Sales Executives

Eyes on the goal (article from my Oct. newsletter)

Florence Chadwick was an ace swimmer. She set a world record in 1950 when she swam across the English Channel from France in 13 hours and 20 minutes. The following year, she swam from England to France and made history as the first woman to swim the channel from both shores.

But in 1952, Chadwick learned a powerful lesson when she decided to swim the 26 miles between Catalina Island and Palos Verdes, Calif. The water was frigid that day and sharks trailed her. But these factors didn’t diminish Chadwick’s resolve; something else did.

After 15 hours of swimming in rough waters, there was no sign of the coastline—there was no sign of anything because fog had shrouded the area. With her goal out of sight, Chadwick lost the desire to continue and climbed aboard an escort boat—not realizing that she was less than half a mile from shore.

When asked why she decided to stop, she explained, “It was the fog. If I could have seen land, I could have finished. But when you can’t see your goal, you lose all sense of progress and you begin to give up.”

Her failure was only temporary, though, and a few months later, she made another attempt to swim the same waters. On that day, the sun was shining. And with her goal clearly in sight, Chadwick set another new swimming record.

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Do You ROCK with your clients??

 Jim Knight of Hard Rock Café gave a presentation on customer service at my recent recruiting conference titles “Service That Rocks”. He made some excellent points that apply no matter what business you are in. I will share a few of them with you today.

1)      “Assist your staff in creating a volunteer philanthropy group”. What? What could this have to do with a corporate team? You or your Director of HR has probably at one point in time organized one of those famous “team-building” exercises. Maybe it was even the outdoor experience with ropes, tug of war, obstacle course, etc. where everyone has to work together. Same principle-better outcome. When they pull together to help a charity, not only do they get the “team-building” experience, they get the satisfaction and good feeling of helping others. It’s a lasting warm glow that will affect their attitude, level of service and performance

2)      Enforce standards but give out “permission slips”. Want to demean your employees status with their customers, peers or co-workers? Give them no authority. Make them ask permission for the smallest of things. No- GIVE THEM the authority to fix things and they will be loyal to you and your company beyond the typical employee. And how efficient is that for the company? It just saves time and creates employee loyalty that is truly priceless

3)      Hire only “rock stars” and treat them like volunteers. Have you ever lead a volunteer team? How did you motivate them to do their job on their team? With praise and acknowledgement of a job well done. I bet you used lots of thank you’s. So why not use that same approach with your employees? It costs you nothing and gains you everything. Treat your employees like volunteers and watch the difference.

4)      Realize that people will only repeat what they like. Inspire them to repeat the right things. Help create patterns and systems that benefit both them and the company. And why not add an element of fun. There is enough on the outside of the company that can be challenging so make your environment upbeat, positive and FUN. Yes- you can successfully conduct business and have fun doing so. Ask any successful salesperson. My boss once told me, “Be the person they look forward to seeing that day”.

5)      Do what you say you will do.  If you don’t, you will never command the respect of your peers and employees.

Hard Rock Café has made an art of providing the ultimate experience to their customers. Are you?

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I just read a recap of "Attitude Bailout Incentive Package," which was an audio seminar Dr. Zimmerman. In this seminar, he gave several innovative suggestions on how to "
adjust your attitude". Here are a few of them:

1. Do Not Catch the Other Person’s Disease
This refers to the negative thoughts and words of others
around you, and the media. Stay away from the people
you know will pull you down with their whining and
complaining. Turn the TV. Read something inspirational,
or listen to motivational recordings.

2. Practice Positive Expectations
If you are not getting what you want, perhaps your
expectations are too low. In Dr. Zimmerman’s book,
"Pivot-How One Turn in Attitude Can Lead to Success,"
he quotes Dr. Norman Vincent Peale, who said,
"There is another kind of poverty-one most people
never think about-and it’s the poverty of expectations."

When you expect good things to happen, they seem
to take place, not due to some cosmic magic, but
because you are LOOKING for the good things, and
you tend to MAKE them happen.
<br>

3.Use the Positive "But"
In Dr. Zimmerman’s Peak Performance Boot Camps
he has participants to draw a line down the center of a
piece of paper. On the top left side they write Problems,
and on the right, Blessings. For every Problem,
he has them counter it with a Blessing. For example,
"I lost a big sale, BUT I learned why and will be able
to prevent that same thing from happening." "I am
overweight, BUT I am healthy enough to get on an
exercise program and do something about it."

4. Do it Now
It’s tough to consistently feel good about yourself if
you let your ideas pass, or you put them on hold.
Conversely, it’s difficult to feel down or depressed when
you are in action, working toward some goal. What is it
that you always wanted, but never have started moving
toward? What’s stopping you other than you? Do it now!

Hmmm . . .After reading this for the second time, I’d best be going so I can work on my attitude (even if I cheat a bit and watch the political debate this week) .

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After a LOOOOONNNNGGGG hiatus, I am back blogging. I took a break (over a year   to take care of some family situations, etc.

So what now? What’s happened in the blogging world during my absence? Well, QUITE A BIT ! Presidential candidates Barack Obama, John McCain, Sarah Palin and all others have incorporated blogging into campaigning. This is a historic time, indeed. Though blogs were certainly around and used 4 years ago, never before have they played an integral role in communication for the candidates.

So, quick survey, how many of YOU have actually read any of the candidates blogs? No? Really? You haven’t? Not that many of you. Maybe it’s my demographics.  Maybe it’s the timing. I had not read a full one until researching for this blog entry.

Take the time this week/week-end and read a bit of their thoughts. Though they may not have written every word themselves, I think it’s safe to say it is as representative of their stance, thoughts, views as anything written by a second or third party.

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I just attended my monthly meeting of the Nashville Association of Sales Professionals. For me, if I have one strong thought-provoking or, heaven forbid, action-provoking idea from a presentation, then it was worth my time. Our speaker Mike Patenaude said something very basic yet revolutionary. After stressing "Focus on your strengths", he then proceeded to say, "Quit trying to fix yourself". Being a strong believer in self-improvement, this flew in the face of all I’ve been told all these years. What did he mean by it? That you will be much more successful if you focus on your strengths and maximize results from those strengths and hire/delegate/outsource the areas that are not your strengths. In other words, spend your precious time on what you do best and let others cover the areas that aren’t your best.

Makes sense, huh? It really hit home with me and I am definitely going to consider this every time I have a list of things to do. Determine which are most pertinent to your main goal, focus on your strengths, get help where you are weaker.

Thanks Mike for a mind-expanding theory !

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