Sometimes the best advice is the simplest.
Just ask our old friend, Buddha. The quote above, written sometime between the 6th and 4th century, B.C., can still be applied today, for just about any interaction.
But especially for sales.
A Brief Detour From Sales...
OK, so it's the first day of school for most of you, whether it was last week, or next week, or very soon. For most of us there is joy for our kids as they go off to fill their minds with new information, and more joy for us that they're finally going back to school…However, with the joy and excitement, comes with it frustrations - like buses being late, or early, children in wrong classes, or with teachers they don't want; missing mandatory school supplies, etc. But, before you pick up the phone to scream at the bus company, or bang out that angry email to the principal, or meet your friends for coffee to complain about everything else, remember this…
There are 2.5 million children this morning who will NOT be going to school in America. There are over 13 million children this morning who will wake up and NOT have anything to eat...
Let's teach our children to truly appreciate what they have, every day, and not to complain when one of their comforts is changed or compromised or God forbid, taken away.
Yes, the bus will be late, the teacher will be mean, their blue notebook will get ripped, and your child will complain...about everything. But the truth is, they learned that from us, from you.
Entitlement is a learned behavior… So is appreciation and compassion. Let's focus on the latter.
Sales is NOT About Numbers
I saw a post the other day on LinkedIn that completely re-solidified the ancient, antiquated idea that sales is about nothing but numbers - your numbers, the company’s numbers, the closing numbers, the bonus numbers - all the numbers.
The post was a meme of Leonardo DiCaprio in his role as Hugh Glass, the fur trapper in the movie, The Revenant. He is carrying his friend on his shoulders in the scene, running out of the forest with a look of sheer determination to save his friend’s life. In the meme were the words:
The Death of the Salesman, Finally... (and why I wrote the book)
In the brilliant and famous Arthur Miller play, Death of a Salesman, main character Willy Loman is the sad and defeated traveling salesman, unsuccessful, tired, and living a life of failed dreams in a small apartment in Brooklyn., NY. The play is literary genius depicting an American tragedy.
However, what the play also depicts is another tragedy - the tragedy that the salesperson in today’s society, has become a punchline, a stereotype, a character full of bad intentions and deception. You see, Loman is the typical trench coat-wearing, fedora-donning, briefcase-carrying salesperson everyone has grown to loath. The image of the self-serving peddler - meeting you to desperately try to sell you something - has become the logo, the trademark, the brand that unfortunately every salesperson finds themselves a part of, no matter how sincere their intentions or how moral their compass.
How did this happen, and why? Is every salesperson out to simply make…