Is it possible to have a “perfect day” in sales? Phone calls from prospects just as soon as you walk into the office … demonstrations are set … proposal reviews are awesome; everything is smooth sailing. What would it take to have that perfect day in sales? Do we have control over any of the elements?  I think so. In this episode of The Sales Evangelist, I will share something valuable that I learned over the weekend that can help us all accomplish the perfect day in sales. [0:00] Perfection doesn’t happen by accident There was an awesome older lady in our congregation who recently passed away. During the eulogy, her daughter shared a story about her mom who was, apparently, quite a perfectionist. She always looked great. Everything was always on point. One day when the daughter was leaving for school, the mother noticed that the daughter had only ironed the front side of her skirt. As the daughter explains, she didn’t see any reason to iron the back of the skirt because she was going to be sitting down at school, nobody was going to see it. It just didn’t matter. Her mother disagreed and told her,  “Perfection doesn’t happen by accident.” [02:46] She was right. If you want something to work out well, it isn't going to happen by accident. The perfect job, the perfect marriage - the perfect day in sales - do not happen by accident. You have to do something to make it work. None of us will be perfect but we can get close. We can get results if we put in the work.   Michael Phelps, for example, imagined in his mind the perfect swim meet before every competition. He knew what it would feel like to win - to have the perfect race. He practiced for perfection and it is no accident that he became the best swimmer in the world. [03:33] Michael Jordan, Lebron James, Serena Williams, Oprah Winfrey, Steve Jobs, Usain Bolt, Mother Teresa ... They are all arguably the best in their chosen fields because they put in the work. Aim for the perfect day Imagine the most amazing appointments and demonstrations on the schedule. Proposal reviews, closing calls, deals closing left and right … It can happen. It won’t be perfect, maybe a few will need to reschedule, but it will be pretty darn close. [04:56] Certainly you’ve noticed the sellers in your organization who always seem to have the perfect day; everything always seems to work out for them.  How do they do it? They are prepared. They know that the perfect day in sales will not happen by accident. Do all you can now to have appointments for next month. Maybe that means going early to the office to respond to the leads that came in overnight and get ahead of the competition. Make the calls. Make the follow-ups. Do the work so the results will come. The perfect day in sales will come. Perfection requires sacrifice It takes time and it takes sacrifice. You have to be willing to sacrifice the ‘now’ to earn enjoyment later. [05:25] I could spend my entire lunch break chit chatting with my buddies in the break room every day, or I could give up one or two of those days and focus on returning emails, or reaching out to folks on LinkedIn instead. [06:40] We just published our 1,000th episode. That is five years worth of content and we’ve been fortunate to be covered by Huffington Post, Hubspot and Entrepreneurial Magazine. Some people might think that we just got lucky. But in truth, it happened because we put in the work. When this first started, I also worked a full-time day job. I used my lunch break to schedule podcast interviews. Then, I would find park my car near a spot with good WiFi and record interviews with my guests over Skype. I could have easily decided that it was too time-consuming or too much work. I could have chosen to hang with my buddies over lunch.  Instead I made the necessary sacrifices and it paid off. [07:04] Sacrifice, not luck As a salesman, I became of the top performers in my company. Again, not because I was lucky or because management liked me more. It was because I wen