Unlocking Success: Daily Rituals and Habits of a High Achiever

Jon Bartos [00:37:38]:

And again, I go back to the purpose out there. Everybody out there was put on earth for a specific reason. Wasn't to be average, wasn't to fill their pocketbook. It was to make immediate impact, not only on yourself, but on others that are out there. The only way you can do that is by continually achieving and moving forward and trying to reach your potential.

Alexander Laurin [00:38:04]:

Hello. This is Alexander Lauren, and I'd like to welcome you to the biggest Win Sales podcast. John Bartos is the quintessential thought leader, trainer, speaker, and consultant on all aspects of human capital, talent management and sales performance management. As President and CEO of his firm, MRI, Jonathan Scott International in Ohio, john achieved industryleading success as one of an elite group of executive recruiters who build over 1 million annually while building a multimillion dollar top ten office in a ten year period. 2009, he cashed in over 10 million in personal production and established JSI as a top 10% executive search and staffing firm, winning 17 international awards in the MRI network. John sold the business in 2012 to a large healthcare consulting firm. In 2015, he started a new firm focused on retained search, global Performance Search. Today, GPS has offices in Toronto, Ohio, Kentucky, Colorado and Madeleine Columbia. GPS is a leader in talent solutions for software firms, implementation partners, and end users in the HCM HRIS markets in North America and Europe. John is the founder of Revenue Performance Management, LLC, the leading analytics tool that is changing sales organizations overnight. The Rpm Dashboard is a sales analytics and development tool that focuses on taking sales professionals on a path to achieving their sales performance potential. Currently, the Rpm Dashboard is used by over 500 companies worldwide. Visit www.rpmsusa.com. John has been rated as a top speaker at many industry events and has had an opportunity to speak with audiences all over the world, including South Africa, Canada, New Zealand, Ireland, Scotland, Bulgaria, Australia, Greece, France, UK, and North America. John is also still on a desk and as of today, he has built over 17 million in personal production since 1999. John Bartos. Welcome to the biggest Win Sales podcast.

Jon Bartos [00:40:31]:

Thanks, Alexander. Glad to be here.

Alexander Laurin [00:40:35]:

John, you've had an amazing run and just the last thing I said, $17 million in personal production since 1999. Tell tell me, tell the listener, what are some of the daily rituals or habits that you have that have helped you be so consistent and helped you become a real high achiever?

Jon Bartos [00:40:57]:

Yeah, and great question, by the way, because I think in speaking with audiences and trying to help folks to achieve their potential, one of the biggest things is coming up with your daily success habits that you repeat over and over again that are actually ending up and being success that's successful. So for me, I know the thing for me, when I started getting in this business, if you will, my career was 20 years in supply chain management and software. And then I jumped into the recruiting side of the business. And I know the reason I made that change specifically was to achieve my personal goals. And I wanted to achieve whatever I could achieve out of my professional career. So going back to the habits, I mean, the the first thing that I taught, I was taught early on by one of my best sales managers, Al Swanson, was he used the quote from The Art of War. Sun Zoo is the art of war. And Al came up to me and I was in Canada at the time running our Canadian operations, but he came up to me and he said, john, do you know that all battles are won or lost before they are fought? All battles are won or lost before they are fought. And then he came into Sun Zoo, The Art of War and all of those things. The whole point was planning before you begin that specific day on what you're doing, if you're not planned to go and ready to go by 08:00 in the morning, whatever go time is for you, you've already planned to fail, you're going to lose the battle, you're not going to make it happen. So I've had a practice of making sure that I have my plan ready to go. And it's called the Superman plan. It's a way of planning where on the top left hand side of my papers, I put the closes that's going to happen deals I got to close, the high priority calls I have to do right away or first. And then really I look at, based on prioritizing, my day, the things I got to do. But the good news is, at 09:00, that's my go time, that's selling time before nine is non selling time, but 09:00 is selling time. So nine between nine and nine one, I'm making that first call. And here's what that does for me. Love El Swansa to death because I love the quote and I love the book, by the way, art of War, Sun Zoo. But what that really does is get you going. I don't know if you watch an Office of Salespeople, I don't care if they're selling copiers or software telemarketers that are selling products to existing customers or brand new. It really doesn't matter. You'll see, some of these folks not have go time till 11:00. They're still talking about the Chicago game, the hockey game that went last weekend, and they never get in the business. Even though it's selling time, they're not selling. So one of the principles I've always started with was, number one, at 09:00, I'm making my first call because it's selling time. It's not non selling time. It is selling time. And I got a chance to go and I think by just getting started and actually doing the business at the same time every day. I remember the first year, second year, I was in the business, and I set some records on revenue that most people haven't done before. And they asked, well, how do you get so good at this business? Do you have the sales ability like nobody else does? And my answer is no. I just probably work ten times harder than most. And I don't work harder, I just work 09:00. The first phone call happens, I hang up. The second phone call happens. When I get appointments, it's really the same thing. So I think I do the business. And the more you do the business, the more you'll learn. You'll learn from your mistakes and all that kind of stuff. So from a success habits, I would think go time, 09:00 is my selling time. I take it till 05:00. And then I think it's pretty important to prioritize the most important first. So that way you're always working on the most important things and you get those done versus at the end of the day, I didn't get this done, I'm moving it to the next day. And then the next day you move it to the next day, and the next day you move it to the next day. So I think that's helped dramatically and to establish those success habits. So those are a couple of them now that really helped me get started.

Alexander Laurin [00:45:12]:

Excellent. And when you're planning, and then you're starting at nine, when you're planning, are you doing that at the office or is that something you do at home? What's your routine for planning?

Jon Bartos [00:45:25]:

Yeah, it's a great question because my planning actually starts at 05:00, so 05:00 the day before. And I know that a lot of people get in the habit of planning their day in the morning or while they're doing it or on the way to work or whatever it is. But there's no better time when it's fresh in your mind right after that day is done, that you know the top priorities for yourself, what you've got to do right away. So my goal is to spend to get the next day plan, to get phone numbers down and all that kind of stuff. It probably takes 20 minutes, 30 minutes, and there may be some more time than that, but I'll take the time right there at the end of the day to do it because it's fresh in my mind. I can get it down. Therefore I sleep good at night, I don't have to worry about it. I have a good plan ready to go the next day, and then I can get in tomorrow and then just execute and worry about executing and hitting selling time and not still planning. And my go time goes to nine, to 930, to ten, and it keeps going, moving forward because I'm not ready to go. So, yeah, it's typically at the very end of the day when planning time really starts.

Alexander Laurin [00:46:32]:

And John, you mentioned about setting personal goals at the top. What is your process for goal setting?

Jon Bartos [00:46:39]:

Yeah, it's interesting. If you did some of the research on goal setting, there's a couple of studies that are out that really hit home of effective goal setting. And there's a couple of things in goal setting that help you achieve the goal much more than just setting a goal and not making it happen. And I know a lot of people say, let's just set a goal, write it down, and you're on your way. It's a little more than that. When I set a goal and I do it, not only do I do it for the year on all areas of my life, but I also do it on a monthly basis. First of all, I set a goal of what I want to achieve. Let's say it's a revenue goal. Okay. This month, I want to do 400,000 revenue, whatever it is, I set the goal for the month. Then what I do is I back it up by activity. Okay, what's the activity?