The following describes a very successful businessman.

Guess who . . .

Sends 3500 birthday cards every year.

Gets 250 e-mails daily and personally responds to 75% of them.

Uses a Treo to stay organized.

Gets to the office at 6:30 AM every day.

Sends 25 handwritten thank you notes every day.

Puts a 45 minute limit on all meetings.

Tracks and charts how he spends his time every month.

Visits at least 20 stores every week.

You may not be able to do all these things, like Jim Donald, CEO and president, of Starbucks does.

I bet you could do a few.

You may be tempted to think, "Well, I could do all that stuff if I were a CEO of a large company."

You may want to consider that doing this stuff throughout his career helped him land the big job.

He's disciplined, focused, energetic, and knows how to get results.

Well - he's only human and so are you.

Start doing these things:

=> Get up earlier every morning.

=> Save the morning paper until the evening.

=> Prepare written call objectives for all sales calls.

=> Send every sales prospect you meet a thank you note.

=> Send everyone a Happy Anniversary card base on how long they've been doing the work they're doing.

=> Do what's important first every sales day.

=> And here's a big sales tip - always be asking for something. The more you ask, more you'll get.

Stop doing these things:

=> Don't talk too much.

=> Don't start selling until you have quantified (in dollars) the size of your customer's problem.

=> Don't do seal talk - "Ahs" and "Ums."

=> Don't leave the sales call without scheduling your next appointment.

=> Don't blink when you get the price objection.

=> Don't procrastinate when it comes to closing the sale.

Change these things for better results:

=> Change your daily routine.

=> Change your sales call routine.

=> Change your priorities when it comes to dealing with urgent stuff and important stuff.

=> Change your call schedule.

=> Change the questions you're asking.

What can you start doing, stop doing, or change how you're doing something, that would make you more productive every

day?

If you want to get to the top, you must do the right things to catapult your sales career to the next level.

All you need is a jolt of sales productivity.