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Archive for October, 2009

Part Three: Determining When To Coach Your Salespeople, When to Provide Sales Training and When To Give Them The Answer

Oct 22, 2009 Executive Coaching, Sales Coaching, Sales Management, coaching for managers, coaching salespeople, training for managers


As a recap from Part One, “Do I Coach Them or Train Them?” when coaching someone, The Gap is the space that exists between where the client or coachee is today and where they want or need to be.

It’s the void that exists between the person and their goal. As a coach, it’s your responsibility to identify and fill in this gap. The question is, what exactly do you use to fill in this gap – do you coach them, train then, advise them or flat out just give them the answer?

Here’s the third installment of the three part series. These three blogs detail how you can handle some common training and coaching scenarios that many managers find themselves in and the most appropriate approach to take in these situations as it relates to how you can best support your people in a way that achieves the results you want and need.

Scenario Three:

Situation: Bob, a successful, established and well seasoned insurance salesperson had been a long time top producer for his company. Since the company merger, restructuring, policy changes and compensation plan revisions, Bob needed to start generating new clients to fill up his sales funnel again. While Bob used to spend half his days cold calling, he hasn’t done it in a while, relying more on referrals and the income he generated from renewal business. Yes, Bob was great on the phone and generated a significant amount of new prospects as a result of his recent cold calling efforts. However, it seems that Bob was not able to close these prospects the way he would a referral or an existing client. He was used to people saying, “Yes” without even asking for the sale. Objections? The only one Bob was used to hearing amongst his clientele was whether or not they should write him a check or hand him their credit card.

Now, it seems that every time Bob met with one of these new prospects, he was walking out with a time to follow up with them rather than a sale. Bob wasn’t used to hearing, “Thanks, let us think about it,” or “You’re the first person we’ve spoken with regarding a policy,” and he was especially not used to hearing, “Wow, that sounds awfully expensive.” While Bob did his best to try and convince these people to buy from him, he felt his rebuttals were falling upon deaf ears. To make matters worse, Bob forgot how to actually ask for the sale.

The Gap: Have you noticed The Gap here? The Gap in this situation is in Bob’s closing technique and in his attitude or philosophy towards closing. Bob is holding on to some limiting beliefs. More so, his tactical selling approach and natural selling acumen needs to be polished to address the new selling situations that he has not had to face in a while.

Training and Coaching Solution: This is a coaching and training issue. We’ve identified that there are some limiting beliefs getting in his way of taking action. Specifically, salespeople don’t overcome objections, prospects do. Rather than convince someone, which it sounds like Bob was attempting to do, he needs to respond with questions rather than statements so that the prospect can overcome their concern. As such, the coach needs to use well crafted questions and a process of inquiry to explore deeper into his perception of closing and asking for the sale. Does closing mean dumping more information? Is he not asking for the sale for fear of rejection? Finally, Bob needs some hands on tactical responses ready the next time he hears these objections. The training will take care of this, providing Bob with the dialogue and the steps to defusing objections that will turn more of his prospects into customers.

As you’ve probably encountered yourself, handling employee issues typically requires more of a hybrid approach to management. That is, the utilization of all the disciplines we’ve discussed over the last three blogs, including coaching, training and consulting.

This eclectic blend of philosophy and strategy is what today’s leaders need to embrace when developing tomorrow’s champions.

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Part Two: Determining When To Coach Your People, When to Provide Sales Training & When to Give Them The Answer

Oct 19, 2009 Executive Coaching, How to Manage Your Team, Sales Coaching, Sales Training, coaching for managers, coaching salespeople


As a recap from Part One, “Do I Coach Them or Train Them?” when coaching someone, The Gap is the space that exists between where the client or coachee is today and where they want or need to be. It’s the void that exists between the person and their goal. As a coach, it’s your responsibility to identify and fill in this gap. The question is, what exactly do you use to fill in this gap – do you coach them, train then, advise them or flat out just give them the answer?

Here’s the second installment of the three part series. These three blogs detail how you can handle some common training and coaching scenarios that many managers find themselves in and the most appropriate approach to take in these situations as it relates to how you can best support your people in a way that achieves the results you want and need.

Scenario Two:

Situation: Nine months into the training, Samantha’s boss was questioning whether or not she would make the cut for the long haul. Out of the initial ten new recruits that completed the week long training, practically nine months to the date, Samantha was one of the only two that has made it this far. When it comes to being an executive recruiter, one message that was continually being reinforced into Sam’s head was that if you can make it a year, and build up your book of business, you can survive the initial hurdle and start developing a successful career.

But nine months into her new career, what started as a strong and promising leap right out of the gate, securing three top accounts that she has been relying too heavily on to make her numbers each month, is now appearing to come to a slow and painful halt. One of the three large clients left her and the other two are slowing down their recruiting efforts. Here’s the thing, though. Samantha was on the phone practically every day making the calls she knew she needed to make in order to survive this first year.

The Gap: Samantha proved early on she could be successful at cold calling for new clients. She also had the evidence behind her to support this claim. Her initial four month’s book of business provided her with the volume to make her monthly sales quota. While Samantha was still making her daily number of cold calls, she was no longer getting the strong results she was when she first started out. Moreover, her boss noticed how stressed out Sam was as a result of all this. For these reasons, The Gap is actually a combination of training and coaching.

Training and Coaching Solution: In a case like this with Samantha, the solution may be more of a multi-faceted one that approaches her situation from a few different angles. Here are just four approaches to explore, diagnose and uncover different ways that you can coach and support Sam.

First, if Sam’s approach was working when she started nine months ago and it’s no longer working today, then something had to change. Her boss noticed Sam didn’t have a templated process that she following and more or less ‘winged’ her calls, shooting proverbially from the hip. Consequently, she was moving farther away from what had initially worked for her. Thus, having Sam work off a proven template that’s documented and in front of her so that she can create a level of consistency in her selling efforts is one part of this solution.

Second, this fine tuning of her approach and putting it in an actionable, step by step process will eliminate any inconsistency and allow her to best manage what approach works best.

Third, Samantha appears to be fueled and driven by fear and consequence. That is, the loss of her job! Being driven by consequence and scarcity – what you don’t want to happen, is a negative source of energy that dilutes not only the impact of your selling efforts but the quality of your life.

Here, Sam needs to be coached on developing a new way of thinking, one that empowers her, lifts her spirits and focuses on her goals and dreams more than her fears and consequences.

Finally, is Samantha in need of some new resources? That is, where is Sam mining for new business? Does she need to look at alternative ways to prospect? Does she need a revised call list? Is she maximizing the lifetime value of every client she’s working with through upselling opportunities and referrals? These are just a few of the components of her sales engine that you can put a magnifying glass over to take a look at a deeper level in order to diagnose exactly what is going on.

Stay tuned for part three later this week.

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Do I Coach Them or Train Them? Determining When To Coach Your People & When to Train Them – Part One

Oct 15, 2009 Executive Coaching, Sales Coaching, coaching for managers, coaching salespeople, training for managers


When coaching someone, The Gap is the space that exists between where the client or coachee is today and where they want or need to be. It’s the void that exists between the person and their goal. As a coach, it’s your responsibility to identify and fill in this gap. The question is, what exactly do you use to fill in this gap?

Part of the reason why identifying the gap is such a critical starting point in coaching is this; you must first determine whether the issue at hand is, in fact, a training issue, a coaching issue or an advising or consulting issue. If you have a salesperson that’s never been trained in the art and discipline of selling, then how can you coach them? In essence, The Gap in this scenario is the lack or absence of a personal selling foundation and core ideology which training would have provided this person.

As such, a solution to this situation and what you would fill into this Gap initially would call for a training component first before coaching can come into play. After all, there’s a clear difference between training, coaching and consulting. For example, training and consulting often provide solutions, offer answers or show you how to play the game. Coaching is then used to refine your game, challenge your thinking and remove any obstacles. That’s why it’s so critical to be able to identify when it’s suitable to use each of these distinct approaches to professional development, continuous learning and ultimately, when building an exceptional team.

In the following three scenarios outlined over the next three blogs, I’ve identified when each competency and approach would be appropriate by first recognizing The Gap that you need to uncover and assess in every coaching situation.

Scenario One:

Situation: Tim, a new rookie salesperson has been hired to generate appointments on the phone for the outside sales team.

The Gap: Since this is Tim’s first sales job, he’s never cold called before nor has Tim ever been trained in how to cold call effectively. Therefore, The Gap is the training, skills, knowledge as well as a step by step tactical approach and dialogue needed to perform his job effectively.

Training Solution: This is a training issue, as this person first needs to develop some strong habits to solidify a healthy foundation to build upon. Learning how to do something such as how to sell or cold call, a new discipline, skill or task, is not coaching but more training, consulting or advising. They need to be shown best practices, the “how-to’s” and the mechanics as well as the philosophy behind effective appointment setting.

Stay tuned for parts two and three over the next week.

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What Do You Coach? Coach The Gap

Oct 12, 2009 Executive Coaching, How to Manage Your Team, Sales Coaching, career coaching, coaching for managers, coaching salespeople


The most common question I hear from managers just starting to shift from manager to coach is, “How do I recognize where it is they need and could benefit from the coaching most?”

Actually, covering the specifics of what you can coach someone on, from a tactical perspective is actually the easy part. It’s uncovering the who or the often very elusive and limiting thinking or outlook they have which is ultimately showing up in their actions and behavior that is the tricky part. Demonstrating this ability is a true testament of an effective coach and I’m going to share with you how to develop it on your own.

Regardless of the topic, skill, problem or mindset you’ve identified as a possible focal point in your coaching, there is one model that’s always applicable in every coaching scenario. It also happens to be the very thing each coaching opportunity has in common: The Gap. The Gap is the space that exists between where the client or coachee is today and where they want or need to be.

The Gap is the space that exists between:

• What people know (current knowledge, philosophies, assumptions, stories, outlooks, beliefs, and so on) and what they don’t know or don’t realize is possible.
• What people need to do; the activity that supports their goals yet are still not doing.
• The resources and skills they have and the ones they don’t.

Imagine a bridge for a moment. Picture yourself standing on one side of the bridge. You focus your vision on the other side of the bridge which is the location you want to get to. Think about what you need to do to get to the other side. Consider the resources needed to arrive at your desired destination in the shortest amount of time and with the least amount of risk or error. Reaching the other side is your goal or your destination. What might you need to fill in this gap; this void that exists between you and your goal?

What is needed? You need a car if you want to get to your destination as fast as possible. You need fuel as the resource needed to get your car moving. You need a clear path that would help you arrive at your destination with the least amount of delays, obstructions, diversions and wrong turns. Identifying these resources (which we did through the use of inquiry, just like when you’re coaching) provides definition, structure and an executable strategy which collectively evolved into an actionable and comprehensive solution to this situation.

Rather than assume what you think your staff already knows, start determining what they need to know in order to fill in this gap and ensure clear communication. You’ll increase your awareness and become more sensitized to what the other person needs to learn and what opportunities there are for coaching.

Instead of sharing what you perceive to be the solution to a problem before understanding the person’s specific needs, recognize The Gap in every coaching conversation or situation with your staff. It will help you become more aware how important it is to invest the time to uncover their specific concern, request or need that exists in the space we now refer to as The Gap.

For example, if you want to learn how to play golf and you’re going to take the game seriously, one of the first things you’re going to do is find a great teacher or enroll in a golf training class. You find someone who can show you the mechanics of the game, teach you the game and help you develop your own swing. Since you’ve never done this before, you need to be shown how to do it. More than just being shown the basics and fundamentals you want to be shown the very best way to do it and you want to be taught by a champion. This is the training aspect to learning the game and the time to identify and develop the best practices for playing.

Now, some time has passed and you’ve learned the basics. You are out on the golf course playing consistently. You’ve taken what you learned from the golf teacher and are doing your best to apply it. However, you notice you’re only getting so far. While your score has improved since you’ve started playing, you’ve capped out and can’t seem to shoot better than a 90, the score you’re been shooting constantly.

Since you are ready to take your game to the next level, you now go back to the instructor or look for a great golf coach. Distinct from what a teacher does, your coach is going to find out what and where you want to improve. Your coach is going to uncover where you want to be in terms of how well you want to play the game. What do you ultimately want to shoot? That’s the measurable end result or destination we’re going to use as our gauge for winning. To get a good sense of where you are now, your golf coach is going to watch you swing a club and even play a few holes. The coach will even ask you some questions regarding how you think about the game and why you may be doing certain things when you’re playing the game. That’s the barometer to measure and identify where you are today.

Training teaches you the game. Coaching refines your game.

What this coach has just done is identify your Gap. That is, where you are now in comparison to where you want to be (a golfer that shots in the high seventies.)

A teacher is going to show you how to do something; something you’ve never done before or tried before in a consistent manner. A teacher or trainer is going to provide you with a foundation, a process, a benchmark of best practices to give you a starting point in relation to where you would begin on your path of development.

A coach, however, is going to show you how to do what you are doing even better. First, the coach would need to see how you swing a club. Then the benefits of coaching are recognized and apparent when the coach watches from the sidelines seeing the things that you, as the player cannot and gently tweaks and refines your game and approach to the point where you’ve made it your own. And this may occur after several meetings with your golf coach over time – or something you do indefinitely to continue bettering your best.

Coaching is the discipline managers use to leverage all of your salespeople’s individual strengths and talents, to keep them on top of their game and to recognize their fullest potential today, rather than being seduced by what could be tomorrow.

Sales training is what you need to become a salesperson.
Sales coaching is what you need to become a sales champion.

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When Your Commitment To Others Sabotages Your Coaching Efforts

Oct 8, 2009 Communication, Executive Coaching, Sales Management, accountability, coaching salespeople, training for managers


Yes, you can actually want too much for your salespeople and your clients, more than they, in fact, may be ready for or even want for themselves. Jake learned this lesson quickly as a new coach.

To this day, Jake’s unwavering commitment to every one of the salespeople on his team is to help them make the long-term changes they want and need in their careers.

When Jake first started coaching his salespeople, he made a personal commitment that he would not just be a sales coach but an exceptional coach that every salesperson in his company would call on first. And in the spirit of becoming this person, he put action behind this commitment. He carefully prepared, researched, and practiced prior to every coaching session he had with a salesperson.

“Coaches deliver value while challenging their clients to achieve more through the utilization and development of their natural skills and talents so they can live up to their fullest potential” was Jake’s firm belief. He was insistent, practically obsessed with the notion that his salespeople must walk away with measurable value from every interaction and coaching session they had with him.

This manifested itself in a variety of ways. For example, if salespeople were coming to Jake ready to review their targeted objectives, he challenged them to reconsider their goals and make them even loftier, encouraging them to reach for even bigger, more rewarding results. Or, Jake might suggest that they identify a timeline in which they wanted to attain their goal or, better yet, shorten the timeline they initially developed for achieving this milestone.

If a salesperson was struggling to bring in an acceptable number of appointments each week through referrals and was considering putting together a cold calling campaign, Jake would be right there ready with the call template, opening statement, and process she needed to be effective at cold calling, including the number of dials she should start making today in order to achieve her sales goals.

You can want too much for your salespeople and your clients, more than they, in fact, may be ready for or even want for themselves.

Whatever objectives and goals his salespeople would have, Jake was ready to act as their primary source of support, encouragement, knowledge, structure, and insight needed to achieve what mattered most to them.

You name it, and Jake was ready for every conceivable question, goal, or challenge his salespeople threw at him. And, boy, did he push and push and then, when he was finished pushing, he pushed some more. Just think about what happens when you keep pushing without gauging the resistance level? You get pushback.

But why should a coach sense pushback from a salesperson, when the salesperson was the one who set the goals in the first place? What Jake wasn’t aware of was the flaw in his strategy. Look at the word client. Now, look at the word in the middle of the word. That’s right, you’ll notice the word lie. To be clear, Jake’s salespeople weren’t intentionally lying to him. It’s just that people often lie to themselves and believe the lies to be true.

These lies come in a variety of shapes and forms. For example, a lie could be an unwillingness to look at the truth, or a lack of awareness around the real issue. People can deceive themselves about the way they process information or may be unrealistic as to how fast they could move in order to reach a goal. In some cases, people don’t like the solution because it wasn’t what they expected or wanted, or they weren’t comfortable with it. This can cause pushback.

Sometimes, salespeople won’t admit that they lack the skills they know are necessary to achieve their goals. They aren’t sure they can put in the time and effort to master the skills. This new awareness may cause resistance. Rather than pushing through and forging ahead without knowing all the facts, coaches need to take the salesperson’s pulse to avoid causing further damage.

People often lie to themselves and believe the lies to be true.

To prevent forcing your agenda and expectations on those you coach, it’s critical that you find out what your salespeople’s expectations are from your coaching, the value they expect and how they want to be coached.

Take Their Pulse, Not Yours

Even though Jake’s salespeople were telling him they enjoyed and benefited from his coaching, he felt something was off. At the end of every coaching call, Jake felt like he’d just run a marathon. He was exhausted and deflated. His energy was all used up. Jake poured his heart and soul into every coaching call, believing this was what a coach was supposed to do. Not exactly.
As a new coach, Jake didn’t have enough experience to recognize that how he felt at the end of a coaching call was a telltale sign that something was indeed off. So, he did what every new, intelligent, insightful coach would do. He called his mentor coach.

Here’s what Jake came to understand. Sometimes we want so much for our clients and staff to be happy, satisfied, and successful that we have a tendency to instill our own agenda into the coaching process. If it sounds similar to having an attachment, you’re correct. However, the attachment in this situation is about wanting more for your clients or employees than they want for themselves or are ready for.

Read the rest of this entry »

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THE ART OF ENROLLMENT – The New Language of Leadership That Creates Buy In Without Resistance

Oct 5, 2009 Career Advice, Communication, Sales Management, accountability, career coaching, coaching for managers, coaching salespeople


Leadership is, in fact a language. It is a dialogue and a way of relating to people that makes the difference between a mediocre leader and a powerful one. The greatest leaders possess an ability to connect with each person they manage and it all starts with how they communicate. The Art of Enrollment is a powerful and compelling communication strategy that is utilized by the greatest leaders of our time. Let’s begin with a comprehensive definition of the word enrollment.

Enrollment: An authentic, powerful way of communicating that grabs people’s attention, stimulates interest, and empowers others to embrace, support, and believe in your position, idea, or philosophy. This motivates people to want to become part of your cause (a cause that may be bigger than you and them), take ownership of it, and then act in their best interest to create the possibility that you have introduced to them and/or have taken a stand for. (For example: Creating a certain corporate culture, selling or making a purchasing decision, trying something new that hasn’t been done before, or advocating for a positive, yet difficult change, etc.)

What do you do to be different, to be unique, to be eternal in the mind of a salesperson? True sales coaches leave not only a lasting impression but they also create one.

Like traditional management, traditional selling is dead. Unfortunately, many salespeople today are still using antiquated selling strategies. They no longer offer a competitive edge that separates them from every other company and promotes a healthy, winning relationship with their customers. Rather than change their approach, salespeople work harder and longer as they continually react to the changes in the marketplace, only to produce the same results as before.

Motivating employees is often exhausting and time-consuming work. Trying to get people to change or do things differently is even more of a challenge. Managers struggle to get their staff to become internally driven, self-motivated, and perform at their potential. Businesses are closing their doors not due to a lack of effort but because they are still attempting to sell, manage, or run their businesses the old way, not the way it needs to be done today.

The next evolution in communication and in the way we coach our salespeople is using the art and discipline of enrollment. Think about some of the great leaders of our time. Think of the leaders who you respect, admire and who have made a difference or an impact in our lives today and yesterday. What do these leaders have in common? Each had a cause that ignited them to act from a global perspective. It was their innate ability that enabled them to enroll millions of people to follow, not them, but what was bigger than them—their cause. They used the art of enrollment to achieve historical, unprecedented results. They inspired people to want to be a part of their cause because they made it very clear what was in it for them.

What has been initially perceived as an inherent, genetic ability is now a documented process that allows each of us to tap into this hidden power we all possess. The dormant desire to want to express more of who we are, what we want, how we feel, and what could be possible can now be achieved through enrollment. Each of us can do so in a natural, conversational way that honors our personal strengths, talents, goals, values, passion, and style of communicating while remaining open to co-creating greater possibilities.

Enrollment is a way to unleash each person’s purest form of open, honest, and authentic communication, using thought-provoking, curiosity-based questions that generate worthwhile results in any setting. When you uncover what you are passionate about, what you believe in, and then take a strong, unwavering stand for whatever it may be, while respecting the mutual differences of one another, only then can you start to communicate and achieve more through the enrollment process: the highest form of communicating and self-expression.

Enrollment Is a Universal Phenomenon

When top salespeople want to be better at their jobs while maintaining their focus and desire to deliver rich value and serve their clients’ best interests, they stop selling and start enrolling. When an accountant, a coach, a doctor, contractor, financial planner, attorney, mortgage broker, or salesperson wants to build their practice or their sales, they enroll. When universities want to attract more students, they enroll. When parents want their kids to change or do something, they enroll them. When managers hire someone, they enroll that person in the position.

To make this more relevant, think about it in terms of your position. When handling internal conflicts or sharing a policy change that affects every salesperson’s commission, managers must enroll people toward a positive, mutual mindshare. If you need your team to make radical changes in their behavior or in their thinking, you enroll them in that change. Here are some situations that would warrant an opportunity to use the art of enrollment.

1.Needing to get salespeople to relocate.
2. Developing an incentive program.
3. Defusing hostility and finding a common ground.
4. Making changes in company policy or procedure, such as a price increase, a change in commission or compensation, or a change in a person’s job function.
5. Changing how salespeople will be developed and trained, such as taking part in a coaching program.
6. Recruiting and hiring a new salesperson.
7. Firing a team member and reducing collateral damage as well as toxic gossip.
8. Requesting a change in people’s behavior or activity.
9. Getting people to own a certain problem which they have been avoiding.
10. Holding people more accountable around their performance goals as well as any administrative responsibilities.
11. Requesting someone to take on a task or do something they may normally be reluctant to do.

In practically any scenario where it requires opening up someone’s thinking, modifying behavior, or taking action around something, the art of enrollment will become your primary communication strategy to bring about the changes you want without pushback, prodding, or resistance.

Creating the Possibility for Change

Coaching is the art of creating new possibilities. Enrollment allows you to communicate those possibilities in a way that people will be receptive to and motivates them to change. At its core, enrollment is all about facilitating positive, long-term change.

Whether you’re selling a product, service, idea, or philosophy, no one likes to be sold. Everyone loves to feel as if they are making the decision themselves. If your salespeople perceive you as someone who is focused solely on helping them make their own decisions, they are going to want to be enrolled by you and will enjoy the process.

Take any situation or conversation in which there is a group of people who have conflicting interests, a conflict that needs resolution, an idea that needs to be communicated and embraced, a change initiative that needs to be launched, or a mutual goal that needs to be attained. Whether each person possesses a separate agenda or information that needs to be communicated, has a misunderstanding of each other’s goals or has no business talking to each other in the first place, mastering the Art of Enrollment will unlock the door to full self-expression for all. It will enable you to communicate more powerfully, more authentically, and more confidently with everyone.

People don’t want to be sold. They want to be enrolled.

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Do Your People Want To Be Managed By You? It’s All About Connection – Are You Managing People or Managing Status Quo?

Oct 1, 2009 Communication, Life Coaching and Career Coaching, accountability, articles on leadership, coaching for managers


I was sitting in a hotel restaurant having breakfast and preparing myself for a day of back to back meetings. While I was working on my iPhone, a waitress came over and introduced herself. “Hi, I’m Maya and I will be your server this morning. May I get you something to drink?” she inquired. We’ve all heard this question a thousand times when dining at a restaurant. But for some reason, the way she asked me was different. “Let’s start out with some coffee and orange juice,” I said. “Great!” she replied enthusiastically. “I’ll get that for you right away and will be back to take your order.”

“That’s what it was!” I thought to myself. She was smiling. “Big deal, a smiling waitress,” you may be thinking. “Waitresses are supposed to smile. This doesn’t sound like something that’s so incredibly noteworthy.”

Normally it wouldn’t be, but this smile was different. You see, it wasn’t like one of those smiles you’re forced to put on when talking with customers, but a truly authentic smile. I could tell because it was coming from the inside. This woman was genuinely happy. “Okay, duly noted and dismissed.” I acknowledged the observation, yet felt compelled to get back to my e-mails as quickly as possible, before the coffee and food came.

Maya returned a few minutes later with my beverages and took my order. “Another one out and 20 more to go,” I thought. I had just hit the Send button on the fourth e-mail I managed to respond to before someone else came over to my table and began talking to me. “Good morning!” a friendly voice said. This time, it wasn’t the waitress, but someone else who worked at the restaurant. A middle-aged woman had intentionally stopped at my table rather than continuing to walk by. I returned her smile and wished her a hearty good morning as well. I wanted to get back to my e-mails. Apparently, this was not part of her agenda. She didn’t let me.

“I love your glasses,” she said.

“Thank you,” I answered quickly, doing my best to be polite while trying to let her know I was a bit busy, knee-deep in my daily dose of morning e-mails. “Couldn’t she see I was working?” I thought to myself. I sensed myself getting a little annoyed that my daily regimen was being disrupted, then challenged that feeling for a moment. In a world where we need to question people’s motives, was this person being truly sincere? I gave her the benefit of the doubt and began to further engage her in conversation. She had made herself more comfortable, leaning next to the booth beside me, obviously eager for a conversation with me.

“So, are you here on business?”

“Yes,” still convinced I could cut this conversation short, until she formally introduced herself and proceeded to talk about her children. When that happens, I can’t help but be interested.

“By the way, I’m Tracy. I manage this restaurant. Where are you from?”

I put my iPhone down, surrendering to Tracy’s persistence in wanting to have a dialogue. “New York.”

“Oh, what a fun place to visit. I have two girls. It’s my youngest one who goes to college out east. She’s in her second year at Cornell. We had a chance to go into Manhattan when we were visiting her at school.”

“My oldest daughter is about to graduate from UCLA and has already started the job interview process.” Tracy continued, but with a different tone in her voice. “It is so tough out there to find a job that you not only love to do but can make a good living doing it.” I could not only hear concern in her voice but I could see it in her eyes: the concern and protective instincts only a mother could project when worrying about her children.

At this point, my iPhone was back in my coat pocket, and I was practically ready for my second cup of coffee as Tracy continued telling me about her kids. Tracy had enrolled me in a conversation with her, but it was more than just a friendly exchange of words and pleasantries. Tracy and I were connecting.

“I just don’t get it,” Tracy shared, allowing her frustrations to surface. “These companies want to hire someone with a great education and experience. But other than holding some entry-level positions or finding a great internship, where are you going to get the experience if you can’t get an opportunity to learn on the job and prove what you’re capable of doing? They all say she has what it takes, except the experience.”

I looked Tracy in the eye and said, “Tracy, I completely understand how you feel. However, I want you to know, your daughters will do just fine. They’re not only going to make it, they are going to thrive. I know it.”

My comment must have reinforced or reminded Tracy about the peace of mind and confidence she always had about her kids. “Thank you, Keith, but how do you know they’ll be just fine? How can you say that with such certainty?”

I smiled at Tracy and asked her a question I already knew the answer to. “Tracy, are your children anything like you?”

She thought for a moment and smiled, “Why, yes, they are very much like me. My husband says they get their drive and bubbly enthusiasm from my side of the family.”

“Tracy, your daughters are very lucky to have a mom like you. And if they sell themselves, that is, come across the way you do and share who they are naturally, people will notice the gifts, value, and talents they can bring to any position they apply for.”

“Oh, you are so sweet for saying that. Thank you.” Tracy’s response was heartfelt. I could tell that she really listened to what I said and took it in rather than hearing my observation on a superficial level and dismissing it.

Tracy and I continued our discussion for another few minutes until she got called away by the hostess to handle an issue with another customer. I turned back to finish my breakfast. It had cooled off since the waitress came by and served it during the time I was talking with Tracy. But it was worth it. Yes, I made a difference that morning in someone’s life.

As Tracy walked away, I glanced around the restaurant. Now that I was out of my head, or should I say, out of my iPhone, I started noticing more of what was happening around me than I had when I first walked into the restaurant that morning. I took a visual inventory of each person working in that restaurant. It was not just Tracy and Maya who were smiling. Everyone who worked there was smiling. The two hostesses at the front entrance were smiling, even if there were no guests for them to greet at the moment. Every busboy, waiter, and waitress was smiling, whether they were taking an order, serving a meal, or walking back to the kitchen where nobody could see them (unless you were like me and were purposely looking).

Everything is relevant and every conversation you have is of vital importance. Even though some may seem trivial to you, each is deeply influential when compounded over time.

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