The Executive Sales Coach: Keith Rosen’s Sales Blog and Business Blog On Selling, Leadership, Managing Your Team, Business and Life » 2005 » October

Universal Law: How you think is what you get….

Don’t Believe Everything You Hear (and See)

I remember years ago the experience that reinforced this lesson.

One of the businesses I used to own employed about 30 salespeople. I was in the process of recruiting two more salespeople to add to our team.

During the initial training program, I had each new recruit spend the day going out on appointments with a seasoned salesperson.

When the time came for my new salespeople to spread their wings and go out on their own, I noticed some interesting results.

After a few weeks of being in the field, one salesperson quickly demonstrated his selling competency, reinforcing that I made the right hiring decision. However, the other salesperson’s performance was questionable.

How can that be, I wondered? They both received the exact same training and support. They both passed the initial exam demonstrating their knowledge and selling ability. After many skill practice scenarios and role-plays, they both seemed capable of selling effectively.

In my quest to find the answer, I went back to the two seasoned salespeople that took them out in the field for the day to see if I missed anything.
I sat them each veteran down one at a time and asked each onethem, “When you took the new salesperson out in the field, what did you tell them?”

One salesperson responded, “I simply shared with him my personal experience here. I told him not to expect any sales activity until your third month. I also said that you’re not expected to perform immediately and because of the vast amount of product knowledge you need to assimilate, what needs to be learned can be very overwhelming.”

The other salesperson shared, “I told him that you have an opportunity to deliver incredible value to each prospect. You’ll probably wind up selling most of the prospects you speak with. Since the product practically sells itself, my customers feel that it’s really a ‘’”no brainer’”’ to make this purchasing decision. Sometimes the prospect may have one or two concerns, but for the most part, you’ll always be able to design a solution that addresses and diffuses their concerns. Therefore, expect to close nine out of every ten presentations you deliver.”

The lesson? Even though people say, “Seeing is believing,” the truth is, “Believing is seeing.”

What we believe in our hearts and our attitude towards our career, other people and more specifically cold calling affects our behavior, which then creates our experiences and results.

Here were two new salespeople with a desire to succeed who shared the same level of product knowledge and completed the same training program. Yet, each of them performed very differently based on their belief around what to expect regarding their career as well as their level of productivity.

Once again, “How you think is what you get.”

A client of mine called me the other day, sounding all stressed out. She was feeling more pressure to get everything done both at home and at work.

She said she keeps a to do list but as you can imagine, there are still things left over that go uncompleted at the end of each day. She felt a sense of achievement only when she was able cross of an item on her to-do list.

She was hard core result driven and we needed a quick redirect in thinking.

“I love that feeling of  crossing something off on my list,” she declared.

“What about the process?” I asked.

“What about it?” she responded. If I cross something off, I know I’m being productive.”

“Do you feel that way during the process?” I inquired.

She did not.

“Take an activity you engage in every day. It could be cold calling, selling or even going to the gym. So, when you go to the gym, once you’ve reached your ideal weight or your ideal sense of well being, do you stop going?”

What if you focused more on the process and the activities that your engaging in on a daily basis. After all isn’t that ultimately what defines you and your lifestyle. What you do each day? Consider this:

Let the action be the reward and not just the end result.  This will enable you to become more process driven rather than result driven. Results are based on action not the other way around.

Evolution if fluid. Time is fluid.  It’s not meant to have a stopping point. Yet we put superficial expectations around our life on ourselves and on others, which builds a wall between where we are now and what we need to break through to get to where we truly want to be; preventing us from engaging in the moment, enjoying the present and mastering each moment in time.
Let The Action Be The Reward

Rather than having the result be your reward, let the action be your reward. Here’s why. Once you have outlined a path and a success formula to follow (For example if you are a salesperson: X # of calls produces X # of prospects which produces X # of sales), allow the doing or the process to be the reward and where the pleasure resides, not just the end result. This way, you can be responsible for your future goals without having to worry about them.

If you continue your quest with your eyes focused on the finish line, you’ll miss out on the journey. Therefore, be careful not to hook yourself onto the future so that you can enjoy the process of reaching your goals today. Knowing when enough is enough each day and the specific activities you need to engage in provides you with the freedom to trust the process you’ve put in place.

After all, there’s always more to do. There’s always more that can be done at the office, at your home or in your life; another call that can be made or another email that can be read. Exceeding your monthly sales quota and maximizing the potential of your team will be the result of the cumulative efforts you make and the activities you engage in every day.

 When you’re mindful of the process, you now have the opportunity to recognize and celebrate your accomplishments on a daily basis (even the little ones) rather than pushing for or waiting until the “End.” (And when does that happen?)

Priorities vs. Goals- What’s the Difference?

Definition:
Priorities: What is most important and meaningful in your life today (activities, values, beliefs, lifestyle, principles, standards, hobbies, integrity, etc.) that you are not willing to compromise or sacrifice in pursuit of something else (a goal).

Goals: A future based anticipated expectation, possibility, end result or experience you are working towards creating, achieving or bringing to fruition that has not yet been realized in the present.

Comparisons:
Present Focused vs. Future Focused
What Is Happening vs. What Will/May Be
In The Present vs. In The Future

Example:

John had a goal of being a top producer in his company. As such, he looked at the other top producers and the activities they engage in which make them successful. The top salespeople are working twelve hour days, sometimes even seven days a week. Thinking, “It worked for them, so I guess I should do that too,” he decided to give up a chunk of his family/personal time and other enjoyable activities/hobbies in his quest to become financially successful.

Although John’s priority was spending time with his family, he didn’t understand why he felt miserable and encountered resistance while attempting to achieve this goal.

Once he created a personal strategy and a routine for achieving his own bigger goals that supported his lifestyle and priorities without having to sacrifice what matters most to him, he was able to reach his goals with less effort and enjoyed the process even more.

Key Points:

If you are encountering resistance while attempting to reach certain goals or performing certain tasks, chances are it’s either something you really don’t want to be doing, an old goal that may not serve you anymore (a should) or you are operating from someone else’s agenda (also a should)! The bottom line is, these goals don’t support your priorities and you’ll continue to feel “off” throughout your pursuit of these misaligned goals.

Take the time to align your goals with your priorities. Otherwise, you’ll feel confined or powerless to make changes, allowing situations, circumstances or other people to influence or control you. Discover what YOU truly want by aligning your goals with the priorities in your life rather than the “shoulds.”

The fact is, “Should-based goals” do not support your priorities or personal vision. So, if you are unsure whether the goal, activity or task classifies as a should, take a look at your lifestyle, values and priorities and see if they are all in alignment. If the goal doesn’t support them, it’s a “should.”

Benefit of Getting This Distinction:

At the end of the day, your goals need to be aligned with your priorities. Honor the priorities in your life by making them non-negotiable. Before you map out your goals, determine the priorities in your life that you’re not willing to sacrifice. This way, you can identify the activities you need to engage in and what you are willing to give up today (maybe even a conscious, short – term sacrifice of certain priorities) in pursuit of a bigger dream tomorrow.

When your goals are aligned and balanced with your priorities, natural strengths and talents, you’ll maintain your integrity, feel calmer and will experience greater peace of mind and fulfillment while traveling on your path to achieving bigger goals and meaningful, long lasting results.

Once you can orient your life around your priorities, you’ll have fewer goals that you’ll feel compelled to attain or be driven (consumed) by. If you design your life and career around what is most important to you on a daily basis, you’ll avoid becoming hooked or attached to creating something ‘better’ at a future point in time, which can rob you of the quality of your life today.

A master coach telling you to quit? To give up? Read on…

“The most rain we’ve had in about 80 years!” That’s what the news reported, fully expediting my lesson regarding the downside of having a fully finished basement.

Home after home in the New York area began the arduous task of pumping hundreds, sometimes thousands of gallons of water out of their basements. Streets were like rivers, running with water from all the hoses that were used to drain the basements. And then there was the damage, not only the structural or cosmetic damage to each home but to all the possessions that got destroyed by the flooding; miles of carpeting, furniture and other possessions that once warmed up and made a house a home.

Now, I’m only in my new home for about five months now. (15 month project, but that’s a whole other book.) When we first moved in and the movers arrived with our life that was in storage for over a year, I couldn’t believe how much ‘stuff’ we had accumulated! Stuff that I’ve lived without for 13 months. At one point, I asked Eddie, my mover, to bring it back. He said, “You’ll probably wind up throwing most of this out.”

Well, dozens of boxes later, we found a home for everything that Eddie was kind enough to bring back to me; in the garage, the attic and the basement.

Now here’s some irony. Not five months after moving in, this flood came and forced me to throw out at least 80% of these boxes stored in my basement; the same boxes that I paid to have in storage for 13 months, the same boxes I paid to have moved out of my old house and into my new one; the same boxes that were taking up precious real estate in my new home. The kicker is, for the most part I had no idea what was even in them!

So, after 5 sleepless days of pumping and dumping water, doing demo work, cleaning the damage and hauling mounds of newly generated garbage to the curb, we were close to having a dry and functioning basement again. (BTW, my 6 year old daughter thought having a foot of water in the basement was cool. As she said, “Dad, can we leave it like this down here? I always wanted a pool in my house! Can I go swimming? PLEASE?!”)

Being the eternal optimist, I knew there had to be some jewel, some treasure, some A.F.G.O. (Another Freakin’ Growth Opportunity) that I can walk away with from this experience. It was right around the 25th box of stuff that we had stored in the basement and the 40th construction bag filled with debris ranging from toys, clothes, artwork and the drenched sheetrock from the basement walls when the lesson started becoming evident.

I needed to give up. That’s right, I needed to quit. Without the flood, it would have been safe to say that these boxes would have remained quiet and undisturbed for years, simply taking up space and adding to household clutter. Yet, because of this natural disaster I was forced to clear out this clutter; the things that I did not use or no longer served me anymore.

Master the Art of Abandonment

Doesn’t the same philosophy apply to our business, our career and our life? The fact is, there are things you are doing right now which are creating the very results you want to avoid. The kicker is, you may already know this! Yet we still hold on to things that are not working: the toxic people or relationships that we’re better off without, the strategies we keep thinking will eventually work, the philosophies about selling, serving our customers as well as developing and retaining our staff.

The most productive people on the planet have mastered the art of abandonment. That is, the ability to let go of the stuff that no longer works. This is not only limited to what you do but also how you think; the limiting beliefs that keep you prisoner and stall your progress, preventing you from moving ahead.

Here I am, spending time, money and energy on protecting, saving or holding on to things that simply do not work for me or I no longer use; valuing possessions that have little or no worth. But we still hold on thinking, “Well, maybe one day I’ll use that again.”

We all have a place in our home, whether it’s the garage, a closet or a cabinet that is packed with stuff; so packed in fact, that you can’t fit another item in there. Consider that our lives are often set up this way; overflowing with chaos, to-do lists, appointments, projects, the wrong goals, or trying to keep up with overloaded schedules that keep us buried in trivial tasks.

If our lives are cluttered or packed with these things, then how can we make the room what we want most? You can’t add the things you really want into your business and your life if it’s already cluttered with old baggage that should no longer be there in the first place. There’s no space left to fill our lives with what is most important. As such, the ability to attain what we want is compromised.

We spend so much time identifying what we need to get or bring more of into our lives and our careers; more training, more technology, more planning, more systems that we often forget to identify what we need to let go of and give up that would propel us forward faster than any new technique or strategy would.

So, before you run out in search of the next best thing; the next greatest sales or marketing tool, the newest ‘secret’ to attracting top talent or bringing in more new business, see what you can give up first. Make a list of the things you’ve been holding onto, physically or mentally, that are dragging you down and just not working for you. Determine what you have in storage that needs to be let go. What is it costing you to hold on and not let go; not only in your business or career but in your life and the quality of it? (I spent thousands of dollars and hours of my precious time moving and storing garbage! )

In order to attract new and better people, experiences, results and more of what you want, first let go of the things that are clogging up your life in order to create the space for the better stuff to show up. Space creates choice. Learn to let go. What can you give up on today?

Thank you

Mental constipation keeps us stuck in the same place. To change how you sell , manage or how you operate your business often means first changing how you think.

Start by opening up to a new possibility called the truth based on facts not perception. Give yourself permission to stop playing the waiting game, embrace what is rather than what was and ask yourself: “What’s the new opportunity here?” The quicker you embrace the truth in every situation, such as what to do after realizing you made a bad hiring decision, the better you’ll be able to respond to it.

Consider what the automotive industry did to respond to these new economic times – 0% financing, employee pricing, employee discounts. An unprecedented move in this industry. The results have been banner years for car sales.