Ep. 201 Start to Finish

Joe talks about The benefits of finishing every project and the consequences of not completing your tasks.

Podcast Transcript:
Voice over:

Get ready for an unfair advantage over your competition. This is The Sales Edge podcast. Where globally recognized sales expert and trainer Joe Pici helps you sharpen your skills for booking more appointments and closing more deals. And now here’s your host Joe Pici.

Joe Pici (JP):

This is Joe Peach of The Sales Edge. Have you ever wondered why some people finish everything they start while, some people start to never finish? On today’s podcast I am your host Joe Pici. This is podcast number 201. Thank you for your loyalty. Thank you for helping us hit our last Milestone podcast 200 on our way to 300. And we want to thank our sponsors Pici and Pici which is a speaking, coaching, training, consulting company and Sell More Virtually .com. Which is an online portal, a membership platform where we Thursday night, I’m on live doing coaching and training. But both our companies focus on helping their clients recapture lost revenue. Recapture clients, generate new clients, get in front of your target market, and gain an unfair advantage over their competition. So once again, this is The Sales Edge podcast, this is podcast number 201. And today we really want to talk about becoming a great finisher.

You know, I read. Dr. Heidi Grant said “the road to failure is filled with great intentions.”

You know, there are many starters and a really good people and they mean well, these are people who want to succeed. Okay, they have great ideas. They begin each new pursuit, each project with enthusiasm and even commitment to get the job done. And then blam something happens. I have a friend who used to say success is on the other side of splat. But when things happen they can lose their momentum. It can get bogged down. They begin to procrastinate. They miss deadlines, they get distracted. They can change directions. Sometimes they even quit. So today we’re going to talk about a few things, we’re going to talk about number one thing we want to talk about today is, Why do people start so well but finish so poorly?

And I think that’s probably one of the age-old questions. I saw a guy speak at a convention many years ago, and he said he was the king of starts. To which he went on to say, he never finished anything in his life. And that was sad, you know, I remember speaking at a convention and they were very successful people in the room. And I remember saying about Joe and Dawn Pici. we’re not the smartest. We’re not the fastest. We’re not the slickest. You know, we don’t have all the latest gadgets and I remember it was a time where you know, we were not branded, we were not nationally or internationally acclaimed. We were just regular people, ordinary people with extraordinary dream, but I did say this we won’t be the fastest. We won’t be the slickest. We won’t be the best but, we will finish everything we start.

And so why do people not finish? One thing is a lack of vision. You know, goals are really important. But when they’re not tied into a greater Vision people can tend to lose their energy, people can tend to lose track of where they’re going. You know, Mahatma Gandhi once said “a small body of determined Spirits fueled by unquenchable faith in their mission can alter the course of the world”

Folks, I think one of the mistakes that is made, okay. Consistently is, that companies or individual people Do not tie their goals into a greater Mission. You know, I think everything starts with the mission. You know, having a sense that you’re contributing to a greater purpose will greatly fire your motivation and persistence. You know, and coaching sessions when I see someone is struggling to stay consistent to finish the task, I always ask them this question. Why do you do what you do?

You know a lot of people struggle with that. If money is the only reason why you do what you do and it’s not tied into a greater purpose. You can run out of energy and so great levels of determination and focus are essential for success. But in the end having a true purpose can make the difference between extraordinary success and mediocrity. So why are you doing what you do? Is it tied into a purpose? Is it tie it into a greater mission? If you are fueled by motivating Vision, you’re going to keep going no matter what, you will keep going.

And so the second reason why people stop pursuing or don’t complete their don’t finish. Is they lack Focus. The inability to properly Focus all efforts on the given task, another major obstacles to success. You know in life, you know, it introduces us to multitasking and and distractions and it’s become a way of life for people. I always recommend that people read the book The One Thing. You know, as a result We often struggle simply because we lack the necessary discipline and focus. Instead of focusing on the project, we jump from one project to another. Does this sound familiar?

That’s one of the greatest obstacles in finishing Anything, is jumping. The vast majority of people have a half a dozen unfinished projects laying on their desk right now. They might have found these projects enticing, exciting, Shiny Rock, but as soon as the first complication, as soon as Splat happens, they jumped to the next project. They change their brand, they decide to deliver in a different way. You know don’t allow the lack of focus to prohibit your growth. Instead try to focus your attention on the accomplishment of the tasks at hand. Use prioritization to tackle one task after another. Make every effort to stop your mind from drifting. That’s so important.

Most of all do not allow the difficulties, The obstacles, tho challenges to stop you from pursuing the completion, the finishing of that project that will take you to your dream.

You know, it’s you can go horizontal or you can go vertical. And vertical thinking is I’m going to continue to pursue this until completion. I’d like to brag on Dawn because you know, last March when she she dove into this membership platform, and I know many people have gone after having a virtual platform of membership site and and it looked so exciting in the beginning.

And then the work came, and then the glitches came and then the challenges came and then the obstacles came. And I have to say that the one stayed the course she was going to finish the project and because of that, In four months, she had the back end of SellMoreVirtually.com up and running. And I was on every Thursday night and we were interviewing people and and we and in the meantime that we’re moving into e-courses and and as we speak right now Dawn is creating a PowerPoint presentation. Because we’re getting ready to go into a studio and complete a complete Sales Mastery e-course program.

For the online sell more virtually.com site. And so she’s finishing what she started, you know, September 1 the front end of the site was completed. That was her goal. That was the completion of a piece of the project. The next one is Lack of willpower, you know, a lot of people are under the impression that success comes easily. You know, they think that success is just something you fall into at the road of success. I want you to understand is going to be filled with tremendous difficulty and challenges and sacrifices. You can consider willpower a mental muscle. If you use it regularly, it will get stronger. But if you neglected the Muscle will weaken. As a consequence, It will be more difficult to withstand the short-term inpatient. It’ll be hard to overcome challenges. Don’t allow your lack of self-control and willpower from keeping you from finishing your task.

Consciously exercise self-discipline. That will help you increase your willpower and your ability to finish. Another another obstacle is trying to please everyone, you know, so many times we want to please everyone people are giving us requests in tasks and we’re not filtering them and we don’t want to say no. So we say yes to everything. And so because we say yes to everything it takes us off the mark and we then tend not to finish our own task. If there’s one thing I know one, of the keys to failure is, the attempt to please everyone. Because you’ll never do it.

Another one is fear. Now. I will tell you you can go back into our podcast and I’ve done a number of podcasts on fear, fear of failure, fear of success, fear on a lot of things. But to complete and to finish fear is a major obstacle. You know, it’s never underestimate the power of fear. Fear can drastically prevent your growth. It limits us. It makes us except the ordinary. It makes us accept the fact that we’re not finishing. You know, it can be a fear of failure, fear of success. Just like I said, it could be fear of the unknown but, at the end of the day fear can help you pick up bad habits and what that can do is take you away.

Because the closer you get to the end of a project the more obsticles you will find and so they’re going to distract you. They’re going to take you off your course. Number 6 is average mentality. Average mentality will keep you from completing or finishing. You know, striving for greatness, That’s what keeps us pushing the limits. I mean the desire to be the best at what you do, the desire, It’s past finishing the project. It’s being as having people know that this person is not average. They’re above average and one of the reasons they’re above average is, they finish everything they start and they don’t have an average mentality.

Play for high success. You know average limits. Les Brown said “I’d rather aim high and missed and aim low and hit”. So to be average means to accept mediocrity and the average mentality leads us to life of unreached potential. And part of averages not finishing. Another one, number 7 is the pursuit of perfection. Perfection has his benefits and it’s great when you have Perfection, however, Sometimes seeking for Perfection can be an obstacle. Sometimes Completion is not more important than Perfection. And that’s where it becomes a problem. Getting the job done, Bring it in on time, on scope, on budget. Sometimes takes priority over Perfection. So now let’s let’s just give you a couple key ways to develop a habit of being a finisher. All right. So there was the problem now here are some solutions, they’re not all the solutions.

The number one solution I believe beyond the shadow of a doubt to be a great finisher is, to find the burning desire to find what is he at you want? Why are you doing this? Okay, if you don’t tie a project into what is the end result and why? Then the first obstacle will keep you from finishing. The next one is why don’t we understand What is most likely to cause us not to finish? And the way you do that is, you look in your past. You know, what is the last time you threw in the towel? You know, what were the things that cause you not to finish? And let’s avoid those things. Next one is we must distribute our priority and time wisely. You know, when possible let’s limit those things that are not really important. Let’s limit our outside interests until we finish the project. Kind of like don’t eat the ice cream too soon.

Another one is let’s monitor our progress. So along the process of the project We need to monitor it. We need to know where we are, keep graphs, charts, those type of things. Monitor and Metric everything and I’ve done a couple podcast on measuring in metricing. Here’s the other thing, always see The expected result in your mind. I look out there, How does this end? Every project I go into I asked myself, How do I want this to end? And what is the completion of the project, what constitutes finishing?

The next one is set realistic expectations for yourself. You know, make sure what’s expected, You can deliver. Be realistic about your expectations, be realistic about timelines. Another one, you know and timelines are vital. You know, let’s focusing on learning how to complete small tasks and let’s build the muscle of finishing. You know, it’s so easy to look at a massive project, yet how are we doing at smaller projects? Know what one of the most important things we can do is look at the little things and work to finishing. When I was a football coach, I disciplined the little things. If we were on a field our helmets were on, our chin straps were on. But they were never allowed to sit down on a field. There are never allowed to sit on their helmets and it sounds like just little silly things that aren’t.

People would think I was crazy if I was coaching these days, but by coaching and completing the little things, when we got into a situation that demanded discipline, we had it. So learn how to finish small tasks. It will elevate your capability of being a finisher. Another one immunize yourself to criticism. Look, if you’re going to stand above the crowd expect a lot of tomatoes. People are going to criticize you and you have to understand that criticism has caused more people to not finish a task than almost anything. Because people tend to be critical and the most critical people will be people that have never endeavored to finish what they start.

And if you read the book “Leadership and Self-Deception”, you will realize that when a person doesn’t do it themselves They are going to find fault In other people. Now I’m not talking about constructive criticism by people You respect that are there to help you. But when You’re constantly allowing people to criticize and to really attack you and the way you do things. You’re going to find it hard to finish. As we’re looking at this whole thing and there’s I can go on and on and on.

But I will tell you if you want to elevate yourself in the eyes of your clients, in the eyes of your peers. If you want to be that go-to person. We talked about becoming the trusted advisor. We talked about being the go-to person. We talked about earning trust. One of the major focuses of earning trust building deep Rapport, becoming a trusted advisor, is finish everything you start. Is that something that you want to teach your children? Well always do it yourself. We are an example. If you’re leading a team in a company. Do they see you as a finisher? Okay, if you’re managing a project, do the people in the project see you as a finisher. This has been Joe Pici. Take out your phone type in 5 5 6 7 8 that’s where you’re going to send it. You want to put the word sales edged in the message, one word. Make sure it’s one word.

Send it to 55678, it will take you to a link, that will take you to a splash page. And tremendous amount of free content. 5 e-course on recapture lost Revenue through virtual selling. There’s information on our SellMoreVirtually.com platform. There’s ebooks. There’s absolutely links to this podcast. If this podcast has been an asset to you, can you like it? Can you share it? Can you give us a five star rating and write a great comment? We thank you and tune in for our next podcast.

Voice over:

Thanks for listening. New episodes will air each Tuesday and Thursday. So make sure to subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts and give us a five star review. The Sales Edge is sponsored by Pici and Pici Incorporated. A firm which provides training, consulting, and keynote presentations. Empowering corporations and individuals to attract and retain quality clients, for higher revenues and growth. Make more money in sales, speak with Joe in person by calling 407 947 2590 or visit www.piciandpici.com