There are sales questions everyone in the field should be asking themselves on a daily basis. Falling into a rut of unthinking repetition can kill or stagnate a sales person’s career. By staying aware of where you are in your business relationships and career, and how you plan to advance yourself on a day-to-day and long-term basis, you can make sure that you’re making moves in the right direction and avoid the rut of sales mediocrity. Challenge yourself with these three sales questions:

How can I improve my long-term situation?

The first of our sales questions may come to you naturally on occasion, but you should ask yourself this sales question every day. There are a few directions you can grow as a sales person looking to improve your lot, so taking a moment each day to consider that growth and what you want can help keep you on task.

• Do you want to move up the ladder at your company?

• Move into a different form or aspect of sales? Maybe you would rather be the ‘ideas guy’ working with new, exciting concepts instead of making cold calls.

• Or maybe you just want to excel at your current position, in which case you must decide whether you want to dominate an existing market or create and seize a new one.

Whatever your goals, keep them in mind as you move through your day; you’ll have insight into the best way to accomplish day-to-day activities and you’ll keep an edge which might otherwise be worn away by the daily grind.

Where are my best opportunities right now?

The second of our second sales questions seems obvious, but few people truly consider the breadth of opportunities available to them, instead content to do whatever comes easily. 

Ask yourself this sales question each day, putting your mind to work at ferreting out the best opportunities available to you. A bit of careful thought might reveal new avenues-maybe a client you are working with could benefit greatly from something you’ve yet to pitch them. Consider who you know, what you know, and what you might do with that information.

Prioritize your best bets for making gains in your career; don’t just go through the motions and deal with whatever falls in front of you first! If you don’t ask yourself tough sales questions, don’t look for opportunities in your daily work, you won’t see them no matter how amazing they might be. Look at the long term and the short term-ignore one or the other and you’re sure to fail.

What are today’s immediate highest priorities?

The last of our self-reflecting sales questions: Consider what you MUST DO TODAY. You should have an idea of your general priorities from the other two questions, but understanding what can be done today and what must wait until tomorrow will help you stay on task and act efficiently and effectively.

Just don’t let these sales questions drown out the rest of your career. Considering the future does not mean forsaking your responsibilities and letting the short-term suffer; rather, asks yourself tough sales questions and challenge yourself each day to find the best set of tasks to move forward.