Perspectives That Serve #6 - Determined Desire

You got to want to. Red hot burning desire leads to energy, action, and another mind set called creativity. All these work together in concert to accomplish or achieve something.

And all that suggests a prerequisite. In order to have desire you have to have a clear outcome, target, or intention that is naturally compelling. And behind that clear compelling outcome there must be a compelling purpose. The “why” must be big enough to generate desire. “Why’s” are intensely personal. You may have to search for yours.

The dictionary defines determination as “firmness of purpose, will, or intention”. I would call determination “sustained desire”. Determination is desire that lasts. When we were kids many of us want to be firemen one day, cowboys the next day, and super hero crime fighters the day after that. We lack firmness of purpose or sustained desire. The problem comes when we don’t develop the mind set of determination moving into adulthood.

How do you develop the determination it takes to stay with something long enough to see it through? Sometimes it is just a matter of discipline and developing the toughness to be with the pain, fatigue, etc… that accompanies the accomplishment of a worthwhile outcome. Determination requires a kind of “doing within while we are doing without”. That is it requires keeping mental image of the desired outcome firmly fixed in our minds as we are getting through the going through stage. It requires us to imagine the benefits set before us.

Lastly, we need to learn how to select purposes, projects, and processes that align with our God given talents, gifts, and abilities. Misplaced determination leads to frustration, failure, and the tendency to be leery of applying ourselves in the future. No matter how determined I am, I’m not going to become a professional boxer or a center on an NBA Basketball team. Had I been more determined, I might have come close as a professional baseball player. I think I had some of the tools but chose not to cultivate the desire and necessary determination.

This is the rub of determination. How do we know if we have selected a goal that aligns with our talents? Our parents don’t always know or give us the best advice. Our teachers and coaches don’t always know either. Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team.

Perspectives That Serve # 5 - Cool, Calm, Collected

This is an attitude or mind set that is fairly easy for me to cultivate because I am naturally pretty even tempered. It’s also one that doesn’t work well in isolation. It must be blended with passion and enthusiasm for balance.

In a selling situation, one way to stay calm is to always have so much in the pipeline that you never need any single account too much. You want an account to feel important and desired without feeling like they are your last meal ticket. Any behavior that resembles begging or desperation is usually a turn off. If you are that desperate they may believe you won’t last or be around to service them. They may also believe you are not that good at what you do. Most people want to work with someone they believe is competent.

One path to calmness is through confidence and competence. That is, when you are competent, that leads to confidence which leads to calmness. In lieu of this, if you are new and still haven’t developed confidence you may have to “act calm”. You can behave your way into almost any mind set or attitude. Adopt the physiology of calm and you will become calmer.

How much does it take to upset you? The more you can do to raise the threshold the better off you’ll be. Most of us, myself included overreact to small stuff. I read somewhere that it’s critical to make distinctions between lumpy oatmeal, a lump in your throat, and a lump in your breast. Sometimes I react to things that are really in the category of lumpy oatmeal like I just got diagnosed with a lump in my breast or some other body part. The irony is, the more often we have those over reaction to lumpy oatmeal events, the more likely we are to get lumps showing up in our body somewhere.

I think becoming perturbed may have reached epidemic proportions in this country. Some of it may be related to compressed time, speed, and the false sense that everything must happen now. Some of us just need to slow it down. Or maybe we can do as basketball coaching legend John Wooden suggests, “Be quick but don’t hurry”.

I find my capacity to handle the little annoyances goes way up when I have a quiet time in the morning. For me this usually consists of spending 10 - 30 minutes reading a Bible passage. It slows me down and entrains me to God’s rhythms. Getting out in nature is good. I like the beach the best. Walking helps too. I think we are natural walkers. Enhance it even more by walking with your dog. Walking with your spouse or a friend is good too. Find a stride or pace that you can both live with. This may even be different than your exercise session which can become very goal oriented.

Perspectives That Serve #4 - Blooming WhereYou're Planted

Russell Conwell wrote a book and a speech by the name of Acres of Diamonds.
He made millions touring the country and selling this book that simply conveyed a message that we all need to hear. Conwell told the story of a farmer who sold his farm to go in search of diamonds. Years later it was discovered that the property he sold had contained the largest diamond mine in the history of the world.

Most of us, my self included have moments where we believe we could be doing so much better in another job or with another company. And maybe we could. In my work in sales on the West Coast I always believed the best opportunities in my company were in the Southeast where the headquarters was located. Who knows, maybe they are.

There is one thing I am absolutely sure of though. The most important thing you can do today is Bloom Where You are Planted. Give your job your all. Pour Your Heart In It. When you do this your skills will grow. You will maximize your potential in your current position in your current territory. If you do this other opportunities will come along and you will be much more prepared for them.

Part of being a good salesperson is learning to look for the best opportunities. Ultimately this trait can work against them. Salespeople can participate in self-sabotage big time if they are not careful.

Most effective selling requires building your personal brand, credibility, relationships, and knowledge in an industry. At a minimum these factors begin to come together at the 3-5 year point and then compound significantly in the years after that. But a lot of salespeople get impatient. They assume their lack of success is due to the company, their manager, their industry, or unfair territory divisions. Maybe it is. But often in reality it is due to their own lack of hard work or just lack of seasoning and experience.

Career choice is really a place where you want to measure twice and cut once whenever you possible can. Do your do diligence up front. Select a best of breed leading company and stick with it. I’m not saying there is never a good reason to make a change… There is. But all to often sales people start imaging the grass being greener. And all too often sales people sabotage their careers when they start jumping around.

Perspectives That Serve #3 - Ambition

Ambition is an attitude some of us are ambivalent about. We are not sure if it’s a good thing or a bad thing. Sometimes we think a little of both. I guess it’s true that ambition can drive us to do good things and bad things. It needs to be tempered and modified by some of the other mind sets we are going through.

That being said, ambition, when tempered and directed can be a wonderful attitude to cultivate. Often we think of ambition solely in connection with money. But this doesn’t have to be the case. Ambition can be connected up altruism. I don’t think it too much of a stretch to say that Mother Theresa was ambitious. So I would encourage you to cultivate the attitude or mind set of ambition. Just make sure you are ambitious to do good things with your life that involve serving others.

Ron Willingham talks about what he calls “Achievement Drive”. He says, We release achievement drive when we have a balanced view of selling that is expressed by these attitudes:

1. I feel a professional responsibility to create as much value for a customer as possible.

2. I know that I will, and should be, rewarded to the degree that I create value for other customers.

3. So I will focus on creating as much value as possible for clients, knowing that I’ll be rewarded accordingly.


Ron is right on the money here, both figuratively and literally. I would only add that this is something that works over time and not necessarily in the immediate of every single customer exchange. Don’t walk out and say to your customer, “I provided the value, now where’s my reward”. It doesn’t work that way.

Perspectives That Serve # 2 - Advantage in Adversity

Let’s start with our perspective on problems and adversity. If circumstances were always to our liking we might not have to worry much about our thought life. But most of us are dealing with adversity of some sort on a regular basis. In fact, you could probably walk up to just about anybody on the street and say, “I’m sorry...I heard about your problem” and they would likely answer, “Who told you?”. As M. Scott Peck said in his classic, The Road Less Traveled, “Life is hard. When you accept this fact life gets easier”. My pastor regularly shares, “If you are not currently in some kind of crisis, you either just got out of one, or brace yourself, you are headed for one”.

So how we think about problems and adversity is another foundational skill with regard to strategic thought processes. I like to start out thinking about my problems with the question, “How can I exploit this?” or “How can I use this problem to advance my position?”

The business world is absolutely replete with examples of turning problems into huge cash generating opportunities. Xerox was created by a transcriber who got arthritis. One of my favorite stories is about coffee cup sleeve that I get around my hot drink order at Starbucks. In the late 1980’s, Jay Sorensen ordered a cup of hot coffee at a drive through in Portland, Oregon. Although it was wrapped in a napkin it was still so hot he dropped it in his lap. Watching the Starbucks coffee craze in the 90’s and noticing so many customers gingerly taking their cups from the baristas he had an idea. Using some home supplies he designed a card board sleeve. Originally called the Java Jacket the company today sells about 700 million units each year. Holiday Inn started because Kemmons Wilson struggled to find good accommodations while taking his family on vacation.

Adversity Exploitation is a fundamental mindset and has been summarized by many business writers. One famous writer said it well nearly 100 years ago, “Every adversity carries with it the seed for an equal or greater benefit.” In the Christian Faith, which is central to my life, the Bible teaches that “All things work together for good, for those that love God and are called according to His purpose.” Here we are promised that God is actually in the background working for us. He doesn’t say that nothing bad will happen, only that when it does He will use it for our benefit.

Perspectives That Serve # 1 - Attitude Alternatives and The Alternative Attitude

Today we hear about “Alternative Lifestyles” and “Alternative Music”. In both of these contexts I think the word “Alternative” implies an additional choice as compared with maybe a more common or everyday choice. In this post I want to discuss “Alternative Thinking” or “Alternative Attitudes”. These patterns of thinking are additional choices. They may be quite different from the choices you are currently making or you may simply wish to make them more often.

Alternative thinking is also a meta-thought process. That is, it is thinking about your thinking. An Alternative Attitude is the belief that you have choices about what you put in your mind and what you focus and dwell on. It is a belief that those choices make a difference.

It wasn’t until I was about 19 years old that it ever occurred to me that I had much of a choice about my thoughts. It had never occurred to me that a person might actually select his thoughts like a pair of shoes, an ice cream flavor, or cologne fragrance. I pretty much assumed that your thoughts were your thoughts and that was that. I had also not made the connection that my thoughts were powerful precursors to my emotions and actions.

Today I would say that these truths are among the most powerful and life changing in the world. Yet as far as I know, they are not offered in most any school K—12 and rarely in the college context. In the next few weeks I’ll attempt to bridge that educational gap. The next series of posts will offer many thought choices, each of which should lead to positive emotions, decisions, and actions that in turn should lead to a successful and fulfilling life. In many ways it is square one with regard to Servant Selling.

So this is your first “perspective that leads to performance”. It is your first “strategic thought process”. It is the perspective that you have many alternatives of perspective, viewpoints, and attitudes to select from. You may have dozens of people and pressures pushing you toward a given attitude or way of looking and thinking about something. Your environment may have a bent toward one perspective or another. But at the end of the day, the choice is all yours. Begin to internalize this with great intention. The other perspectives and attitudes won’t install well unless you load this one first.

Attitudes and Perspectives That Serve You and Your Customer

The “mother of all business questions is “What leads to high performance?” Clearly one big thing that creates high performance is quality of thoughts and thought processes. Simply put, there are attitudes, perspectives,ways of thinking and subjects of thought that will make great things happen in your life. Conversely there are ways of thinking and subjects of thought that will attract negative circumstances.

Personally, I don’t believe that your attitude makes things happen mystically or meta-physically although I do believe there is a spiritual connection to your thought life. I would even argue that there are some significant dangers to the recent release of The Secret which continues to sell briskly in bookstores all over the country. Thinking makes things happen both good and bad because your thoughts are what generate your actions. The quality of your actions generate the quality of your life. But thought always precedes action. Sometimes it doesn’t precede it by much but it always does.

Optimism drives action because if you don’t believe something is possible you won’t put out the needed level of effort. Creative thinking opens up a whole world of possible actions increasing the chances that one will work. Enthusiasm makes sustained action possible because it increases energy level. In fact, increased energy level and resulting sustained action is a positive benefit of almost all constructive thought processes.

Some, maybe much of the benefits of thinking productively is biochemical. Cognitive scientists estimate that on average we each have around 60,000 thoughts a day or 1 thought per 1.44 seconds. These thoughts send biochemical impulses through out the body. These biochemical changes have dramatic impact on our emotions, state, and how we feel. They impact what kind of sensations we experience in our body.

As we finish off March and move into the month of April, I want to post on several of these perspectives that lead to performance. I may look at close to 30 strategic thought processes that will help you succeed as a servant salesperson. Then I want to look at several different ways of installing them into your life and business. It does absolutely no good to own a great computer program if you leave it on the shelf uninstalled. Similarly you will have to install each of these perspectives with great intention. Most programs also come with the capacity for updates. Don’t settle for a 1.0 version of an attitude or perspective when the 4.0 version is available.

Have A Wonderful Resurrection Easter Sunday!

The Irresistable Offer

Mark Joyner wrote a book called “The Irresistible Offer”. I don’t agree with everything he writes but I do agree with his major premise, that all great organizations have an irresistible offer. Consider the following examples:

Ipod - 1000 songs in your pocket
Dominoes Pizza - Hot and fresh to your door in 30 minutes or it’s free
Federal Express - When it absolutely positively has to be there overnight

Jesus has the best irresistible offer ever. Believe in me - Live forever. This simple message has been communicated all over the world through his words found in the Biblical verse, John 3:16. “God loved the world so much that He sent His only Son to die on a cross for our sins. Whoever trusts in Jesus death and resurrection will live forever.” Today Christians all over the world are remembering that death. Sunday, they will be celebrating His resurrection.

The central message of the Bible is that none of us can be good enough to earn God’s love and forgiveness. We can’t do enough good deeds. We can’t refrain from enough sins. It’s been done for us. Jesus did it on the cross 2000 years ago. Spend some time thinking about that today… and have a wonderful Easter!

Heart Language

My posts this week are looking at the methods of Jesus as they might apply to the business of selling. Yesterday we took at look at some material from Jeff Medefind and Erik Lokkesmoe’s book The Revolutionary Communicator. I’m going to do the same today.

Medefind and Lokkesmoe suggest that each of us holds a unique heart language. These are activities, symbols, and even objects in which we find special pleasure and delight. Sometimes a heart language is a literal language like Spanish or French. If you’ve ever seen an immigrant light up when hearing their native tongue you know exactly what I’m talking about. Law enforcement officers report that the heart language of young gang members is respect. If you are into sports you understand that each one has it’s own unique language that allows for insider communication. Most all professions have a unique language. If you’ve shopped for a computer you are probably aware that techie type people have a language.

Jesus used language that was pregnant with the language of his culture. Although he was a builder by trade, only a handful of examples came from the building trade. Instead, the bulk were drawn from the daily labors of the farmers, fisherman, and homemakers who filled his audience.

Advertising giant David Olgilvy once said, “If you are trying to persuade people to do something, or buy something, it seems to me you should use their language, the language in which they think.” I have seen this over and over again in my selling work the last 15 years. Your ability to learn and speak the language of your customer is foundational to Servant Selling.

The Revolutionary Communicator

All great sales and marketing is really just a specialized form of communication. But what is communication. Jeff Medefind and Erik Lokkesmoe point us in the right direction in their book The Revolutionary Communicator:

“Communication, Community, Compassion, Communion. Obviously these words grow with their roots entwined. All of them spring from the Latin term, com, together. The word ‘communication’ is itself from the Latin ‘communicare’, meaning to share together, or more literally ‘to make common’...True communication, however, is never monologue; it is dialogue, the coming together of two living beings, even when separated by chasms of culture and language, age and distance, opinion and race. This connection, just as with electric lines, is the fundamental necessity of communication. Without connection, exchange is impossible, no matter how high the voltage. But when the wires touch, energy crackles, and life begins to flow. Great communicators, before anything else, seek means of connection.”

Medefind and Lokkesmoe continue, “Jesus life was continually a work of connecting to those he sought to reach. His every act of communication, whether verbal or otherwise, was anchored in choices to connect with his audience—always moving toward, reaching into, drawing from their daily experiences.”

Sales is all about communicating, and communicating is all about connecting. The big mistake most sales people make is believing that communication is just about giving information. Regrettably, even our clients and customers sometimes buy into this. We walk into their office and they say, “okay, give me your pitch”. Great communication is so much more than that. Increasingly I don’t like the word “influence”. I much prefer the word suggested by sales trainer Christopher Hagerty… “CONFLUENCE”. “CON” is in the same Latin family as “COM” and simply means “with”. Great sales and marketing is something you do with your customers not something you do to them. It’s a partnership, a dance, a movement together.

Find a Bible and turn to the sections Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Read these four short biographies of Jesus’ life. Notice how he communicates. Watch how he connects.

Jesus On Selling

We are looking this week at ways we can apply the principles and teachings of Jesus to business and the business of selling. Some will find this offensive, but the reality is that Jesus spent most of his life in the marketplace. Even theologians have noted that he talked more about money than most any other topic. As I read his teachings closely, it seems to me he was concerned about the whole person. He wanted to show us a way to lead a complete full life, and that would include our business and professional activities.

One of Jesus’ central teachings was the idea that serving is always the core thing if you want to be great.

Whoever desires to become great among you shall be your servant.
From Mark 10:43

This entire blog is really built around that whole premise. This idea of service to greatness is in many ways both counter cultural and counter intuitive. It was in Jesus day and it still is. Most sales training, when you boil it down, is about manipulation and getting everything you can. I jotted down some title’s I found in the Sales and Marketing sections of Barnes and Noble and Borders last month:

The Hypnotic Salesman
Buying Trances
Hypnotic Writing
Getting Your Way
The 7 Triggers To Yes
Closing Techniques
How To Sell To An Idiot
Get Them To See It Your Way, Right Away
Persuasion… The Art Of Getting What You Want

These are the more blatant examples. Many other books have titles that are less up front about the manipulative content.

Yet when you study many of the great businesses and great business leaders, they come from a place of serving and adding value to the lives of their customers. Isn’t great selling simple? Isn’t it really just finding out what will add maximum value to a customer’s life and helping them get it? Depending on your business, you may get really sophisticated in how you execute this simple idea, but it all comes back to serving the customer better. Jesus taught this principle. It worked 2000 years ago. It works today. It will always work because God designed it that way. It’s inextricably woven into the very nature of reality.

Did Jesus Make Sales Calls?

This week is Holy Week or what I prefer to call Power Week in the Christian Faith. Next Sunday, millions will celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ as they attend mass and church services around the world.

My posts for the next five days will look at what Jesus might teach us about how to live in business and especially in the profession of selling. Did Jesus make sales calls? Did he go out and knock on doors to drum up business? I don’t think that’s a stretch. Until around the age of 30, he worked in a carpentry business and was likely self employed for at least some of that time. Most of the guys he hung out with were small business types who undoubtedly engaged in marketing on a regular basis.

Most of us, if we think about Jesus at all, probably pigeon-hole him to the religious section of life. I don’t think his first followers were that much different. Yet, I would suggest that maybe there is more here than first meets the eye. One of my very favorite stories about Jesus is found in the Bible and comes from Luke chapter 5.

Luke 5:4-7
4 When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Now go out where it is deeper, and let down your nets to catch some fish.”
5 “Master,” Simon replied, “we worked hard all last night and didn’t catch a thing. But if you say so, I’ll let the nets down again.”
6 And this time their nets were so full of fish they began to tear!
7 A shout for help brought their partners in the other boat, and soon both boats were filled with fish and on the verge of sinking.

So… get the picture. Jesus is finishing up a sermon that he gave while standing in a boat out on a lake and he gives Simon (who many of us know us Peter) a business tip. You can almost hear Simon say, “Jesus, you stay in the religion department. I think I know the fishing business.” But Peter relents, takes Jesus advice, and ends up with what was probably the best day of fish sales in his whole career.

Let’s take a couple of days and check out what Jesus might offer that would help your business and sales career. HWJS… How Would Jesus Sell?

I'm Recharging Today

Serendipity

I consider myself a directional opportunist… In some areas I am very goal oriented. In some areas I am very laid back and let in happen. Mostly though I tend to be a directional opportunist. I almost always have a direction and a flexible agenda. With that direction and agenda I carry with me a healthy dose of opportunism. Another way of describing this is Serendipity. Serendipity is defined as looking for something good and finding something better… or if you prefer, finding something better while looking for something good.

The term serendipity was coined by English writer Horace Walpole. He loved reading old Persian tales and came across one called Three Princes of Serendip (Serendip is now know as Sri Lanka) . It told of three young princes who went into the world to seek their fortunes. None found fortune, but each found something even better. One found love, one found beauty, one peace.

Today, Serendipity, the term Walpole coined has been redefined to mean happy accident. But people who say serendipity is a happy accident miss Wolpole’s main point. To him, serendipity was something that could happen only if a person was aware and wise, and only if they were seeking something specific, which gave them a basis on which to judge something else as better. Serendipity is a mindset that people can develop. It requires (awareness, understanding, observation, alertness), and it requires that we be seeking something (have goals, aims, objectives). The definition suggests that as we combine our wisdom with our structure, we will cause the phenomenon of discovering things that are better than what we were pursuing.

A father, looking out his office window, notices that it is an exceptionally beautiful afternoon and decides he could finish the work he is doing the next morning. He goes home early and takes his three-year-old to the zoo.

A businessman reads an article that gives him a new idea. He changes his schedule and makes some phone calls which end up providing him with a lucrative new client.

A mother has set a goal to clean out her refrigerator but just as she is starting, she notices that her two-year old is looking at picture books on his own for the first time. She puts off the refrigerator for a while and reads to the child.

A couple on their second honeymoon is waiting in line in an airport to get a rental car. They strike up a conversation with a woman in the line, who happens to tell them of a marvelous, quaint little hotel. They change their reservations from the plan given to them by the travel agent and end up discovering a “perfect place”.


Goals are a good thing. You need them. But always allow God to do something even better than you could ask for or imagine. If you are reading this blog regularly, chances are you are pursuing success in business or sales. As you read the posts for next week, be open to something even better.

Using Failure As A Stepping Stone Toward Success - Part 5

Basketball great, Bill Russell was cut from his high school basketball team.

Football quarterbacking great, Johnny Unitas was cut by the Pittsburgh Steelers before trying out for the Baltimore Colts.

After Ty Cobb retired from baseball, he became a scout for the Detroit Tigers. He was sent to Memphis to check out a twenty-one year old first baseman. He returned after three days to Detroit and said, “Forget him. He’s clumsy as an ox in the field and he can’t hit curve balls.”
Three years later, that young first baseman named Lou Gehrig was playing for the New York Yankees and became one of the greatest players in the history of the game.

Popular Mechanics forecasting in 1949, “Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons.”

In 1943, IBM Chairman Thomas Watson said, “I think there is a world market for maybe 5 computers.

An advanced computer engineer at IBM commenting on the microchip in 1968, “But what is it good for?”

“There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home.” Comment from Ken Olson, President, Chairman, and Founder of Digital Equipment

An internal memo at Western Union in 1876 read, “This telephone has too many short comings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us.”

“This wireless music box has no imaginable commercial value. Who would pay for a message sent to no one in particular?” This came from David Sarnoff’s associates in response to his urgings for investment in the radio during the 1920’s.

Using Failure As A Stepping Stone Toward Success - Part 4

Charles Darwin was college drop out and wrote in his auto-biography, “I was considered by all my masters and by my father, a very ordinary boy, rather below the common standard for intellect”.

Walt Disney was fired by a news paper editor for lack of creative ideas and went bankrupt several times before opening Disneyland.

Winston Churchill failed the sixth grade and only became Prime Minister of England after a lifetime of defeats and setbacks.

Leo Tolstoy, author of War and Peace, flunked out of college. He was described as both unable and unwilling to learn.

Famous Opera Star Enrico Caruso’s teacher said he had no voice at all and could not sing.

Scientist Louis Pasteur was a mediocre pupil and ranked 15 out of 22 in his chemistry class.

Henry Ford went broke five times before finally making it big.

Multi-Million Copy best-seller Jonathan Livingston Seagull was written by author Richard Bach. Before being published by Macmillan in 1970 it was turned down by 18 publishers. By 1975 it had sold over seven million copies in the U.S. alone.

Using Failure As A Stepping Stone Toward Success - Part 3

Abraham Lincoln lost 5 elections and several appointed positions he sought before being elected President.

Department store founder R H Macey had 7 business failures before his New York store caught on.

English novelist John Creasey had 753 rejection slips before the first of his 564 books were published.

Novelist Richard Hooker worked for seven years on his humorous War Novel “Mash” only to have it rejected by 21 publishers before Morrow picked it up.

Playwright Tennessee Williams was angry when his play “Me,Vasha” was not selected at a Washington University competition. His teacher recalled that Williams criticized the judges choices and their intelligence as well.

The employers at a dry goods store where Retail Giant F.W. Woolworth started out said he didn’t have enough sense to wait on customers.

A “football expert” once said of Vince Lombardi, “He possesses minimal football knowledge and lacks motivation”.

Beethoven handled the violin awkwardly and was called by his teacher “hopeless as a composer”.

Using Failure As A Stepping Stone Toward Success-Part 2

Actor Luke Perry was rejected 216 times for parts.

When fired by the Grand Ole Opry Elvis Presley was told by the manager “You ain’t goin no where son”.

Writer John Grisham had his first novel, “A Time to Kill” rejected by 25 different publishers.

Oliver Goldsmith got 26 rejection slips on “The First Wives Club”.

New Jersey Governor Christie Todd Whitman was 21 points down in the polls on Oct 1, just a month before her election.

Rush Limbaugh was fired from 7 different jobs.

Relationship expert Barbara De Angelis has been divorced 5 times, once from another relationship expert by the name of John Gray.

Home run king Babe Ruth also holds the record for strike outs (1,330).

Accu Weather’s Joel Meyers developed a list of 15,000 clients. But he had to contact 25,000 potential clients in order to get his first 100.

Multi-Million copy best-seller “Chicken Soup for the Soul” was rejected by 132 publishers

Using Failure As A Stepping Stone Toward Success

My recent posts have been on good luck and bad luck, learning from lost sales, the grief process after losing a big sale etc... This week all my posts will be on the failure's of some very successful people. If you are experiencing hard times in your sales career right now, these short stories should inspire you. Failure is just part of the success process.

Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team. Since joining the Chicago Bulls he has missed over 9,000 shots, lost over 300 games, missed over 26 game winning shots. “I’ve failed over and over again,” Jordan says, “and that’s why I succeed.”

Harrison Ford was told by a top movie producer that he didn’t have what it took to be a star in the movies.

Sam Walton’s expansion store failed and he lost the lease on the first successful store. He had to start over.

NBC Today Show Host Matt Lauer was fired 5 times in 5 years from Broadcasting Jobs. During one jobless period he answered a classified ad to be a tree trimmer.

Ross Perot made over 70 calls on potential clients before he made his first sale starting IDS.

“Can’t act. Can’t sing. Can dance a little.” was the talent scout report on a young Fred Astaire.

Albert Einstein was described by one of his teachers as “mentally slow, unsociable, and adrift forever in his foolish dreams.” He did not speak until he was four and did not read until he was seven.

Marilyn Monroe was rejected by a modeling school.

Billionaire investor Warren Buffet was rejected by Harvard Business School.

It's Sunday... I'm Recharging!

Shifting The Near Death Sale

I have been talking about the role of luck in sales this last week. We started out on Monday with a Zen Story that challenges all of us to rethink the events we designate to be good or bad luck. Sometimes circumstances that appear on the surface to be bad luck, after closer examination, really are good luck.

On Tuesday, I began exploring ways to turn bad luck into good luck. Friday I shared some ideas on the grief process as it applies to losses we all inevitably face in a sales career. Today I want to share a few thoughts on what I call “checking for a heartbeat”. Occasionally in medicine we here a story about someone who was pronounced dead or beyond hope only to have them miraculously rally back to life. Sales can offer similar situations. We can lose out on the opportunity to serve an important account if we prematurely assume the sale is dead.

I recommend checking with the decision maker using an approach like the following:

Mr. Decision Maker, first I want to tell you I appreciate the opportunity to present our service to your organization. I hope you have a good experience with Brand X and I hope I have earned the right to present again next time. We are constantly looking for ways to improve our products and services. Would you mind sharing what the other company offered that was the most attractive? (Let them answer fully and make sure to ask questions that give you the full picture. After discovering the issue…) If we could have offered you that feature and benefit would we have been able to keep your business? (Get the answer to this question. If the answer was yes….) Have you already signed a contract? (If the answer is no…) Would you allow me to check with my manager and see if that is something we could do for you also?

Sometimes you can put the shock paddles on the heart of a program and re-start it. Sometimes you can’t. But develop an emergency room strategy designed to pull deals back. This might only save one or two contracts a year, but if they are big accounts it can mean a nice bump in your paycheck. If you truly do offer the best solution, it could also mean your customer gets served with an increase in benefits.

Grieving The Lost Sale

Losing a big sale or a series of small ones can have tremendous implications on the rest of your life. It could cost you major income. It could negatively affect your career advancement and even whether or not you keep your job. Ultimately your marriage could be affected, your children’s Christmas could be affected, and on it goes.

Consequently, losing a sale could initiate all the stages of the grief process including:

Shock
Denial
Bargaining
Anger
Sadness/Depression
Renewal

I know what it means to lose the biggest account in my territory. It feels like I have been kicked in the stomach by a championship martial artist. You may feel it in a different part of your body. Some people get migrane headaches. Regardless of where you feel it, these emotions can go on for weeks and affect future sales.

I recommend calling a good friend, trusted peer, or an understanding trainer or manager and talking about it. Don’t hold the emotions in. If you are a crier then cry. At the same time, do everything you can to start setting the stage for the next sale in the cycle. Publicly maintain your professionalism when communicating with the client. I have been with marketing reps that seem to find it helpful to go out and kick the tires on their car. That’s fine, but if possible, wait until you are out of the clients parking lot. Always express your desire to learn with the decision maker and use the information to get better. Feel it, assimilate the learning, let it go, and move on.

I think the best way to move on is to re-focus on serving your current clients. Then quickly re-focus on serving new ones. Learning how to lose and move through the emotion is part of learning how to be great in the world of selling. In fact, it’s part of learning how to be great in the world of anything.

The Lucky Loss Learning Journal

Sales like all work really is essentially problem solving. With most sales there are what I call barriers to business. These barriers are usually perceptions or perspectives in the prospects mind that either keep you from the sale or slow down the momentum and progress. Every business is different, but in my business there are about 10 of them with 2 or 3 being the most common.

In order to serve your client and increase your success you need to learn how to resolve some of these concerns. Notice I did not say, “You need to learn to overcome these objections”. I don’t believe in overcoming objections. Sales people who get focused on overcoming objections often end up getting into an argument with their prospective client. What you do need to do is learn ways to work side by side with your potential customers in ways that will resolve their concerns. It’s a whole different mindset.

To get started on this path, I recommend putting together a journal. A binder is good because you can add sections and pages. Each time a prospective customer gives you a reason they won’t buy your product or service, write it down in your journal.
I’m guessing that over time you’ll come up with 10-15 items with 3 or 4 standing out as the most common.

Take them one at a time. Set up a page or even a section tab in the binder devoted solely to this issue. Then begin to brainstorm ways to resolve the customers concern. You can also brainstorm with peers and your manager. And one of the best ways to brainstorm is with the customer. Just straight up ask them what would resolve the issue or concern in their mind.

The resolution may take many different forms. In may simply mean learning to explain something better or different. The concern may be the result of a communication glitch on your part. It may mean building a communication tool that will add clarity. It may be a series of reference letters that speak specifically to that concern. And it may mean working with the company to alter your product or service.

Want to increase your luck in selling? Learn to serve your customers better. Learn to add more value. Start learning today by building a new Lucky Loss Learning Journal.

Turning Bad Luck Into Good Luck

To increase your good luck in sales you have to learn how to convert the bad luck into good luck. In outside selling there are two fundamentally different kind of sales calls. Prospecting calls are essentially going out cold calling and looking for accounts interested in using your product/service. They are pretty much convinced that what you sell is a good solution for them and your primary job is to find them and sign them up. Like the prospectors of the 1849 California Gold Rush these callers are looking for gold that already exists… it just a matter of making enough calls to find enough nuggets of gold. In other words, prospecting is pretty much a matter of going out and looking to get lucky.

Sales Alchemy is another matter entirely. An alchemist in medieval times was something of a magician who could reportedly take a non-precious metal like lead and turn it into gold. Alchemist weren’t out looking for existing gold but looking for ways to turn non-gold into gold. In sales, alchemy is any attempt to take an account that is apathetic or even hostile to your product/service and transform them into interested and eventually passionate users.

Very few sales people make this distinction in their mind. Prospecting is more or less a numbers game. Call on enough accounts and you will eventually find enough people that want to buy. I always recommend that for the first 3 months in their territory, even up to the first year, my reps focus on prospecting, finding people that want to buy. Eventually though you may run out of those and have to learn a whole new skill set. You may have to learn how to manufacture some luck.

Alchemy is where you really begin to earn your money. I always loved the challenge of taking someone who was completely disinterested and transforming the relationship over time into a sale. The best feeling in the world is taking a customer that is completely hostile because of a past negative experience and turning them into a raving fan. And the essence of alchemy is learning what will best serve your individual customer and give it to them.

The Sales Nightmare-Making A Loss Serve You

Failure may seem like an unusual step to success but there are some businesses and professions where failure actually can lead to success. Sales is one of those professions. In fact, one way you look at it, you actually get paid for your ability to handle failure. Especially in outside selling you may go several days with out selling a thing. This requires a special tough minded optimism. Many people can’t handle this and quit. If most calls resulted in a sale anybody could sell and there would be no demand for salespeople. Be grateful each time someone says no. Your ability to keep going to the next call is part of what makes you very valuable.

You actually want to fail faster. The more people that say no, the more opportunities you will have for people to say yes. Make more calls, visit more potential customers. Your failures will increase but so will your successes. It’s just a numbers game. If you call on 15 accounts and only get 1 yes, you can probably call on 30 accounts and get 2 yeses.

Sales is also a learning game. The more you fail, the more opportunities to learn. You really don’t learn that much from your successes. You build confidence. But in your failures are great opportunities to learn, to grow, to get better. Of course the learning is not automatic. You have to analyze each failure and adjust your behavior to get any benefit. As you learn you change the numbers game in your favor. Maybe now you can call on 15 accounts and get 2 yeses. By selling smarter you’ve doubled your success rate. But you only get smarter with experience and failure.

Every sales call is a potential opportunity to learn how to better serve your client base. Remember yesterday’s story and moral. Losing a sale doesn’t have to be bad luck.

Have You Had Some Bad Luck???

I love Zen Stories and one of my favorites is the story about the Old Chinese Man who had one horse and one son. The horse broke out of the corral one day and took off for the hill country. His neighbors came around that night and chattered, “Your horse got away… what bad luck!” “Why,” the old Chinese Man countered, “How do you know it’s bad luck?” Sure enough, the next night the horse came back to his familiar corral for the usual feeding and watering, leading twelve wild stallions with him. The farmer’s son saw the thirteen horses in the corral, slipped out and shut the gate behind them. Suddenly the old man had thirteen horses instead of none. The neighbors heard the good news and came back chattering, “Oh, you have thirteen horses, what good luck!” And the old Chinese answered, “How do you know it’s good luck?”

A few days later his strong young son was out in the corral trying to break one of the wild stallions only to be thrown off and break a leg in two places. His neighbors came back and passed another hasty judgment: ‘Your son broke his leg? What bad luck!” And the wise father answered again, “How do you know it’s bad luck?” Sure enough, a few days later a Chinese war lord came through and conscripted every able-bodied young man, taking them off to war, never to return again. But the young man couldn’t go because of the broken leg.

Only God is wise enough to know what’s really good luck and bad luck. Remember this story next time you have a difficulty in your sales career.

It's Sunday...I'm Recharging!

Welcome To March

Last month the posts focused on the role of relationships in Servant Selling. We talked about customer and client relationships, relationships with our partners and peers, and relationships with those up and down the organization.

March is the month of St. Patrick's Day and March Madness in College Basketball. The posts will focus on a handful of topics but we'll start out looking at the role of luck in Servant Selling. Selling has some of the characteristics of the slot machine in Vegas. Some days you just walk up to the right machine, pull the lever, and cash in. It's probably more like poker, where skill and knowledge of the game blend with luck to create an outcome. In poker, anyone can win a hand, but over time, the skilled player with insight and discipline will win out.

March is also the month of "Power Week" this year. That is the week between Palm Sunday and Easter that Christians celebrate around the world. I have a special series of posts planned for that time frame. Jesus said, the sun and the rain falls on everyone regardless of how good they are. We'll take a quick look at the idea of blessing and favor which may be confused with luck. I’ll probably even use that week to take a look at how Jesus might work in the profession of selling.

Enjoy the following embedded YouTube clip and grab yourself a bowl of Lucky Charms.