Today Was a Great Day Because….

If you can’t complete the sentence without much thought, think about changing what you do for a living. Look, I know that we all have responsibilities, not the least of which is providing, at least for ourselves and in most cases for others as well. But I would argue that if that fact is the sole motivator for staying where you are, you are probably performing less well than you could and sooner or later that will dawn on your employer. If we don’t enjoy what we are doing, and don’t find meaning in what we are doing, we tend to perform just well enough to keep the position at the current rate of pay. That is to say the boss probably figures, “He isn’t the best but the return on his cost to me is acceptable, even if no big deal." That being the case, when someone else becomes available with more promise in the boss’ eyes than you, your job will be in jeopardy anyway.

My message is that you can do, and be, better than that; much better. Among the differences between outstanding performers and average performers, are their respective feelings about the meaningfulness of their work. A Harvard Medical School graduate with a specialty in thoracic surgery, performing two surgeries per day over fifteen years and getting wealthy doing it, is probably no better than average in his surgical skills if each day at the operating table he wishes instead that he was spending his time in medical research and leading the charge in ending the very diseases that are now making him rich. In order to be great at what we do, it’s important that we find meaning in, and love it as well.

As Malcolm Gladwell points out in his terrific book, Outliers, The Story of Success, “…it is not how much money we make that ultimately makes us happy between nine and five, it’s whether our work fulfills us.”

Without getting overly philosophical, and at the risk of stating the oft repeated and obvious, life's a short run. So much of it is spent at work. Wasting a moment of time, much less eight plus hours per day, five days a week, at what for you is meaningless work, squanders the gift, limits your contribution to others and your chance to be great.

Great Selling!

LOVE YOUR WORK AND WORK TIRELESSLY
Communicate Honestly and Fearlessly
Serve, Don't Sell
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Teamwork

Great Salesmen Don't Sell the USP, They Are the USP

Character is the key differentiator between the great majority of average sellers and the uncommon and remarkable seller. "Hotshots" are skilled openers and closers and are at the middle-upper right side of the bell shaped curve of sales proficiency. Grunts who never stop knocking on doors, picking up lunch tabs, and sending anniversary and birthday cards fall somewhere in the middle. Movie goers flitting from job to job relying on their dancin' shoes to keep a shuffle ahead of their next dismissal, are located bottom left.

Way at the right upper end are the one in ten, maybe twenty who really are the "goods."

These great sellers live to serve. They come to each client and prospect bearing gifts of self-abnegating work to solve problems and grasp opportunities for their "partners." They bring their creativity, knowledge, open mind, indefatigability and sincere concern for their constituent's well being on every call. When they ask, "how can I help you?" they mean just that. When they say, "I need a half hour of your time because I am sure that I can help you," they mean that too.

These remarkable sellers represent products and services of value (or they wouldn't be representing them) but they don't visit to sell their wares. They come to improve the business of those they visit. These sellers invest their time as if it was the capital set aside for their kids' educations. The intensity and energy they expend on behalf of their clients is selfless in nature, and meaningful in outcome. They are the ones the clients want, even need to deal with. They are the most valuable commodity the client spends their cash on.

They are their companys' unique selling proposition.

Great Selling!

Love Your Work and Work Tirelessly
Communicate Honestly and Fearlessly
SERVE, DON'T SELL
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Teamwork

Many Politicians Can Sell, Few Salesmen Can Politic

To be a great salesman, you need to have only ONE agenda: How can I help this client, and then that client and then the next? The only "which way is the wind blowing" agonizing you need to suffer is the competitive field, brand position and product value of your current and next customer. If you become really good at that suffering, the process will morph to pure joy and your clients' businesses will grow and you will become rich and famous. OK, maybe just rich.

I was reminded of the waste of time and potentially destructive results of politicking today by a very smart partner who pointed out that a recent "strategic" communication of mine ("politically" motivated) was likely a "misfire." He was right, but more importantly it surprised me that I needed to be reminded of who I am and what I do. And what I do not, is run for, or occupy, public office. I am not a politician and have never learned the art either academically or experiencially. The good news is to accomplish what I am charged with, has nothing to do with politics. And that's probably true for you as well.

So--don't buy the sales manager a strawberry donut with sprinkles on it unless you would if he were a school crossing guard and not your boss. Likewise, the potential customer. "Oh wow, a donut. Thanks so much. Here's a $50,000 order." Put all your energy and creativity to work solving as many people's problems as you can. Make as many lives better for their contact with you as you possibly can. That's the only agenda that will make you what I hope you want to be. Special.

Great Selling!

Love Your Work and Work Tirelessly
Communicate Honestly and Fearlessly
Serve, Don't Sell
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Teamwork

Honest and Fearless Communication...always

In 1990, 73 of 148 passengers died aboard an Avianca Columbian Airline Flight on an approach to John F. Kennedy Airport, in New York. They died, as documented by Malcolm Gladwell in his remarkable new book, "The Outliers," because of the culturally inherited reticence on the part of the co-Pilot to fearlessly and honestly communicate to his superior, the Pilot/Captain. According to Gladwell, a lower social or professional status in Columbian society calls for subservient carriage including what linguists call "mitigated communication." A practioner of mitigated communication, in effect offers sugar coated pronouncements, even in time of peril, to another of a higher status. It's as if the co-pilot might say within seconds of a potentially calamitous crash landing, "excuse me, sorry to disturb Captain, but if you've a mind to, you may want to consider pulling up, and starting our approach over." There's more to this particular story and it's a fascinating book, well worth pushing up near the top of your "to read" list, but suffice to repeat that many people died for lack of a fearless and honest communication from the first officer to the captain of that flight.

At the risk of appearing to trivialize this horrific event, most businesses, careers and sellers fail to maximize the opportunities before them for the same reason. Absolute honesty and the average seller are perfect strangers. The average sales executive is highly focused on closing the sale, every sale of everything he represents to anyone that can pay for it. Ergo, the necessity for the dictum, caveat emptor, let the buyer beware. And he is!

Because the number of average sellers by definition is multitudinous most buyers walk around "caveating" all the time. They are trained to smell polished, slick closers, and if the odor is strong enough, they are going to "pass" much more often than not.

Among the key attributes however, of the extraordinary seller, manager, COO and CEO is a core value of "the truth as I see it come H--- or high water". The uncommon and remarkable seller labors to connect his product or service to the suspected needs of well researched, targeted customers. In his early meeting(s) with the customer he seeks to affirm to himself, well before he attempts to make the case to the customer that his need-assumption was correct. When that is found to be the case he uses every artful technique he's developed to lower the buyer-seller barrier and to serve that new customer well. The cornerstone of the relationship becomes the trust, based upon his commitment and honesty, accorded to him by his new partner.

The crown jewel of the fearless and honest communicator is bestowed by customers, colleagues and employers, and in business, there's no more valuable a jewel.

Great Selling!

Love Your Work and Work Tirelessly
COMMUNICATE HONESTLY AND FEARLESSLY
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Serve, Don't Sell
Teamwork

Service Determines Lifetime Value

I have six kids (all drivers) and haven't had less than 4 cars for years (usually at least two clunkers among them). From the beginning I used the same outlet for tires and often other service. Safe to say, I am a good customer. Sometimes I wondered if I really needed the brake pads changed, after all I am not a particularly naive consumer, but I would write off that cynicism in favor of the congeniality of the center's manager as well as his demonstrated attention to getting my work done in a timely way, or squeezing me in on very short notice. I have been willing to trade some pricing for convenience (service).

One of my sons departs for a cross country adventure this week. He'll drive to New Mexico and so we brought his car in for a tire check-up. One thing led to another and new tires became brakes, brake pads, rotors and axles..$1,300.00. Well, no cost too dear for his safety. Lucky we brought the car in.

Upon leaving the shop my son was startled by a vibration, he correctly, it turned out, believed was the engine. Before a city block passed he returned the car and described the feeling to my friend the manager, who then put the car on the lift and while everyone waited spent the better part of an an hour investigating. He announced "it's coincidental, and I really am not sure why it is happening but nothing we did could have caused it." I don't know a crank shaft from a chocolate eclair but I pointed out that logic dictated "no vibration when we bring it in, vibration when we pick it up," it happened in the tinkering.

The manager says "can't be, stranger things have happened, and besides which if I go to a dentist for a problem in one tooth which he works on and while doing so another flares up in the other side of the mouth, does that mean he's to blame?" I finally posit to my friend the manager, that we can philosophise about this until the cows come home or he can take full responsibility for fixing the problem, no matter what he finds it to be. He decided he'd pay half the cost of repair and that my half would be about another $400.00. O.K.

Now let's say over the years, before this visit, I'd spent $5000.00 at his place; now an additional $1,300.00 for the required service this time. For another $400.00 you know he's lost my business forever. I'd say this was a very short-sighted decision and really bad service.

Great Selling!

Love Your Work and Work Tirelessly
Communicate Honestly and Fearlessly
SERVE, DON'T SELL
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Teamwork

A Noble Vocation

There are few gaps as wide as reality and the general perception of salesmen. Unfortunately too many sales executives, well intentioned as they might be, contribute to the stereotype of the profession; "Oily sellers of ice to the Eskimos." The well intentioned, but poorly trained representative focuses his/her attention on closing, closing and closing, too often without regard to the real value of his product or services to the person he is cajoling to "sign here."

Consistently great sellers are intimately aware of, and passionate believers in, the unique attributes of their product to a well targeted prospect. They spend all their vocational energy looking for the right people to help, are tenacious about making contact with them and skilled well enough to overcome the inherent distrust of customers to any sales person. In so doing they gain the trust and the open mind of the buyer. They come offering a genuine path to growth, pleasure and satisfaction, and the buyer "sees" it.

I have a friend, a serial entrepreneur, who has a debilitating disease which over the past fifteen years has robbed him of mobility and fine motor coordination. The experience has re-focused his interest in how he earns his living. He still is an entrepreneur and is still interested in the economic rewards of successful business endeavors, but in addition is only interested in creating businesses which help make life "more livable" for disabled people. Because he has always been a media professional, his attentions are now directed at making Internet experience just as efficient for the impaired as for the non-impaired population. Brad serves. He spends very little time focused on selling. He talks to companies about availing themselves of his services so that they can grow their businesses while feeling very good about themselves by providing much needed services to others.

Brad in my view spends his work life in every bit as noble a profession as any doctor, lawyer or fireman.

Read AOL Co-founder Ted Leonsis' book "The Business of Happiness" and learn how to give so much and get so much more in return.

Great Selling!

Love Your Work and Work Tirelessly
Communicate Honestly and Fearlessly
SERVE, DON'T SELL!
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Teamwork

Did You Sell Out Your Bridal Fair?

In the last two decades there have been 23,612 radio and TV station-sponsored bridal fairs, 18,915 New Car Shows in shopping mall parking lots and 196,219 "Register to Win" contests at participating retail sponsors. 82,000 "free" vacations have been given to Q1 spenders and 91,000 free golf rounds to buyers of media. (If you don't believe me, you could look it up, as Yogi Berra used to say). Notwithstanding all of that ingenuity and generosity a few broadcast properties apparently still felt the negative effects of a troubled economy during the past several years.

The last time a "Media Marketing Consultant" (that would be a funny title if it wasn't so sad) proposed a thoughtful program to a retailer that took advantage of all the new touch points to consumers that have evolved and changed the way we all spend our time over the past dozen years was...probably, never.

It's hard to keep hearing from otherwise bright and committed people that sales are off because of the economy. Really? Do you mean that when the consumer contracts his spending, and fewer people visit stores and showrooms, and less cash hits the register, retailers get nervous and cut back on their spending? Oh my. Well how have we approached that problem? Ah, you lowered the price of a remote and added a Big Boy Toy Show. Super! So where are we versus the budget now?

Look, your customers don't have the solution, other than a sale to try and lure their consumers to spend. Sadly, neither do you on their behalf. Absent that solution and an advertising strategy, in the face of declining resources, not to spend dollars on advertising is a perfectly rational decision. On the other hand, absent effective advertising a protracted tough economy will occasion a "for rent" sign where there used to be a sporting goods store.

But what if your customer had a great product or service, and you and your production department really knew what they were doing in bringing that product creatively to market? And what if you understood all the new ways people, of every age group, are spending their leisure time with new technolgies? And what if you really understood that these transformative life style changes in time spent on cell phones, community sites (on the phone via apps or directly online) such as Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin, etc., are all new distribution channels that accommodate marketers and have a "spread the word" effect as well? What if you asked for a meeting to help bring the customer up to speed on consumer behavior? And what if you came back after your initial meeting with a well thought out program featuring your asset as the perfect quarterback to direct traffic to all these channels (as well as taking on branding and transacting functions itself?) Who in your market would be able to compete with you? And how long before you crush your budget?

Or, you could have your customer sponsor July in your new listener calendar.


Great Selling!

Love your Work and Work Tirelessly
Communicate Honestly and Fearlessly
Serve, Don't Sell
Collapse Time
Teamwork