I get asked all the time which of our 49 Sandler Rules is the most powerful one. Obviously, at different points of time, each rule can be very powerful.
From a general business growth standpoint, here is the most powerful one:
Sandler Rule #34: Work smart, not hard.
It's funny, because there are dozens if not hundreds of people that quote had been attributed to. But David Sandler put it in the Sandler Rules book back in the late 60's.
If you really boil that rule down, it can include things that take time, but have long term benefit.
One of my clients is not a natural planner. However, late in the year, he took six hours one week to actually plan a number of things for the next year. Although much of it he found painful, he saw the benefit in investing the time.
Most people won't do that! Even if the 6 hours of planning means a 20 hour or even 200 hour project goes a lot smoother, we don't typically take the time to plan it out.
Another client of mine discovered a prospect was going to lose $400,000 because they hadn't sat down to figure out what a problem was really costing them. They definitely weren't working smart!
Most of us were raised with people we looked up to telling us to work hard! It's been ingrained in many of us since childhood. But it's not in most people's DNA to work smart.
If we don't stop and ask ourselves, "Wait, is this really what I should be doing?" then we're most likely going to waste a lot of time, effort, energy, and even money. You don't have to look very hard to see other people doing it, but you do have to look hard to see it in yourself.
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