Avoid embarrassing sales performance by learning this simple 3-step warm up routine

Professional athletes don’t just walk onto the field. They warm up. They stretch. They do stuff like this:

So why don’t more salespeople put this idea into practice?

If you really want to reach your peak performance on game day, you need to prepare your body and mind. And it’s nearly impossible to get in the zone or establish a flow without some kind of preliminary exercise.

Luckily, there are a few things you can do to set yourself up for success:

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Establish a routine

Start your morning consciously and deliberately. Don’t just roll out of bed and jump into your sales calls.

Eat a healthy breakfast. Exercise, meditate, or read. Refresh and inspire your mind, so that you’re ready to tackle the day ahead. If you need a little extra motivation, create a playlist—we always share music at Close—or check out the latest Daily Sales Motivation video.

Make a list of the things you want to accomplish before lunch. Schedule your afternoon calls. Do whatever you need to do to approach the day with purpose. When you establish a routine, you build good habits, generate momentum, and increase your efficiency.

Stretch your sales muscles

Professional athletes train way more than they play. That’s one of the reasons why they perform at such a high level. They build up strength, endurance, and confidence, even when nobody’s in the stands.

So what’s the sales equivalent of a ladder drill?

Mock calls

Before you reach out to prospects, exchange mock calls with a coworker. Take 10–20 minutes to work on a specific area of focus—whether it’s your introduction, a specific objection, or the close. This should be a high-intensity workout, so challenge yourself to stretch further than the day before. It's the best way to make sure you’re energized and ready to talk to prospects.

A quick piece of advice: If you spend 20 minutes on mock calls, don’t start work by sending emails. Emails stretch entirely different sales muscles—flex the ones you just warmed up. Get on the phone.

Design your success

Don’t start or end the day with your most important call.

The logic here is pretty simple. After you’ve warmed up, you probably need a few more calls to get game-ready. And if you wait too long to make that call, you might be too exhausted to sell effectively.

11:00 a.m. is an ideal spot to block out. Your energy level is still high and you’ve had time to find a groove. There’s a good chance you’re hitting your peak level of performance right before lunch.

Unfortunately, many salespeople aren’t deliberate about when they make calls. They go mindlessly through their days and then wonder why they’re not performing to the best of their abilities. If you want to be great, you need to orchestrate greatness.

Another quick piece of advice:

Multitasking kills your effectiveness. If your day is all over the place—email, call, email, meeting, call, email, call—you’re going to be all over the place, too. That’s why athletes practice one drill at a time. Try to focus on specific activities for two or three hours without switching context.

Same goes for your week. Make sales calls on Monday, send follow-up emails on Tuesday, etc. Bucket activities so that you’re able to get the most out of your training routine.

If you really want to boost your productivity, just remember...

You need to warm up. You need to stretch. You need to practice the skills that’ll help you crush your goals every day. Just take it from these guys:

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