calm and clear ourselves. Maybe let the shoulders drop a bit. And now we can make a decision of what we want to do. Maybe it's okay. This is an important client call. Let's resume back to that. Maybe it's, Oh wait, I know I'm expecting something that's super critical. Let me check it really quickly or not. Okay. Now, I'll invite you to just sort of resume to sitting there and take a few more deep breaths. Maybe give a quick thought to what you noticed or learned from this little visualization or simulation here. Maybe a good takeaway for yourself. And now we'll resume our attention back to the room with one more deep inhale and exhale now. If you'd like you can stretch your arms, Bring a little bit of a physicality back into the body there to wake ourselves back up again. This is a variation you might have heard if you've done other meditations on here. The focus on the breath and then when you notice your mind wanders, Gently bring it back to the breath. That's a powerful tool as well and a great thing to practice in the meantime as well. We just practice a more sort of direct simulation, What we'd actually be experiencing in our sales roles. And so I'm going to leave you with a quick micro practice that you can use, Actually a couple. There are other things we can do to reduce distractions. When we're on calls, Put our messaging system in do not disturb mode, Our personal cell phone in do not disturb mode, Maybe close out of some of those programs we know that can distract us. And maybe we say, You know what, At the hour I'll be able to check those as well. Remember, It's up to us how we want to plan our day and decide what's our best way of working. And the final practice we're going to do is a micro practice for those moments. Maybe you took a break to go to lunch, You come back, You have 10 new emails, You have 28 new messages to respond to your personal cell phone has a lot of stuff going on. And you also have that proposal to get out in the next few hours that you've been procrastinating on a little bit. That feeling of overwhelm. Here's what we can do in that case. It's over the course of three breaths. We first start with taking a deep breath in and out, Just stopping, Just intersecting that moment that noticing that moment that we sort of lost our attention. And then the second breath, We calm ourselves a bit, Allow the shoulders to drop. And the third question, I'm sorry, The third breath, We ask ourselves a question, What's most important right now? And allow that to sort of bubble up to us. And it might be, You know what, I need to get this proposal out to these people. I need to get this deal closed by the end of the quarter. And that's the only thing that I can do that needs to be left on that deal. So feel free to use this anytime and all these tips at any time. I hope that was helpful and gives you some results in your sales stuff. So thank you for joining and have a great rest of your day.