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Disciplined Habits, Accountability and Radical Consistency... The CEO’s Secret Weapon for Sales Growth and Trust.

Disciplined Habits, Accountability and Radical Consistency... The CEO’s Secret Weapon for Sales Growth and Trust.

October 15, 20259 min read

"Success is nothing more than a few simple disciplines, practiced every day"

Jim Rohn

In Selling from the Heart fashion disciplined habits become the glue that holds authenticity and trust together.

Heartfelt selling isn’t about random acts of kindness, flashy pitches, or motivational sprints.

It’s about consistent, intentional behaviors rooted in deep care for your clients and yourself.

Discipline is all about doing the relational work when no one’s watching. While simplicity is focusing on the fundamentals.

In this crazy, chaotic and ever-changing environment, your discipline becomes your differentiator. Practice it every day as consistency build trust.

This is why Jim Rohn’s above-mentioned quote so aligns to the Selling from the Heart philosophy in that trust isn’t built in big gestures, it’s built in consistent behavior.

Selling from the Heart is all about rhythm and routine, things such as:

  • Daily prospecting with purpose

  • Consistent follow-up with care

  • Regular reflection on your actions and intentions

Consistency is how you earn credibility.

Success isn’t about quotas or commissions; it’s about connection and credibility. When you focus on your daily disciplines such as genuinely caring, listening deeply, and keeping promises, revenue becomes the result, not the goal.

Success is the harvest of your daily authenticity.

Using the Trust Formula (AR + MV + IE + DH), Jim Rohn’s quote lands squarely in the “DH” quadrant, Disciplined Habits but it fuels all the others:

How daily disciplines support the Trust Formula:

  • Authentic Relationships - Daily pulse checks with clients, handwritten notes, and consistent presence deepen human connection.

  • Meaningful Value - Disciplined preparation ensures you always bring insight, not just information.

  • Inspirational Experience - When clients know you’re reliable and genuine, every interaction feels uplifting and trustworthy.

  • Disciplined Habits - The root of all trust, following through on commitments every single day.

Disciplined habits are the soil where authenticity, value, and experience grow.

As the CEO or President of your company, reflect upon the following:

  • What are the few simple disciplines that, if done daily, would transform your culture and your sales team?

  • Do my salespeople see discipline as accountability or as care?

  • How can I make consistency visible and celebrated inside my sales team?

  • Am I modeling daily discipline as a leader, or only demanding it?

Success isn’t built in the spotlight; it’s earned in the quiet consistency of daily, authentic disciplines.

Are you ready for the journey?

Growth doesn’t stall because of lack of knowledge; it stalls because of lack of discipline.

Let's start off with you reflecting around this... The companies that consistently outperform their peers aren’t necessarily those with the newest CRM or largest marketing budgets.

They’re the ones that have built disciplined habits and accountability deep into the fabric of their culture, especially within their sales teams.

The Connection with Discipline and Trust

Trust = Authentic Relationships + Meaningful Value + Inspirational Experience + Disciplined Habits.

Trust isn’t built on charisma or strategy; it’s built on consistency.

You can’t build trust without follow-through. You can’t deliver results without disciplined habits. Without trust, whether that be internally or externally, your company will spin its wheels.

Discipline creates predictability

Trust thrives where there's predictability. When leaders and their teams consistently do what they say they’ll do, they create stability and safety. Consistency signals credibility; inconsistency breeds doubt.

Trust starts inside your corporate house

The trust your clients feel begins with the trust inside your culture. Do you and your leaders model follow-through? Do commitments get honored or explained away? When internal trust falters, so does accountability, innovation, and client confidence.

Habits drive culture

Disciplined habits, things such as consistent communication, intentional coaching, or reliable execution, turn values into culture. Your team doesn’t rise to your vision; they fall to their level of discipline.

Authenticity without discipline is intention without impact. Discipline without authenticity feels robotic. Discipline is intention without impact. Discipline without authenticity feels robotic.

Allow yourself some reflection time:

  • Where does inconsistency quietly erode trust inside my organization?

  • Do my actions model the discipline I expect from my team?

  • What one disciplined habit, if practiced daily, would strengthen internal trust and external confidence inside of my sales team?

Discipline, The Ultimate Differentiator

Technology has leveled the playing field. Competitors can match your pricing, your product, and even your marketing in a matter of months.

What they can’t replicate is your discipline.

Discipline, when executed with heart becomes your competitive edge.

  • Disciplined prospecting creates predictable pipelines.

  • Disciplined client management deepens relationships and drives retention.

  • Disciplined reflection and coaching foster continuous improvement.

You can’t scale chaos; you can scale your discipline.

Therefore, one of your primary roles, is to model and enforce the habits that create predictable, high-trust performance.

You and your team can’t win as a copy but can only win as originals.

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Accountability Culture, Not Control

Too many CEOs mistake accountability for micromanagement. Accountability is love in action. It's saying that I care too much about our mission and our people to accept mediocrity.

In an authentic culture, accountability isn’t about control, it’s about commitment. It says, we believe in you enough to expect your best.

True accountability is built on trust and clarity.

  • Clarity of purpose as everyone knows why their work matters.

  • Clarity of expectations as everyone knows what excellent looks like.

  • Clarity of support as everyone knows they won’t be left to figure it out alone.

This form of accountability doesn’t constrict, it frees. It empowers people to bring their best selves to the forefront because they feel seen, supported, and responsible for something meaningful.

When leaders model this kind of care-driven accountability, sales teams reflect it outward:

  • They follow through on commitments.

  • They communicate proactively.

  • They build trust with clients through consistency and transparency.

Accountability done right is the culture’s immune system. It protects what you value most, your integrity, your reputation, and your results.

Building a Culture of Discipline, Accountability and Consistency

As the leader, your job isn’t to enforce discipline, it’s to weave it into the culture.

Adjust your mindset as you redefine discipline as care

Leadership in a post-trust world is grounded in truth, love, and accountability.

Discipline is simply love translated into structure. It’s how you honor your mission, your people, and your clients.

When your team sees accountability as care, not control, performance soars.

Track behavior, not just results

If you only measure revenue, you’ll only manage panic. To lead growth, measure trust-building behaviors.

Here are some examples of leading indicators:

  • Daily prospecting time completed

  • Weekly meaningful client conversations

  • Quarterly client strategic meetings held

These are your trust metrics, your early indicators of cultural health.

Your calendar is your culture

If you want discipline in your sales team, it must first appear in your calendar.

Time to ask yourself:

  • Do I consistently meet with my leaders and keep commitments?

  • Do I prepare for meetings the way I expect my team to prepare?

  • Do I hold myself accountable publicly?

Your people will always follow what you model more than what you mandate.

Meaning your people are watching. When you model accountability with compassion, honoring commitments, giving feedback promptly, and celebrating follow-through, you set a tone that ripples through your team and their client interactions.

Turning this all into Growth

I'd encourage you to create a simple playbook to operationalize disciplined habits across your sales team:

1. Establish simple but clear guidelines as to what discipline looks like.

For example:

  • Every salesperson dedicates 30 minutes daily to proactive outreach.

  • Every sales leader holds one coaching session weekly.

  • Everybody on the team shows up prepared and punctual to all meetings.

Put it in writing, reinforce it often, and live it daily.

2. Build an accountability cadence

Structure your rhythms:

  • Daily - 5-minute self-reflection, what did I do today to build trust?

  • Weekly - Team accountability huddles to share wins, lessons, and commitments.

  • Quarterly - Strategic alignment meetings to recalibrate goals and behaviors.

Discipline thrives in rhythm, rhythm creates momentum, and momentum drives growth.

3. Reward consistency, not just sales heroics

Celebrate disciplined effort, not just the biggest deals.

Reward the salespeople who do the hard, consistent work, those who follow through when no one’s watching.

4. Coach to the heart

Authentic accountability blends empathy with expectation.

Ask your team:

  • Where are you struggling with consistency?

  • What’s holding you back from your best?

  • Which habit, if improved, would elevate your results?

These are heart-level conversations that drive human-level change.

5. Make trust a KPI

You can’t deposit trust in the bank, but you can measure the outcomes:

  • Client retention rate

  • Referral rate

  • Team engagement

Trust is the silent engine of sustainable profit.

The Heart and Disciplined Balance

Discipline without heart becomes sales terror. Heart without discipline becomes chaos.

The growth leaders of tomorrow balance both.

Authenticity without consistency is empty.

When discipline meets authenticity, growth becomes inevitable.

Before you demand accountability from your team, look inside your heart and ask yourself:

  • Do I model the consistency I expect?

  • Have I defined what disciplined habits mean for our culture?

  • Do I measure behaviors or only results?

  • How often do I celebrate consistency, not just wins?

  • Have I built psychological safety around accountability?

  • Where does my leadership need more heart and where does it need more structure?

Parting Words

If you want to drive revenue, profit, and retention, then stop chasing new strategies and start mastering consistent disciplined habits.

If you want accountability in your sales team, you must model it first.

Discipline isn’t control, it’s all about commitment.

Accountability isn’t pressure, it’s all about care.

Trust isn’t built overnight; it’s earned one consistent day at a time.

“Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much.” Luke 16:10 (NIV)

Trust and your sales growth begin with faithfulness in the small things.

When you and your team stay consistent in the little commitments; daily follow-through, honest conversations, and disciplined habits, you create the foundation for bigger impact, bigger trust, and bigger results.

If you’re a CEO committed to growth, I'd encourage you say this aloud today... I will lead with heart, demand with clarity, and measure with consistency.

This is how you turn discipline into trust and trust into sustainable growth.

Originally published on Larry Levine's LinkedIn.

Disciplined HabitsCEO habitsCulture from the HeartSales CultureAccelerate Growth
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Larry Levine

Larry Levine is the bestselling author of Selling From the Heart and a globally recognized expert on authenticity in sales. With over 30 years of experience in the B2B sales industry, he has helped countless professionals build trust, deepen relationships, and drive sales through a heart-centered approach. As a sought-after keynote speaker, podcast host, and sales coach, Larry challenges sales professionals to ditch the empty tactics and embrace genuine, value-driven conversations. His No More Empty Suits movement is inspiring a new generation of sales leaders to sell with integrity and purpose.

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"I am a big proponent of working on the right end of the problem. And Selling in a Post-Trust World does just that by specifically addressing how and why lack of authenticity leads to lack of trust."

Colleen Stanley
Author of Emotional Intelligence for Sales Leadership