The main focus of this issue is based on “The Habits of Highly Effective People.” I don’t know if the right number of habits is 7, 10, 50 or 1, but what I do know is you have to have some good, consistent habits to be successful.

We often associate habits as negative things — smoking, it’s a habit; being late, a habit I must change, etc. There are good habits as well, and if salespeople find and adopt these, they can be very successful. For the most part, they are simple things, and if we listen to our customers closely, we can find the right habits to adopt.

A common complaint of customers is, “I don’t want to work with that salesperson because he doesn’t do what he says he will do.” Habit number 1 — do what you say you are going to do. How difficult can that be? At the same time, don’t over promise. In other words, don’t say you will do something and then not follow through.

We have an internal document in our company called “things you do and things you don’t.” Every new person who joins our company has to go through this, understand it and apply it. It is made up of some fairly simple habits and rules that I think help define our culture as an organization.

What is your culture? Is it defined in some way? Something to think about.