Self-evaluate your skill levels all the time.

•A.       Comfort Zones

•ð       You almost always visit the same people at about the same time.

•ð       When you have been tempted to call on a job title that may be new to you (like calling on the CFO and not just the purchasing agent) you found a reason not to do it.

•ð       The last time your company presented a new product or service to you, you did not show it as much as your boss would have liked.

•ð       You were very slow to implement the last major change that the boss asked you to make - or you resisted making that change.

•B.      Reactive Modality

•ð       You often spend a major portion of your day doing things that you had not planned to do that day.

•ð       You go into the office several days a week.

•ð       You have your customers call you for things that customer service or inside sales could do instead of you.

•ð       You personally expedite back orders, or source products and services for your customers that someone else in your company could have done.

•C.      Not Learning about the Customer

•ð       You don't use an account profile form, either electronic or paper.

•ð       You find yourself having the same conversation with the same people, month after month.

•ð       You would be hard pressed to identify one or two of your customer's customers.

•ð       You don't know most of the key decision makers in most of your good accounts.

•D.     Questioning

•ð       In most of your sales calls, you do most of the talking.

•ð       You don't know the goals and objectives your major customers have for their business.

•ð       You rarely prepare a question before the sales call.

•ð       You hear "your price is too high" almost all the time.

•E.      Personal Growth

•ð       You haven't spent more than $10.00 on improving your sales skills in the last 12 months.

•ð       You don't regularly listen to audio recordings, or read sales magazines, e-zines or newsletters.

•ð       You haven't been to a seminar to help improve your sales skills in the last 12 months.

•ð       You think you pretty much know everything there is to know about selling in your job.