Even if you’ve never been an athlete or worked out, I’m sure you can relate to the idea of stretching before and after exercising.

When you stretch your muscles you have the potential to grow.

The great thing about stretching one’s mind is it opens up the thought process for future stretching. You cannot and will not get better at anything unless you are willing to stretch.

There are people who go to the gym week after week and make little or no progress because they do the same 3 sets of 8 reps of the same exercise. They only thing they are stretching is their time, which is wasted.

Until you decide to stretch your mind, you’re going to remain right where you are. Remaining where you are might actually be where you want to be.

A mind once stretched never regains its past form. That’s all I’m gonna say, Tommy Gibbs

“Man’s mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions.” Oliver Wendell Holmes

How many times have you interviewed someone and you ask them to name something they are really good at and they say, “I have great people skills.”

People’s perception of their people skills is often a gross exaggeration of who they think they are and what they are all about.

Leaders understand that having great people skills requires them to grow those skills daily by building relationships of trust, respect and productive interactions.

Steven Covey stated it best when he said, “Trust is the glue of life. It’s the most essential ingredient in effective communication. It’s the foundational principle that holds all relationships.”

Having people skills means building relationships.

You may think you are a great people person, but if you can’t be trusted then you’re a long way from having people skills.

Having great people skills involves the ability to communicate effectively with people in a friendly, positive and uplifting way. When you do those things people begin to trust you.

When people trust you, you almost automatically have better people skills.

That’s all I’m gonna say, Tommy Gibbs

That’s an extremely important question to ask yourself as we move into the New Year.

One of the things that I know that you and I have in common is winning. That’s why you check in with me from time to time and read my material. You’re looking for ideas to help you to keep winning.

You and I may have different ideas about what winning means to us. Fundamentally it’s about keeping score regardless of what the “score factor” might be.

The “score factor” might be number of units sold, it might be gross profit, it might be income, it might be net profit, or it might be how many people we have helped make a better life for themselves. It’s all about keeping some sort of score.

It’s important to surround yourself with people who have things in common with you. If they are not interested in keeping score then they are not interested in winning. If they are not interested in winning then you don’t have much in common with them.

If you don’t have much in common with them then you need to be a real winner and rid yourself of their presence. It’s not just about winning, it’s about running up the score. Yep, that’s what you and I have in common, we wanna run up the score. That’s all I’m gonna say, Tommy Gibbs

Successful dealers have a different view, a different attitude, a different swagger about them and a different way of managing accountability.

It’s always a good feeling when we are kicking off a new year. This time of the year sort of reminds me of spring training for major league baseball. Optimism is running high, as it should be, but in a few months reality will start to set in.

The stronger teams will have started to pull away and the weaker teams will be asking themselves, “What happened, where did we go wrong?”

A number of my articles recently have been prodding you to get ready for the New Year. Here are a few thoughts to get you moving a little faster toward your goals and some suggestions of changes you might need to make.

Observe-Spend a Saturday just sitting in the tower observing. Say nothing. Take notes. Of course you’re not going to see the true picture, but you will see enough to give you an idea of where the loopholes are.

Ask Questions-On Monday meet with your GSM/Sales Manager and ask him/her to review with you what the selling process is. Better yet, prior to meeting, ask them to write out the selling process to bring to your meeting.

Get After Them-Tell them what you observed and how far off track they are compared to the list and the discussion you just had. Of course, first tell them all the things you observed that they are doing well. Do your best to end the meeting on a positive note and create a plan of action to improve.

Re-Commit-Get them re-committed to what they say they are supposed to be doing. Reviewing the processes is the single most effective way to do this.

Re-Deploy-get them on a mission to get back on track through renewed focus, training, disciplines and processes. Get a commitment for the training they intend to do with the sales force over the next 30 days.

Create Accountability-create a daily check list to review what they are doing as compared to what they said they were going to do. Continue to observe and whenever it’s not right go back to step one and start over again.  Your number one job is to “Guard the Processes.”

Raising expectations is in part about raising your level of intensity and creating accountability within the team. Human nature being what it is, people will do what little they have to do to get by.

And we’re off. That’s all I’m gonna say,  Tommy Gibbs