Sales Gold Dust

I’ve always thought that good advice is only as valuable as the store that people put in it and the actions they take following it.

Having had a friend call me tonight asking me for some I thought I’d share it here.  She’s about to start cold calling in her first ‘real’ sales role and is nervous about it, and asked what makes a good sales person. Much as I tried to avoid it, I found myself talking in cliches, but only ones that I truly believe, and have experienced, to be accurate.

Successful people are the those that do the things that unsuccessful people don’t (or won’t).

Spend time on the activities that generate business, don’t get bogged down in admin during prime ‘callout’ time.

Every unsuccessful call is a step closer to the gold dust call.  Every successful call is good practice for the next one. Just don’t stop.

These are three bits of advice that ALL sales people know. Good sales people live by them, and bad salespeople just know them, but don’t action.

 

 

Negative language

I can’t do that. I’m never going to get the time. Why am I even quoting for this when I’m not going to win it? Something always goes wrong. I always get stuck in traffic. I wish I had time to go to the gym more often. I’m not fit enough to do anything like that. I’ve tried to stop smoking a bunch of times and I can’t do it. I never get enough sleep. My wireless network never connects properly.

Why can’t we talk more positively?

The statements above are all actual or paraphrased ststements that I’ve heard people give over the last couple of weeks. Can anyone spot what they all have in common?

Would you be surprised if I told you that the reality you experience is very likely to be quite different from the reality your colleagues experience? or your husband/wife? or mine?

The problem with reality is its not fundamentally based on whats ‘there’ its based on how we perceive whats there, and that can vary drastically depending on how we interpret and describe that ‘reality’. Have you ever noticed how two different people can watch the same events and have completely different visions of what actually happened?

One of the ways we interpret our world is through the language we use. Not just to describe to other people, but the language we use to urselves. Our internal monologues are an aspect of life that is almost always there, reinforcing our beliefs and understandings, helping us to make sense of what we’ve seen and experienced.  You probably know this already, or at least this likely makes sense to you. The old ‘glass half full’ or ‘half empty’ adage springs to mind as a good example. There is no difference to the actual physical reality, but people will describe and therefore experience the same thing in different ways, and feel and act very differently according to that perspective.

Here’s the rub though – if we already know that how we perceive and describe things to ourselves and others has an impact on our understanding and feelings about those events, why do we persist on using negative language to describe our reality??

‘I can’t do this’???  –  Surely it would be better as ‘How can I do this?’

‘I’m no good at that’ – Better as ‘I’m going to get better at this.’

Is your target unreachable? or do you just need to plan, and action, the steps needed to overachieve?

What are you going to change to make your life better?

Why?

A Zen teacher saw five of his students returning from the market, riding their bicycles. When they arrived at the monastery and had dismounted, the teacher asked the students, “Why are you riding your bicycles?”

The first student replied, “The bicycle is carrying the sack of potatoes. I am glad that I do not have to carry them on my back!” The teacher praised the first student, “You are a smart boy! When you grow old, you will not walk hunched over like I do.”

The second student replied, “I love to watch the trees and fields pass by as I roll down the path!” The teacher commended the second student, “Your eyes are open, and you see the world.”

The third student replied, “When I ride my bicycle, I am content to chant nam myoho renge kyo.” The teacher gave praise to the third student, “Your mind will roll with the ease of a newly trued wheel.”

The fourth student replied, “Riding my bicycle, I live in harmony with all sentient beings.” The teacher was pleased, and said to the fourth student, “You are riding on the golden path of non-harming.”

The fifth student replied, “I ride my bicycle to ride my bicycle.” The teacher sat at the feet of the fifth student and said,”I am your student!”

 *Copied from the ‘Veloquent’ blog here.*

I like this. Sometimes we just need to do what we do because we like to do it, not for any other conscious reason. Not to justify it to ourselves or anyone else, but because it free’s us from having to find reasons and arguments to do something we enjoy.

Once upon a time, I was quite a good rock climber. I trained, I entered competitions, I even tried out for the British squad (unsuccesfully, but I didn’t do too bad – in fact, a friend of mine, Chris Cubitt, became British Climbing Champion for 2 or 3 years on the trot, and I remember beating him at one of them!). Funny thing was though, I got better at climbing when I stopped training and just climbed for fun. I did half as much work, lost a chunk of muscle, and started using better technique and smiling a hell of a lot more. I just climbed – to climb. No more, no less.

I’m sure there’s something in that, somewhere.

Just Do It! « Sharon’s Perspective

Just Do It! « Sharon’s Perspective

Interesting blog here.

How do you make YOURselves get up and do the things that need doing? Any tips and tricks you can share? Pointers that might help the rest of us DO something toward making our goals and dreams come true?  We all need a bit of a nudge now and then, and most of the time we have to nudge ourselves – lets see if we can come up with some additional ideas.

One of my personal favorites if I want to make sure I achieve something is to tell as many people as possible. If there’s eough people that are expecting me to achieve, I find a way to make sure it happens. NB – this DOES mean being realistic with your goals 😉

Am I a geek?

An absolutely FASCINATING article here. Called Geek Etiquette, it is a summary of a talk by Michael Schwern “Geek to geek:how we fail, how to fix it.”   Swear words are used in the post, but I’m pretty sure that most of my readers are adults, and can handle it.

The interesting bit for me is the piece about tact filters. The extract below explains this a little –

“Most non-geeks have outbound tact filters: they filter what they want to say and add polite noise as it passes through. Geeks have inbound tact filters: they take bare communication with no politeness and just wrap it in assumed politeness as they interpret it.

When non-geeks talk, geeks think the polite sounds they make are redundant.

When geeks talk, non-geeks just think they’re being incredibly rude.”

I’m interested in peoples thoughts on this. I’m a firm believer that the language we use is incredibly important. Not just in the way that other people perceive us, but in the way that we perceive and understand the world. The words we use ‘shape’ our world. If we continually use negative words – can’t, problem, stupid etc – it skews our perception of the world so that these words become real. We see ‘problem’ instead of ‘challenge’, or see people as ‘stupid’, instead of just having done something that didn’t work out.

Waking up every morning and saying (and believing) ‘today is a GREAT day’ will typically make the day a lot more fun and productive than waking up and thinking ‘I hate my job’, for example.

The spin that the article linked above brings is fairly simple for me. Lack of positive words does NOT necessarily equal negative. Just because your boss doesn’t tell you how good you are every morning, or a co worker doesn’t ask if you want a cup of coffee when they make one for themselves, doesn’t necessarily mean anything.  It could very easily be that they just don’t consider it; that its understood that you are valued, and that engaging in social niceties is just a waste of time. NB – this is not often a conscious consideration either.

As far as I am concerened, rudeness (and politeness) has to have TWO aspects.

1. The act of rudeness itself (or ommission of politeness)
2. Sincerity (The INTENT to be rude, cause offense or snub; or the converse, the desire to be polite or praise)

Without BOTH elements, it’s just an accident of perception, and offense should not be taken. (In fact, it’s rarely a good idea to take offense in any case. It doesn’t work for the offender if the offendee doesn’t take it. – A good lesson in customer service is that irate customers are almost never angry at the person in front of them, just a service or product which is perceived to be below par.)

Funnily enough, I got a new satellite navigation system recently, and the voice on it is already causing me to grit my teeth for this very reason. When I approach a junction it always tells me to ‘Please prepare to turn’. Maybe I’m a geek (I’ve been called worse), as this false politeness just seems to be a complete waste of time and effort. It cannot possibly be sincere, it is delivered by a machine, so what point does it serve?

What’s the point?

Just to think about it, consider colleagues with a slightly different angle, and to consider who you’re speaking to and how your own communications might be perceived by them.

Write your own story!

So the first day of the new year is over. How many of us made New years resolutions I wonder, and how many of those resolutions now lie in splinters on the floor, circumstances ‘beyond our control’ having forced us to break them ‘against our own wishes’.

Did you know that in a survey some time ago of 1200 managers, 4% of them were classified as peak performers?

What was the common denominator here? This 4% all took full responsibility for themselves, their teams, and their results. There was no blaming of others, no blaming of circumstances, in fact, no blame at all. Even when questioned about poor outcomes there was no ‘self kicking’, just a rational analysis of what went wrong in an effort to find a better way for next time. This top 4% are the ones who realise that they write the story of their own lives, and thats a pretty powerful realisation.  Once you accept this, it can give you a power over your own destiny that was never possible up til that point.

You can picture this concept quite simply. Picture an open book – on the left side, the pages are filled with text, on the other side, they are completely blank.  The left side is the bits that no one person can control. The environment, other people, society, culture etc. The things we just have to deal with. Its important to see though, that although we may not have ‘control’ over this side of the book, we can influence it in many ways, because the other side is ALL written by us. If we don’t like the way things are going, we can change the story.

We can write a new page every day, or we can write a chapter all at once as a guide, but it is up to every one of us to write our own story the way we WANT to write it. If the story’s not working out so well, change it! If you can’t change it all at once, change little bits. Make the story work for you.

The important thing is that you take responsibility for your own life and, well, write it yourself.

Good luck!

The Way of the Dog ‘The Art of Making Success Inevitable’ by Geoff Burch.

The Way of The Dog – The Art of Making Success Inevitable

I haven’t written a book review for a while now, so I thought it about time.  The Way of The Dog, by Geoff Burch is one I read recently and thought it would fit here.

‘The Art of Making Success Inevitable” is the subtitle, and a little more descriptive than the main title. Unlilke other books of this ilk though, it’s presented as a novel, rather than as a dry text book, which makes it extremely easy and enjoyable to read.

It’s essentially a story about an unsuccessful salesperson, who exhibits pretty much every self sabotage trait going. Picking and choosing people to call on, seeing every obstacle as an insurmountable barrier, getting defensive and aggresive with clients and, shockingly, believing that his prospects are stupid because they won’t listen to what he has to say.

Getting turned into a sheepdog could easily have become a stopper for him, but it’s turned on its head and used to tell a story which graphically illustrates what most of us ‘know’, but don’t ‘do’.

I’d be lying if I said there was any great revelations here, but then- are there any great revelations to be revealed nowadays?  Ina  world where most of us know most of what we should be doing but have forgotten to apply it, this is a useful reminder and an enjoyable book to boot.

Check it out.
The Way of the Dog: The Art of Making Success Inevitable

An update on a Duathlon

Weeelll – you know how it is. I meant to do it, I really did. I had my goal all set – finish a 2/10/2 Duathlon (Thats a 2 mile run, 10 mile ride and another 2 mile run, all off road) in less than 90Minutes.  I had my training plan all mapped out, I knew exactly what I had to achieve each step of the way.

BUT

Things get in the way. Stuff happens. Plans change. Goals change. Life changes. Who I am today is not the same as who I was yesterday, and accomodations must be made that appreciate that.  Blah, blah, blah… Excuses, excuses….

You may be thinking by now that I didn’t race the Duathlon, and you’d be WRONG. The bit that changed was the time and position goal. Having become incredibly busy at work, my family took precedence over training for a personal achevement goal and I din’t spend enough time training. The plan went out of the window to be replace by a new, less intensive and less structured plan. I.e. I didn’t go jogging as much as I could have or should have to achieve what I wanted to achieve. 

That is NOT to say that I failed. No one fails until they give up, and often perceived failure is merely because the goal wasn’t set right to begin with. Priorities change and we should not get overly upset about goals changing along with these. They are, after all, only targets.

So, although I don’t yet know the final results, I’m pretty suer I didn’t achieve my placeing goal (top 40%), and I’m absolutely certain I didn’t achieve my time goal (90 minutes).  It has to be said though, that the appalling weather today had a significant impact on the time goal. Running in temperatures approx 2C, and sheeting rain does that. I was muddier, colder and more exhausted finishing this event than I have been in a looong time. The sense of achievement remains though – I completed it in approximately 1Hr 55 Minutes.

Now its just a case of stepping up the training for the next event in February.