I've heard Don Battis say, "Rick and I are both retired, but neither of us is very good at it." It's true, but I think I'm getting better at it. He's had 4 gigs since he retired. I've only had one. However...

I started blogging March 18, 2006. I published 402 articles in the first three years (2.5+/week). This year I've published 46 articles (Less than 1/week).

A decade ago, I was attending at least one networking event, speaking engagement, or trade show every day and sometimes more than one a day. Today, if you don't come to my house at the beach, we'll probably never meet.

Some years I had 200+ clients pay me. This year I had 16.

I'm thinking about this because on Monday I was talking with Dave Kurlan about renewing my partnership with Objective Management Group. During our conversation he asked how long I expected to keep working, whether or not I enjoyed it and if I would miss it. I was a little surprised at my answer. I did enjoy it. I would miss it, but there are things that Elaine and I want to do and I never want to make a promise to a client that I don't keep and so, this would likely be my last year. I've said that before, but look at the trend in my activity.

With that as a backdrop, here are the 3 changes that you can use to impact your coaching in 2019.

1. Coach each rep daily for 10-15 minutes - Talk about one thing that happened within the past 24 hours or something that will happen in the next 24 hours. Short, single topic calls take advantage of primacy/recency and will more surely have impact. It's also more likely that a rep's 24 hour memory will be accurate than their 7 day memory.
2. Coach to the evaluation. Don't guess or assume that your rep is like any other rep or that today's situation is like yesterday's, There are 21 Sales Core Competencies and they each have 6-12 attributes. That's several hundred possible combinations that will answer 'Do they know what to do?' and 'Can they do it?'. The evaluation will show you which attributes are in play today.
3. Finally, recognize that it will take 8-12 weeks to 'click'. This article suggests that it takes 60 days to form a new habit. 60 days is 8.6 weeks. Anecdotal vs. data = same result. So, although some will become automatic in 21 days, plan on 3 months.

Last thing. Channel managers that manage partners and value added resellers can use this same approach to create a super star channel. Help/coach your channel partners build a robust flywheel within their funnel and in the process build a huge flywheel within your funnel.

If you need clarification or you want to be one of the 24 that takes advantage of this year end offer, I'll be here.