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If you wanna have your best year ever, you have to do your best.

I’m challenging you to have your BEST year ever. Beating your goals and achieving your own expectation of excellence.

So far, I’ve given you the first five elements of how to have your BEST year ever:

1. Define yourself.

2. Develop a sales mission statement.

3. Have a deep belief in the three critical areas of selling.

4. Develop greater pride in accomplishment.

5. You are what you eat.

6. Get rid of one time-waster.

7. Read a book every two months.

8. Get your (sales) pipeline full.

Here are the next four elements to master:

9. Get your monthly sales quota met by the second week of the month. If your pipeline is full, then the arbitrary quota, or sales goal, or sales plan that your company has set for you, will be blown away. Reason: sales goals and sales plans and sales quotas are set so that mediocre salespeople can achieve them. You’ll know you’re on your way to your best year ever if you can begin to meet your sales quota by the second week — instead of begging for it on the last day.

10. Start branding yourself. My name is my brand. My companies name is Buy Gitomer, and if you’ll notice, everything that I do has my name attached to it. It’s not The Little Red Book of Selling, it’s Jeffrey Gitomer’s Little Red Book of Selling. In anything that I do on my website, you’ll see my name or my picture. In my e-mail magazine, you’ll see my brand all over the place. But you’ll also notice in my email magazine that I am helping other salespeople — like you — make more sales. I do this so that when I ask you to invest in a teleseminar, you’re happy to do so, because you believe in your heart that I can help you. Here’s the good news: I believe in my heart that I can help you, too. If somebody mentions your name, what words follow? What are people saying about your brand or your reputation in your marketplace? Some people have nicknames that define who they are, and define their brand. Athletes are the easiest ones to identify. Gordy Howe — Mr. Hockey, Reggie Jackson — Mr. October, Ernie Banks — Mr. Cub, Wanye Gretzkey — The Great One. How do they brand you? What do they call you? “The bragging one?” “The whiney one?” “The underachieving one?” Let me give you two words that you might want others to speak about you behind your back. The words are: FIRST CLASS. If you’re known as first class, everything else will just fall into place. Slowly begin to build your brand. You do this by becoming known for something good. By being known as a person of value. By becoming a resource to your customers, not merely a salesperson. The more you build your brand, the more you’ll build your success — and the more you will create what is known as the law of attraction (people calling you for advice).

11. Get up earlier. I hate sleeping. I think it’s a waste of time. At some point in the next 30 or 40 years, I will be asleep permanently. Until then, I consider every waking moment an opportunity to accomplish or have a blast. And just so I define myself as having a blast — I mean being stimulated by anything other than drugs or alcohol. I’m no prude, but I can always remember what happened. That’s part of the fun. I spend every waking moment in one of my definitions of myself.

12. Write down your thoughts. Begin capturing your thoughts and ideas in writing. I have been writing for 15 years. Every penny that I have earned since March 22, 1992, I can trace back to something that I wrote. Capturing your thoughts in writing not only helps clarify them to yourself — it helps clarify them to others. Writing does not just lead to success, writing leads to wealth. If you’re looking to have your best year ever, begin writing down how that’s going to happen, and what things you have to do to make that happen. Begin to write a game plan. And begin to list the people that can help you, and the ways that they can help you. In order to get in the groove of writing, I recommend that you begin by writing down things at the end of the day that are on your mind. It might be an idea. It might be a task. It might be points you want to cover in a sales presentation. But the more you write down, the less you will have on your mind, and the easier it will be for you to create new ideas. In order to have your best year ever, you have to have your best ideas ever. And in order to come up with ideas, you mind has to be both clear and positive.

Now you have twelve of the 20.5 elements. More than halfway home. I know it’s progressing slower than you want, but hey, it’s about having your BEST year ever, and I want to be certain you have all the information possible to make that happen. Yes, there will be several parts to this piece. Yes, the ENTIRE article will be available on my website AFTER the last part has run.

THE MISSION CONTINUES: Return next week for part five of how to have your BEST year ever.

In the meantime, I’d love to know what you are doing to have your best year ever. Send an email to bestyear@gitomer.com and all ideas will be posted on my site.

Jeffrey Gitomer is the author of The Sales Bible, and The Little Red Book of Selling. President of Charlotte-based Buy Gitomer, he gives seminars, runs annual sales meetings, and conducts Internet training programs on sales and customer service at www.trainone.com. He can be reached at 704/333-1112 or e-mail to salesman@gitomer.com

c 2006 All Rights Reserved – Don’t even think about reproducing this document without written

permission from Jeffrey H. Gitomer and Buy Gitomer . 704/333-1112 www.gitomer.com