The Sales Experiment

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Take Responsibility

Circumstances do not make the man, they reveal him. – James Allen

This quotation from James Allen (I advise you to read his 1902 As a Man Thinketh probably free on Kindle) is from the chapter on ‘Responsibility’ from Weldon Long’s The Power of Consistency. (Today’s Reading: The Power of Consistency: Prosperity Mindset Training for Sales and Business Professionals by Weldon Long)

‘Responsibility’ is the fourth part of Long’s 4 step model for developing a more effective and consistent habit of making high quality decisions:

  1. Focus – Create a plan
  2. Emotional Commitment – Become tied to that plan through a daily practice of reflection on the results and elements of accomplishing the plan
  3. Action – Taking the consistent actions required by the plan and imprinted on your mind and heart by the emotional commitment.
  4. Responsibility – Take responsibility for everything within your control. Economic ups and downs, others’ decisions, and the weather aren’t in our control. Spend time focusing on the decisions we can make in spite of all these things vs. blaming the conditions.

Our responsibility is to focus our thoughts on the things that we can affect. In a sales setting, we can’t ultimately force a prospect to make a decision, but we can improve our processes and skills. We must take responsibility for improvement on those areas vs. blaming prospects for their decisions. Over time, the results will fall our way on a more consistent basis.

This idea of taking responsibility really is a freeing thing. Even if somebody has done something really horrible to us, we can still take responsibility for our responses. We don’t have to be victims or live in suffering. Obviously, some things require some major work, but committing to the major work is part of learning to take responsibility.

Today’s Action Item: Spend time with my family (it’s Saturday) and define my sales process. 

One of the key elements in this section of Long’s book is to focus on the sales process and improve each element. Subsequently, the sales process must be clear and defined so that I can focus on each element and improve each part.

Now on to part one of today’s action item – hanging with the family. Y’all enjoy your Saturday.

Until tomorrow…

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This blog is a response to Dan Miller’s unintentional challenge from his podcast on August 15, 2014: If you read or listen to 30 minutes of quality content a day, you’ll double your income. 

From September 1, 2014 through March 1, 2015, I will be doing the following:

  1. Listening or reading to 30 minutes of success, growth, business, spiritual, or other mindset-shifting, skill-sharpening content.
  2. Selecting one action item from that content (with some leeway to select an action from a previous day’s content).
  3. Doing that one action.
  4. Writing about the action or some other idea from the reading and listening of the day. 

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Sometimes Priorities Get in the Way of Our Best Intentions

I’m not narcissistic enough to assume I have readers. If I had readers, then I’d have subscribers. As of the writing of this post, on the day of my sons’ 6th birthdays (they are twins), I have no subscribers.

Therefore, I only have readers who might have found this blog because I linked to another blog or willy-nilly sent a tweet out when I wrote a new post.

I started the Dan Miller Challenge (his impromptu, unofficial challenge) on 9/1/14, and didn’t know what i was getting into.

My commitment was to listen to or read 30 minutes of helpful, life-changing, mindset-shifting content everyday. I would also select one action, implement it, and write about it.

Today, the buzz-saw of a crazy workday and an ill-planned-for birthday for 6 year old twin boys hampered part 3 of my plan – implementing an action item.

And yesterday, I committed to finishing up my commitments from earlier this week around finding speaking opportunities, finding interviewing opportunities, and finding bloggers and journalists to network with.

I didn’t fail today. Failure would mean that I wasn’t effective or productive. I was both, but I was effective and productive in areas that had nothing to do with content I’ve read or listened to this week.

While I believe in being disciplined and having some boundaries, I also believe that we need to be malleable.

Today, my priority was my clients – both internal (my colleagues for whom I do work) and external. My boys’ birthday was also a priority (there was a honey-do list).

The only thing I think I might need to work on is being much more efficient. If that happens, then I shouldn’t run into having to choose between a small action related to this challenge and the other priorities vying for my time.

Today’s Reading and Listening

I searched for and found more sales-oriented podcasts (vs. marketing and social media podcasts).

I loved the new podcasts. My experience is that sales-focused podcasts force direct relationship action items. I think I need that.

What do you need?

What content, input, learning, or mentoring do you need right now? Would it be hard to find?

The Beauty of Multiplication – The Village Church with Beau Hughes: A great sermon laying out an approach for multi-site churches that encourages satellite campuses to, over time, become autonomous. A refreshing perspective in an age of megachurch complexes (although I’m fine with megachurches).

Are You Worth It? – Advanced Selling Podcast: Learning to identify the value of the salesperson in a transaction. Often, a customer or client only sees the goods or services, but not the consultative value of the sales professional.

The Headline Formula – The Sales Copy Samurai: A simple headline formuala. Not easy, just simple. I love the suggestion to write at least 20 headlines before deciding on the final one.

Until tomorrow…

 

 

 

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Put a Tag on It

My wife and I get a lot of mileage out of that one bit on that one episode of Portlandia where they put bird on things, with the refrain, “Put a bird on it!”

Put a Hashtag on It

Instagram reminds me of that little bit: “Put a tag on it!”

Hashtags everywhere and as with a lot of social media efforts, I’m not sure the ROI, although I’m sure it’s a small part of a big whole for larger corporations and of smaller consumer goods businesses can make hay.

Today, I listened to the Social Media Marketing Podcast, episode #96 with Jenn Herman from Jenn’s Trends, a blog about trends in social media.

This episode was all about Instagram marketing.

I emailed a friend who is running an ecommerce site a basic Instagram approach to include the following:

  1. Behind the scenes footage of packaging and mailing.
  2. Developing a common hashtag or three.
  3. Urging clients to post pictures and send us pictures of their use of the product so we could post on Instagram and Pinterest and the like.

My action for the Instagram piece was to create a plan. 

Main Action Plan: Continue My Efforts to Identify Leaders to Interview

My real action item was to follow through on my commitment to identify leaders to interview.

Since this whole challenge is in addition to everything else, I’m pleased to say that I reached out to one person. And continued to bolster my list. It’s not easy adding without subtracting. There’s only so much time, no?

I’m starting with my current clients and relationships to practice my interviews. While I await their responses, I will play with Instagram. Thanks Jenn for giving me a fun action item for a day!

Also.. these interviews feel funny outside of the context of a podcast. Perhaps I should really consider that option, too. It might be a more appealing idea for prospective interviewees.

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Until tomorrow…

 

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