The Sales Buddha

Letting Go Of The Side Of The Pool

If you’re ever going to learn how to swim, you have to let go of the side of the pool. It’s true in just about every thing you learn to do. At some point for all of us the training wheels have to come off, the little “swim floats” have to be deflated and we have to face our fear of letting go. I know I probably crashed a few times when I was no longer on a “balance assisted” bicycle. But I made my way through it and became a neighborhood- traveling fool. I could go anywhere that pedaling could take me. But I had to let go of the fear and just pedal.

I can’t imagine that I ever wore those silly looking floats that parents put on their kid’s arms. I mean, if one of them deflates, does it save only half of the child? I took swimming lessons as a kid. Mom took us to the pool at the Shamrock Hilton Hotel in Houston. It’s gone now, but to a kid, their “Olympic” swimming pool looked like the Gulf of Mexico. It was huge. It must have had about thirty swimming lanes painted on the bottom. No way you could swim across it, simply too big!

It had about six diving boards, the long skinny ones that bounced you into the air. A couple was about like jumping off your couch. The next two were like jumping off of your roof. The final two about like jumping off the top of the school gym. As if that wasn’t enough, there were the diving platforms. They were concrete monsters that surely were as tall as the hotel itself. You needed air traffic control clearance before you could jump. You could hardly even see the people preparing to jump! Thanks Mom, it was a great place to take a little kid to learn to swim.

But I got into the pool anyway. So I could learn how to swim. And I did. Apparently, at some point, I let go of the side of the pool and let it happen. I learned to swim like a fish and still love to swim fifty years later. But what is it that keeps most of us with a locked death-grip on the side of our pool. We all have some task that we need to get done, but something prevents us from doing it. Usually it’s fear and the more we think about it, the worse it gets. That’s because “anticipation is worse than confrontation”, something I learned in the Karate Do Jang.

Thinking about what might happen is almost always worse than what actually happens. That’s why; “wait till your father gets home” is so devastatingly effective on kids. Their minds create scenarios, which never happen once Dad gets home. There is no one that can punish us like we punish ourselves. That’s what we’re doing when we hang on to the side of the pool. We hang there playing “What if...?” with ourselves. What if I sink? What if I look foolish? What if I can’t do it? Well, what if you never try? What if you let go and take off like a fish? What if you’re a “natural”! What if you love it?

For most of us the main obstacle to our accomplishing something great lies between our ears. Our thoughts and fears lock us up. So, start focusing on what success will feel like. Think about how great it will be. Stop anticipating failure and start anticipating success. When you’re sure you can succeed, just let go and see what happens. Who’ll probably laugh about how easy it was to do!

And, wait till your Dad gets home, he’ll be amazed at what you accomplished!

Networking…Are You A Hunter Or Farmer?

A Network is an extended group of people with similar interests or concerns who interact and remain in informal contact for mutual assistance or support. So, Networking would be the activities that you engage in that allow you to expand the number of people in your network. The more the merrier! The time between now and New Years is a great time to engage in those activities. It seems that there is some kind of gathering or party to attend almost every night. Anywhere that there is a gathering of people is a great opportunity to expand the number of people you know. That next connection you make might just be the source of business you need to kick off your 2006.

Now some of you might wince at the thought of doing business during the Holidays, meaning Christmas, which is still a celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ for my politically correct friends, and New Years. If you wince real hard, you’re probably a hunter. Now, not wanting to offend most of the population in one column, let me define a hunter in the sales world as a person who goes out with the intention of making a sale, or kill. They will study where their game lives, stalk them, get them in their sites and pull the “close” and make that kill. It’s not that this is a bad thing; you just need to hunt at the right time and place. Networking events are not a good place to hunt. Unless, you’re hunting for relationships and then leave the “sales gun” at home in it’s case.

You can expand your Network in a more positive way by working like a farmer. You work very hard for quite a while before you see a payoff. Networking is all about growing relationships with new people you meet. It is not about making a sale. It’s all about building, growing and nurturing healthy relationships. These relationships are the source of future friendships, support, ideas, opportunities and even the holy grail of all business, referrals! Fact: People buy from and do business with people they like and trust. These two components; like and trust, are both necessary parts of a healthy relationship, just like rain and sunshine are for a crop. This holiday season is great time to be tilling the soil and planting the seeds of mutually beneficial relationships that will bear fruit later in the year or in years to come.

So put up the “gotta get a sale” mentality and open your mind to the possibility of doing a little farming. You might just find there’s a little bit of farmer hidden deep in your soul that enjoys the smell of fresh plowed ground as much as you do eggnog. One that enjoys watching your relationships, and your crops, begin to germinate and grow. One that becomes excited with the upcoming harvest, watching your crops ripen and start to yield an incredible harvest. One that relishes the exhaustion and slumber that overcomes you at the end of a good days work. Because, that’s the life of a farmer.

So get out there and farm for relationships and new friends every chance you can over the next couple of weeks. Then go home after a good days, or nights, work and sleep peacefully. Because, even little kids know that’s when Santa Claus comes!

“Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night.”

And The Winner Is…Integrity!

This past week, the people at Merriam-Webster OnLine dictionary announced that the most looked up word this year was integrity. It received nearly a quarter million hits. I guess there is both good and bad in this reality. It’s good that there are that many people who wonder what integrity is, where it comes from and how to demonstrate integrity in their lives. It’s bad, and sad, that there is such a lack of integrity in our society that you have to look it up in a dictionary to know what it is when you hear it mentioned. 

I can remember looking up many words in the dictionary. Last week my wife was working on a crossword puzzle and gave me clue, “ovine fellow”, which I found to be a clue for ram, after looking up “ovine” in the dictionary. I have never had to look up the word integrity to know when I’ve seen a lack of it, or to understand what it is, or to wonder where it comes from or how to demonstrate it in my life.

Merriam-Webster OnLine dictionary defines integrity as “firm adherence to a code of especially moral or artistic values”. So that’s what it means, to have some kind of Code that you decide to live by. A Code that requires that you do the right things in life, that guides you in your decisions, your actions and may one day define who you were.

My father had such a Code. We never talked about, but I know it was there. I saw it in the way he carried himself and in the way he treated others and in the way he did business. As a kid, I thought it was something he brought back from the “war”. I’m sure now, that it probably went overseas with him and was honed there, as it is with many of our men and women in service today. I knew it back then when I saw integrity in action. It looks the same today as it did when I was young.

I know where integrity comes from. I have had numerous lessons during my life. They began with my Mom telling me “how to act” many times every single day! In church I learned about the Ten Commandments and the Golden Rule, “do unto others, as you would have them do unto you”. In the Boy Scouts of America, I learned the Scout Oath and the Scout Law of being trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean and reverent. These have had a tremendous impact on my Code. In the martial art I study, Soo Bahk Do Moo Duk Kwan, I learned the Eight Key Concepts and 10 Articles Of Faith In Training that help to guide me toward becoming a “man of virtue”.  As a Coaching professional, I am guided by the Code of Ethics of the International Coach Federation. My personal Code has been, and continues to be, developing my entire life.

And so we come to a final point for those quarter million inquisitive minds looking up integrity in the dictionary. How do you demonstrate integrity once you know what it is? Well, you’ll be fine if you just do what Mark Twain said you should do, “Always do right; this will gratify some people and astonish the rest!”

Building Healthy Relationships

A couple of weeks ago I wrote an article for my newspaper column about Small-town Customer Service and the importance that building relationships with your prospects and customers could have on your business. The easiest way to build relationships is to be totally focused on the other party. Find out what is important to them. Look for ways that you can help them out, not just what you can sell them, but how you can help them out. If you focus on this aspect of the relationship, you’ll usually find reciprocity coming back your way. The unconditional love I have for my grandson, Toryn, is a pretty good foundation and example of the steps to take when building healthy relationship. Just look at what occurs in just a day’s time

Toryn and I spent the day together, just hanging out at G.G.’s and Papaw’s place. We started the morning with scrambled eggs that G.G. and Toryn had gathered from the hen house the day before. Then we played some nerf-football, worked in the shop oiling and polishing G.G.’s silverware case, played with the dogs, went swimming in the inflatable pool and had the mother of all water gun battles. I was soaked and Toryn declared the victor! Had some beanie-weenies and macaroni and cheese for lunch and then prepared for the afternoons events. We pretty much repeated the morning schedule and ended up at dusk watering the blackberry canes, which quickly progressed into a day ending “let’s spray Papaw with the hose”! We both slept very well last night.

The lesson that I learned was that in nurturing our relationship, it was all about him. What could I do to help him, entertain him, teach him and generally demonstrate how much I love him? I never had a thought of what was in it for me. I never wondered what I would get in return. I never wondered when the payoff would come through. The time we spent together was it’s own reward. Now I know that Papaws give unconditional love to their grand kids and customers aren’t even in the same game. But if we focus on how can we help them, the rewards will be long lasting, with grand kids as well as prospects and customers!