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⚡️ Today’s level up ⚡️
Today’s edition unpacks a sensationally simple and scrumptiously strategic framework. It’s the framework to rule them all and will help you elevate your revenue generation game.
Let’s go!
Read time: <5 minutes
If you missed last week, read it here.
Look familiar?
Today’s edition will pick up where we left off last week with a framework to rule them all – one that will help you make better decisions in business and life.
It’s been one that I’ve incorporated into my own life and has been extremely beneficial in sharing with members and coaching clients.
We start off with this simple exercise:
– Take out a piece of paper
– Draw a line at the top
– Above the line, write “Standards”
– Draw a line at the bottom
– Below the line, write “Expectations”
The mental reframe
Next, we label Standards as “controllables” and and Expectations as “uncontrollables.”
Then, we draw an arrow pushing up Standards and an arrow pushing down Expectations. The mental reframe here is to focus all of your time, energy, and attention on raising your standards and lowering your expectations in everything you pursue.
Example: If you are pursuing one of your top strategic accounts, you may want to lead with an ambitiously high standard like “how can I make this meeting the best one of their year?”
– What would you need do to make that a reality?
– Who would you need to recruit to help you?
– How would you structure the meeting?
This gives you more realistic optimism.
On the flip side, you need to lower the expectations you or your leaders have for that meeting like: “we expect to uncover just one story to support our strategic business case.”
This gives you a dose of healthy pessimism and allows you to have contingency plans in place to prepare for “disaster,” because you ultimately cannot control how the client will react.
– What factors need to be in place for this to be true?
– What is your plan if they do not react the way you want?
– How can you make it easier for them to share what you need?
Why it’s so effective
What I love the most about this framework is that it widens the gap to allow success and satisfaction to appear.
But most revenue generators I observe are working in reverse. They have absurdly high expectations (either their own or driven from the top down), and extremely low standards (because they lead with choas vs creativity). This leaves them feeling frustrated and with customers who don’t see any differentiated value in their approach.
It locks the seller out from making meaningful progress. I see examples of this everywhere:
– Sending a slew of cold outreaches every month (low standards)
– Hoping to fill up their pipeline with warm prospects (high expectations)
– Following a standard sales process solo (low standards)
– Hoping to boost their win rate (high expectations)
– Running an executive meeting using a standard pitch deck (low standards)
– Hoping to convince the room how great their product is (high expectations)
How to get the most from it
You can apply this to literally everything in your role and your personal life.
– Write down your area of focus (outreach, meetings, proposals, etc.)
– List out all of the supporting values and principles that raise your standards
– List out all of the reframing thoughts and actions to lower your expectations
Voila! Simple, but not easy. Hope this helped.
See you next week!
🐝
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