Throughout my career I have work with thousands of sales reps and as I begin my relationship with each of them I have asked, "Are you where you want to be in your career right now?"

What I hear time and time again is “No, I want to take the next step.” My hope is that everyone in any career wants to take the next step, the key is going further and creating the appropriate breakout of activities that you need to achieve to get you there.

For women (or even better #millenialwomeninsales), creating the activities seems to be the easier than COMPLETING THEM!

What happens once you outline your steps to your boss/mentor is pressure to challenge yourself to get from one to the other. Men tend to take the pressure well, women tend to shut down when we don’t know the #Lever to pull to help achieve each activity.

I recall the point in my career where I went from creating steps to finding my #Lever to completing the steps.  It was a late night in the office with @Ted Martin at @Vorsight.  He was a mentor of mine and I was walking him through the steps I felt I needed to complete to go to my boss and share them.

He said “Sarah you are equipped to do these, what’s stopping you?” For me, it’s feeling supported that helps me move to the next step.  For others I’ve worked with, there were other driving factors we uncovered together.

Creating personal rewards at each step - here are some I have used:

• Take a day off (Use that PTO after a taxing project);
  
• Buy yourself that expensive dress/shirt/skirt (reward yourself);
  
• Do yoga during a lunch break (physical activity is key to success);
  
• Match a professional step in your career to a personal goal (very common for women - having the right certification or tools if the step requires it);
• Having time outside of a one-on-one meeting to get what you need from a mentor or boss (which often feels hard to do with a lengthy agenda - often women do not like to derail to conversation but its imperative for growth and connection);
• Having a mentor outside of your department/company.

Are you looking to take the next step in your career? What #Lever do you need to employee to catapult you to the next step?

Happy to help you chat through it. Feel free to reach out, my personal email is [email protected].

Shout out to @Steve Richard for the great blog topic idea!