Ask Larry Levine, author of Selling from the Heart, whether discipline is a negative word, and he’ll push back without hesitation.
“We choose to believe it’s a negative word because it requires something that’s difficult,” Levine said, “and that’s consistent work.”
Levine made the case that long-term success in sales isn’t built on big wins or chasing the next silver bullet—it’s built on small, repeatable actions done day after day. For cleaning industry professionals who live and work in demanding, fast-paced environments, the message is direct: your habits determine your results.
The glue that holds it together
Levine has spent years applying what he calls the trust formula to the day-to-day work of professional service sellers. Whether you’re building authentic relationships, delivering meaningful value, or creating a memorable customer experience, he said, none of it holds without a foundation of disciplined habits.
He traces the lesson back to an unlikely source—his future mother-in-law, circa 1991. Before he proposed, she offered him a piece of advice he still carries: “If you can’t do the small things correctly, you’ll never be able to do the big things correctly.”
Levine said that advice is as relevant in 2026 as it was then. “If you can’t do the small things correctly with discipline, with consistency, with commitment, you’ll never be able to do these big things that we all like chasing as salespeople,” he said.
Three habits, 30 days
Levine offered three concrete habits that, if practiced every working day for 30 days, he said will produce measurable results.
The first is prospecting: commit to setting one new appointment every single day, scheduled within a two-week window, with someone you’re not currently doing business with. “I’m not asking you to do two. I’m not asking you to do three. I’m just asking you to do one,” Levine said. Over a typical work month, that’s 21 or 22 new meetings on the calendar—a pipeline built through repetition, not heroics.
The second habit is relational: inside your existing customer base, identify one person you don’t know and get to know them. Not a pitch, not a check-in call—a genuine conversation. “You’re building relational strength inside your current customers,” Levine said.
The third may be the most overlooked: read 15 minutes a day. One book. Levine’s reasoning is practical, as reading gives you something to say. It sparks ideas for how to open doors with prospects and deepen conversations with existing accounts. “Read the things your customers are reading,” he said. “Read your industry reports.”
Habit takes longer than you think
Levine is candid that 30 days isn’t a magic number. He uses it because it’s approachable. He believes true habit formation takes 45 to 60 days before something becomes second nature. The comparison he reaches for is simple: you don’t think about buckling your seatbelt. You don’t think about tying your shoes. Those behaviors are wired in through repetition over time.
“Something tells me when you hit that month mark, it becomes a whole lot easier than it did day one, day two,” he said.
His closing framework draws from James Clear’s Atomic Habits and the concept of marginal gains, the idea that getting 1% better everyday compounds into something significant. “Stack small daily wins every single day, week in and week out, month in and month out, quarter over quarter, year over year,” Levine said, “and you’ll be surprised what you can accomplish.”
For service industry professionals, the translation is clear: skip the shortcuts, show your calendar, and start with one small thing.
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