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Sales Soul

“Everyday we begin again…”

October 25, 2012 How to avoid a nightmare career

“When work feels overwhelming, remember that you’re going to die.” ~ Greeting Card

My friend says she want’s a new job. She says she doesn’t want to go back to her old job. It makes her miserable. The people make her miserable. The work makes her miserable. She wants to change. She wants out and she wants it to be different than it is.

The problem is…. It just is.

She has a small clue of what she thinks she wants to do but really it’s more like a fantasy.  My friend is facing a nightmare career. 

And like a lot of us she could have avoided it.  I’ve been there and I know lots of people who have been there. But how do you avoid it? Who wants to wake up and completely dread going to work?

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Don’t hate it. Just change it.

 

In the spirit of full disclosure I am not it love with my gig. However it is more than tolerable and I don’t dread Mondays or the next morning. I think there are a handful of key factors that we can all use to help us avoid a nightmare career.

  1. Like the people you work with.  I don’t meant that you have to be enthralled to be around them but it is extremely important that you don’t hate being around them.  You can’t always avoid this but you can at least strive for it and avoid the one’s that make you cringe.
  2. Respect your Superiors. It makes life so much easier when you have respect for your superior or if your the superior how do you earn that respect? In situations where I didn’t have respect for the uppers I always ended up miserable and in the long run not effective.  Find a good leader, respect them and learn from them.
  3. Don’t Hate the Work.  Hopefully this is self explanatory but throughout my career I have run into so many people that just Hate the work they do. Why bother? It annoys the hell out of me when I have to listen to somebody bitch about their work but aren’t doing anything to better themselves or move themselves into a more desirable position. Just don’t do it.
  4. Opportunity For me this is a must. I need to be able to have some control over my income through commissions, bonuses based on performance, etc…  Not having this opportunity leaves me frustrated in the long run. And opportunity can mean different things so define what that means to you and then make sure it’s there before you take the gig.

I don’t pretend to know your situation but for me these areas are critical to my general happiness in a career. They have to all be there and as soon as one starts to get out of balance then that’s my cue that I need to start making a change.  Otherwise, and I’ve been there before, you end up in a nightmare career.  And this impacts all aspects of your life. You will drive everybody around you crazy. So for the sake of all us and your unborn offspring….Don’t do it!

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October 16, 2012 How to overcome the fear of cold calling

If you have been in sales for more than five minutes or even thought of being in sales you undoubtedly thought about making a cold call.  And for a high majority of people this is one of the most fear provoking activities one could participate in. But why?

Why does this seemingly simple task of picking up the phone and POSSIBLY talking to another human being leave us feeling anxious or even nauseated.  I have met grown mature men and women who are successful in many different facets of their lives but can’t comprehend the thought of making a cold call.

Momma said there would be days like this…

The feedback I’ve received about cold calling is all over the map but the majority of people think it sucks or at worst is below them.  However, the majority of successful people I’ve met said it was a necessary part of their sales career development and was a key tool that accelerated their success.

I actually just had a “bad” call. I don’t do a huge amount of calling in a day. I typically average about 30 calls a day. In a day I may actually talk to 5-7 live people.  The majority of the rest of the time is spent listening to voice mails or navigating phone systems.  The call I had today was bad for several reasons some that were in my control and other reasons that were not. In the next few paragraphs I’m going to dissect it and then give you 5 reasons why you can get over all fear of cold calling today if you choose.

On to my call….

Mistake #1 – No preliminary research on name of contact.

I began the call asking the receptionist for an employee that no longer works there. Instead of hanging up and strategizing on getting the right name I instead asked for who took that employees position.  At this point it’s a dead give away I’m selling something and the receptionist then began the screening process.

I then get blindly transferred to the new contact.

Here’s what I should have done…

Once I learn the contact that I have is no longer at the company, I should have done one of two things:

  1. Say, “Ok, I will notate my records” then hang up and figure out another way to get their name.
  2. MY FAVORITE WAY: Say “Ok, well maybe you can help…. I’m mailing an invitation for an upcoming event (Make the event custom to the person that handles the decision-making process for your industry/service/product) who would you suggest I address it to?”  In most cases you will get the name of who you need to talk to. Having this info allows you to make a more authoritative call the next time.

Mistake #2 – Not prepared when the contact did pickup the phone.

I just fell on my face on this one… I didn’t expect her to pick up the phone so when she did I blabbered out something and she respond before I could finish, “I don’t think this is something were interested in” and abruptly hung up.  Oh well.  NEXT! (By the way that was the rudest I’ve been treated in a while – and that wasn’t that bad. People are usually professional if you are too.)

Here’s what I should have done…

Know why I’m making the call! I got caught with my pants down plain and simple. I was reacting and not controlling my emotions or the call. I know how to do this and have done it thousands of times but I still catch myself making stupid mistakes.

That’s just a recent story and although I have many failures the majority of my calls are mundane and either result in me not talking to who I need to because they are simply not available or I talk to my contact and I either get an appointment or gather some more info.  (How to qualify and info gathering is a whole separate post)

But that’s all that is going to happen when you make a call.  And when you get into the mind-frame of your just calling to get information from somebody as opposed to calling to sell something, you tend to be more relaxed and capable of communicating in a way that is mutually beneficial for all involved.  So that leads to step #1:

  1. Be curious – This is the BIG secret… Your not selling anything right now. Your just trying to figure out if it makes sense for you to talk to your contact further…
  2. Be prepared – You own a solution to a problem. Distill that solution into less than a minute and be able to adapt that message to a conversational style.
  3. Stop forecasting – You have no idea what is going to happen in the next five minutes of your life so why do you think you are able to tell what another person on the other end of a phone call is going to say to you?  And it’s a big if they pick up the phone at all; and that’s a big IF!
  4. Forgive yourself – It’s ok to feel nervous or whatever emotion you have. Your not alone or a failure. Your just allowing your physiology to overreact in a unneeded way.  But that’s ok.  With practice you’ll be better at controlling those responses and they won’t be automated any more or controlling your emotions. How do you think police/military etc… operate in high stress situations? They’ve trained their bodies and emotions to not use our little cave man brain to react.
  5. Start with 1 call – Just pick up the phone and dial the number that you have in front of you.  If you do that your way ahead of most. Do it again if you can.

Look, I’m not a huge fan of making cold calls but it just a role I have right now in my life. I don’t want to do it forever and plan on someday not having to. But this is where I am for now. So why not turn this challenge into a skill that I can use for other areas of my life too.  Cold calling is just not business related but can be used for personal reasons too. How about calling that person you’ve always wanted to date or finding a way to reconnect with someone you lost touch with.  Those are all cold calls and you can still use the five steps above to make it more comfortable for you.

I doubt you will have to make cold calls for the rest of your life but if you find yourself having to do it now at least make it a new skill you can add to your resume. And because you can do something that many people won’t do you will be more valuable. Plus cold calling always yields some funny stories.  Pick up the phone and make 1 dial. It’s up to you if you want to keep going.

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October 12, 2012 Empty Tank

“The second beer even made me smarter and I began to ask for directions.”

It’s Friday afternoon and I’m beat. I’m sleep deprived, my body is feeling achy and quite frankly it was a disappointing week in spite of my efforts. I make a lot of cold calls. Everybody hates cold calls and I guess I do too. But they are the quickest and cheapest way to get to market. However, this week I didn’t get one damn appointment. I take that back, I did get an appointment but then they quickly retracted when I couldn’t meet at their time. Probably not a viable lead anyways. I had a per-confirmed second meeting pull a no show on me and then there was yesterday…

Yesterday afternoon was a complete bust. Funny, but a complete bust. I had a networking meeting to attend downtown at four. I left in enough time and trusted that my GPS would get me there while I was on a conference call. I pulled into the parking garage with about 10 minutes to spare. Didn’t exactly know where I was going but figured I was close enough so I should find the spot with little effort. I was ass backwards wrong.

I ended up getting into a tunnel system connecting buildings together… I thought I was head in the right direction but kept getting deeper and deeper without any clue to where I was. Eventually I found an exit to the outside and figured that I would have a better chance of figuring out where I was when I was on the pavement. Ha! I had no clue where I was. I pulled out my handy I-phone and began begging it for directions. It’s hot out, I’m now 10 minutes late and I have no clue where I am. So I start walking in the direction the phone tells me… And I turn a corner, and another corner and I have now completed circle. Fuck. Try again. This time I really look at where I’m going and use some common sense (I have no pigeon sense) and just don’t rely on the damn map in my hand. It didn’t work. I was so turned around and getting really frustrated. I was hot, sweaty and now just pissed.

I happen to stumble upon a hotel downtown, I don’t even no which chain it was, and I decided that I would walk in, cool down and get my bearings. That all went out the window when I saw the bar… Fuck it. Time for some day drinking. Glad I did too because when I sat down I could smell my sweaty self. I smelled like a fat kid coming off the playground. It was at this point that I realized I had no idea where I parked my car… Ahhh the nice feeling of panic.

Beer does a fat kid good…

After the first beer went down I was calmer and better able to strategize how to get back to my vehicle. Fortunately, the second beer even made me smarter and I began to ask for directions. Turns out I was only a block away from my car! Jesus does love me.

Overall there was some glimpses of productivity. I was just too attached to what I wanted my outcome to be. It’s difficult to just surrender to the moment and realize that we have very little control. Next week that will be my practice… I’m going to still do the behaviors. I’m going to carry water, chop wood like my Zen friends would say. I’m going to make a commitment not pay attention to outcome but to just be with the moment. I will probably fail but it will be good practice. Maybe it will be a better week. Maybe I won’t get lost…

 

October 11, 2012 Human Affection Machines

“We can live without religion and meditation, but we cannot survive without human affection.” ~ Dali Lama

If your in sales, which we all are, then your are probably very familiar with famed Glengary Glenn Ross movie.  Especially the seen where Alec Baldwin dives into his diatribe about having Brass Balls to sell.  Actually, it’s a fantastic scene but I think it’s completely counter productive to the sales profession as a whole. It’s one of the reasons much of North America is bitter towards the average sales person.

At the surface we as sales folks are not considered career professionals but bottom feeders of the industrialized world. And for the most part we have created that situation.  And it may not be yours or mine fault but – HOLY SHIT – it’s our problem!

So where do we start? Where do I start? For my sanity I’m going to start with the fact that we are all humans and at some level we are looking for acknowledgement and human affection from each other.

I can be the biggest dick sometimes.  It’s just a fact.  I get irritated with incompetency and I have not developed the skill of gracefully addressing a problem without coming across as a dick.  Sometimes it’s just the way I look at the person that start’s everything out on the wrong foot.  I’m not even aware of it sometimes….

But like anybody else I’m looking for human affection and some stroke of my ego. Maybe I need lots of strokes? Recently I took a profile test for some training I’m doing and it came back that I really don’t give a shit what people think about me… Actually, it didn’t say it in those terms but that was the jest.  But I disagree. I think I really do care what people think and in fact I really do care for people.  In my personal life I’m extremely loyal and this has not served me well.

  • I spent way too much time in a marriage that was going no where
  • On several occasions I’ve stayed at jobs way past their usefulness
  • I tend to stay in relationships that are either not good for me or not what I want

Forgoing expensive therapy, I think I’ll just self diagnose my self as moderate low self esteem and maybe even a small dose of Avoidant Personality Disorder.  Actually I have no clue but it’s a good start for some psych to go off on.

So why the hell am I in sales with the above condition. I really don’t get upset if somebody hangs up on me or says no to me. I’ve seen others in the profession take rejection much harder than I do and I’ve also seen very mature adults sweat their balls off trying to make 1 cold call.

I know the reason I’m in sales… It’s not the money, although it is rewarding.  For me it’s what I’m becoming in the process of moving through these failures and success’s.  In this profession you are constantly conquering your fears or at least coming face to face with them.  Your pushing yourself emotionally, mentally, creatively and a lot of times physically.  And all that pushing and strife creates an opportunity for growth that most desk jockey’s just can’t experience.

At the end of the day we are true warriors. It’s mostly internal battles but none the less we come out a little bruised and bloody but the long term pay off is well worth the effort.

The effort is worth it because we become very well tuned with our human counterparts and really become experts at delivering human affection. Isn’t that really our real job at the core: to connect with another human at some level where we meet their need for affection? The product/service doesn’t matter.

October 8, 2012 A Billionaires 4 Rules of Success

Several years ago I attended a luncenon that Drayton McLane, Jr. was speaking at. Besides the fact at the time he was the owner of the Houston Astro’s and a very successful entrepreneur in his own right, he also had some great philosophical advice.  If you have ever attended a luncheon you know how they can be some of the most mind numbing time you can spend in a day. This wasn’t one them…

The man’s done well for himself with his four rules…

To my surprise even a billionaire gets in ruts and has to figure out new ways out to get to the next level of success. Evidently he lives close to his office but he still will take a longer route just so he can change things up and stimulate his creativity by taking a different way to the office.

The real meat of his presentation was based around these four rules of success that he has followed and recommends to others:

  1. Dare to Dream – So many of us are fearful and just nasty with ourselves that we don’t even give ourselves the permission to dream a little.  Too me this is sad. At heart we are all little kids; I don’t care how old you are. So why not dream like we used to?
  2. Operate out of your imagination not your thoughts – I make a lot of cold calls and have for years. But I still catch myself thinking about what the other person may do, usually in a negative way, right before I make the dial.  It’s silly. I’m making these huge assumptions that this call will blow up in my face.  A more productive way to engage would be to imagine how well this call may go and possibly turn into a new business opportunity.
  3. Seek Adversity – The lines are shorter…  – My ex-wife’s grandfather used to always tell me that he get’s paid to do the shit nobody else wants to do.  He did well for himself doing that.  It doesn’t happen overnight but eventually doing what nobody else is willing to do pays big dividends.
  4. Walk with Elephants – Shake Things Up….  It’s been my experience that when you are seen with the CEO or other executives you tend to get a little more respect from others in and around that organization.  You may have no authority but you have implicit authority because of your association. It just makes life easier.  Just don’t let it go to your head.

There are as many ways to success as there are people but sometimes getting some guide posts from a walking talking success makes it more legit.

Each one of these rules all require courage… I know I struggle with my thoughts and let them get the best of me sometimes.  I also realize that I could catapult my success if I would hang out with more elephants. But there is fear on my part that I have to deal with. Most of these fears are unfounded.  All of this is just part of the practice and the art of self development.  The cool thing is that if your in sales or in business for yourself you get rewarded for getting better.

So why not tackle some of this?  Hell, the least we can do is take a different route to the office.

October 5, 2012 Manage your Body Language for Success

I’m always amazed at how much my attitude and confidence levels improve after exercising. Whatever is happening physiologically really makes a difference in how I approach the day. If I miss a workout I will typically be less productive or more easily distracted and irritable. People who know me personally know this about me and will typically ask if I got my workout in for the day. If I bite their head off they know that I probably missed it…

I ran across this TED talk by Amy Cuddy about how body language affects your personality and how we can also change our behavior through body language. I love this stuff because it is actionable and you can get results very quickly.  Check it out.  If your in sales you know your body language is a huge player in how you show up in a sales call.  Typically makes up like %70 of your overall communication so being aware and learning how to mange your body language only makes you that much better. Make sense? No, it makes dollars….

Amy Cuddy: Your body language shapes who you are

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October 4, 2012 Walmart Cures Inferiority Complex

I can’t remember the saying I saw but it basically said your attitude determines your behavior and that leads to the life you create for your self…

I feel guilty about some of the bitching and moaning I do. Today happened to be one of those days. I found out this morning that somebody had hijacked my debit card and went on a nice spending spree in London… Wish I could have been there.  Last week my battery in my car went out and then an hour later my AC stopped working.  So today I began to reflect on the pains in the ass life deals us and how to navigate them without blowing it out of proportion.  Because it’s very easy to slip into an Eore mode and just feel like shit about your self.

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(Damn good looking Donkey)

Inferiority Complex Cure

On occasion I admit that I get a dark glimpse of what it’s like to have a full blown case of an inferiority complex.  Sometimes I wonder how the hell do some people keep it all together. Why am I not as good as them.  I don’t know maybe you have the same bullshit running through your head too on occasion.  The best cure I have found to get out of that foul place is to get out of your house and go to your local Walmart.  Seriously. About 20 minutes of wandering the store during a decent busy hour will cure most cases of feeling like shit about your self and for the most part repair any ego damage you may be suffering. That’s it.  Now go home and do some good!

Please note, I’m not degrading their patrons or the store. I’m just observing their clientele and making comparisons to my self. Why not? It’s cheaper than therapy.

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(This is not what I usually see…)

So at the end of the day I really don’t have any problems. I may not be succeeding at the level I hoped I would be at but that doesn’t mean my life is worthless.  Tomorrow is a new day for new actions that get you closer to where ever it is you may want to be.

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October 2, 2012 Behavior Accelerators and other ways to be a grown up…

Perhaps when we find ourselves wanting everything, it is because we are dangerously close to wanting nothing. ~ Sylvia Plath

What if points don’t matter? What if you did your thing, whatever that is, and could care less about what is going on around you? What if your only challenge was to just do the behaviors you said you would do; the behaviors that will lead you to success? How would life be different in six months? What goals would you have realized or at least be orbiting around?

I’m a routine freak. I love morning routines, lunch routines, nighttime routines, call routines, exercise routines, food routines… For me these routines are like religion they aren’t always pleasant but they help me stay on track and keep me mentally, emotionally and physically in check. Plus I don’t have to waste mental/emotional/physical energy figuring out what my next move is going to be. I default to the routine. It happens and typically good things follow.

In essence goals are just behaviors broken down into smaller actions over a period of time. (That’s my definition at least) So in my little brain, I’m always aiming for actionable behavior that I can turn into a routine and spend less effort/will power when the behavior needs to be completed. Routines allow this. Link enough of these behaviors together over period of time, more often than not you will be very near your goal.

Unfortunately most of us become attached to our goal outcomes and forget about the behaviors to achieve the desired results. It’s here that many of us get bogged down in the mind numbing world of the “how” instead of the “do”. Results will always be a lagging indicator.

What if we just redefined goals as behavior accelerators?

The goal itself is put in place to push the accelerator on the behaviors. If we define goals this way we become less inclined to focus on the end result but the task at hand. The end result may be close to our original stated goal but we don’t get lost in the future of attainment Vs. doing the behavior in the now. In most cases the realization of a goal is not a linear process. We would all like to start at point A and then move to B then to C and so on, but that’s just not reality. Sometimes we start at C and have to go back to A to get to D. This is normal. It should be expected and embraced.

Monitor your attachment…

What happens if you give up on your goals? I can tell you that in most sales circles you will be deemed a slacker and unmotivated. So maybe we don’t give up on our goals but instead just don’t become attached to them. In this case we set the goal and begin the behaviors. We don’t add anything else to it and we don’t worry or become attached to the outcome good or bad. We just do the behaviors and adjust the behaviors accordingly. No more emotional entanglement in the goal. Or as somebody famous said… “Let it be”.

September 30, 2012 Sunday Morning Coming Down

A dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world.  ~ Oscar Wilde

Sunday, it’s the day some us reach out to a higher power and bathe ourselves in good messages and peaceful resolve.  For others it’s about a day away from the chatter in our mind and find some solace in the sounds of a TV echoing a football game.  And then some people just sit around and watch lifetime…  Either way today is a day that I like to reset my dreams. I like to start with just showing up and just notice what’s going on in the body and watching thoughts pass through my consciousness.  After a few minutes of this meditation I find my self more aware and grounded to what it is that I really want.  Sometimes it takes longer and other times I just don’t feel it all… Either way it’s ok and a worth while practice.  Because the reality of life, like sales, is that sometimes what were working on just doesn’t turn out.  It either doesn’t pan out at all or it morphs into something totally unexpected; good or bad.  It’s those times that I believe are the magic of this practice and of life. So without totally revealing my belly button to you… Take some time each week to just sit.  Just sit and be with whatever comes up. Don’t judge it. Just let it hang there and see what comes up. Good, bad or indifferent.  Then let it go.  It’s from this practice that we learn how to see the conversations in our head and how they are for the most part useless and many times destructive to our peace. Try it. Or not.

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September 27, 2012 Cue the Jeffersons!

Why be a disco instructor when you can just disco?  Huh?  I don’t know…

Look, do you realize that if you are making cold calls that most people won’t answer? The statistics are really horrific… But I still do it. It’s like a comfortable pair of shorts that have a hole in the crotch.  It just feels good and I’ve had success in the past so I keep going back.  It is frustrating though.  Last week I busted out 80 something calls and actually talked to 16 people.  Didn’t get one appointment.  Got some No’s and then on others it wasn’t the right time.  Maybe a blow off,-who knows. Monday I wasn’t feeling super excited about making calls.  So I didn’t until about 4:00PM.  First call I got through to my guy and set an appointment. Thank God…

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Thankfully I didn’t stop and I kept calling.  Still working on a 2nd one for the week. I guess my point is that we all know this is a numbers game but it’s still hard to play out those numbers some time.  A lot of what we need to do is just do what we need to do.  Just pick up the damn phone and dial a number. Yes, technique and planning do play a role but they are worthless without execution.

This is a hard career but it’s so much better than sitting in a cube all day hating your self for sitting in a cube all day. So today I’m calling more people. I want that 2nd appointment for the week. I’m just going to make the dials and am not going to worry about the outcome.

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