The Sales Experiment

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You DO Have a Choice

There are some things we don’t have a choice about.

We didn’t choose our mom or our dad. We didn’t choose any of our blood relatives.

We didn’t choose the town we grew up in.

We didn’t choose the color of our skin or the color of our hair or the genetics that determined our general physical structure.

But we always have a choice in the way we respond to each one of those things above, especially if you’re old enough to be reading a blog post like this one on the internet.

You’re not an 11 or 12 year old still stuck in a horrible home situation. You’re not a 3 year old born into poverty in a third world country.*

If you’re reading this particular post, you must be wealthy enough to have a smart phone, computer, or tablet. You’re smart enough to read words on a page. You have plenty of freedom to access the internet.

My assumption, then, is that you’re doing okay for yourself.

Generally, speaking you have a lot of choices.

You Choose Every Response

I have six year old twin boys and an eight year old daughter. One of the biggest lessons I try to teach them is that they have choices regarding the way they respond to things that happen to them.

At least once a week, one of them will encounter some situation that overwhelms their little emotions and brings a variation on this theme: “I can’t stop crying! I can’t! I can’t!”

Then they might hit the couch a few times or otherwise act out with the excuse that they simply can’t help it.

I do my best to cry “bullcrap” on these little outbursts (in a sweet, gentle fatherly way, of course). When I first became a Dad, I was unaware that one of my chief roles as papa bear is to teach baby bears how to make good choices in how they respond to their emotions.

In so learning, I’ve discovered that this guy (two thumbs pointing back at the blogger writing this piece) also needs to be more intentional about every response I have to emotional input.

Human Americans struggle with emotional bad habits. We assume it is our God-given right to behave poorly when something touches off anger, frustration, sadness, or envy. Consequently, choosing negative responses has become such a bad habit that we mistake these choices as inevitable.

But we do have choices in the way we respond to emotional situations. We just need to realize it and start empowering ourselves.

This is lesson one about choice: We can all choose the way we respond to things that come our way.

If we ever say the words, “I didn’t have a choice in how I acted”, we have to ask ourselves if that was really the case.

[Tweet “If you say “I didn’t have a choice in how I acted” you owe it to yourself to confirm whether that’s true.”]

You Choose Your Decisions

People often feel squeezed when circumstances are stressful. Finances get you down and you choose bankruptcy over doubling down and working your way out of a hole.

You choose an unreasonable car lease because ‘you have no choice and need a car.’

You choose to pay too much for a house because ‘I had no choice because I have to keep up with my buddies on Facebook.’

Those are all false constructions about our lack of choice. While the statement “I had no choice” appears to let us off the hook, it, in truth, further enslaves us. It jails us. It restricts us. We rob ourselves of the power we have in our lives.

This is lesson two about choice: We choose these types of decisions. And these decisions, over time, form our character.

You Can’t Choose What Others Do, But You CAN (and do) Choose Every Response and Every Decision

It might not feel like you have any choice over your responses, but you do.  Some responses are so ingrained and habitual that it will take a lot of work to pull yourself out of the vortex of your tendencies.

And we also make most of our decisions from a position of power – from a position of choice. We very, very seldom are so backed into a corner that we have no choice in the decisions we make. Consider very carefully before you make a decision in such a way that says “I had to do it this way…. I had no choice.”

It’s empowering and freeing to choose how you will handle the good, the bad, and the stressful that inevitably will come your way.

[Tweet “It’s empowering to have the freedom to choose how we handle the stressful things that come our way.”]

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*I do realize that some come from supremely horrible backgrounds. Many of us have been inspired by individuals who have come from such backgrounds and made use of their ability to make choices to pull themselves out of those background against all odds. Sometimes, those of us who were coddled have a harder time choosing greatness than those who are running from the very opposite of greatness in their personal histories. It’s not easy to make choices, but it’s vital we learn how to do it, regardless of our circumstances. 

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Tactics, Strategies, and Effectiveness

I’ve spent the last few days catching up on Michael Stelzner’s Social Media Marketing Podcast. The podcast is a wealth of information on digital media’s most effective tactics and strategies (if they are used wisely and surgically, of course).

Today, I listened, specifically, to the podcast with Zach King, a filmmaker who has used his talents to conquer the new world of Vine video.

Mr. King said something that stuck out (paraphrased): “If your target audience isn’t on Vine [i.e. the younger demographic], then perhaps you shouldn’t be on Vine. It’s not smart to try to be on every social media platform.” (something like that)

The message is this: Use the tactics and strategies that increase effectiveness as it relates to your goals.

Only use the marketing platforms that drive your business forward. 

Experiment? Yes.

Commit full resources to all of them? No.

Sales and New Marketing Both Suffer from the Shiny Object Syndrome

Every new sales book that comes out touts itself (or convinces reviewers to tout it) as the greatest new development in sales since whatever the other most recent sales movement was.

The same holds true for marketing.

We get nudged off of a consistent course by grasping at the next thing that sounds like it’ll hold a silver bullet.

The newsflash is this: there is no such thing as a silver bullet. You might find a little fortune or favor here and there, but there is no silver bullet.

Be Honest About What Is Effective

As they say in recovery, the first thing one must do is admit there is a problem.

In sales and marketing, the first thing one must admit is which activities produce the most compelling results.  You’d think we’d be happy about finding the one thing, and we’d be uber-disciplined about doing the one or two things that generate the most results.

The problem is that the one or two things require the most sweat. The activities that move the dial nearly always cost us. They take time. They take focus. They take courage.

What strategies and tactics are the most effective in your work?

Are you doing them?

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By the way, Zach King’s Vine channel (or account or whatever) is ridiculously cool. Here’s a fun example:

 

 

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What One Ingredient Would Bring the Most Change?

For those of you who don’t share a faith perspective, I hope you can find a nugget or two in this post.

In my podcast listening today, I heard the last half of Steven Neff’s sermon The Indispensable Word at College Wesleyan Church.

He talked about what happens when someone comes to faith. It’s not a mental decision. It’s not a moment of emotional ecstasy. It’s a moment where the stuff of God – the Word of God – transforms the human heart into something completely different.

He’s an extremely good communicator. While I’m sure he could care less how well known he is, I believe his voice should be one in that is heard in the evangelical community… but I digress.

My point is not to talk theology.

It’s to talk about how any of us come to a point of change. While a ton of self-help and personal growth literature would tell us that we have all we need inside us to make the changes we need to make, I don’t know if I buy that.

I think we need input. We need influences. We need others who can drop knowledge, perspective, and new ideas on us so we can change in areas where we need to change.

Right now, I’m working on a bathroom project. I’m not a construction guy, but the job requires some complicated (to me) steps.

I can stare all day at the bathtub surround, at a loss on how to prepare the walls for tile. Yet it only takes 5 minutes for someone who has done this work before to walk in and know exactly what to do and coach me up.

In a lot of areas of our lives, that’s exactly what we need. We can stare down the barrel of a problem that we don’t quite get. The right person with the right experience and knowledge can walk along and completely change our perspectives or abilities to get things done.

First, you have to identify the area in your life where you want to see change happen.

Second, you need to be open for input.

Third, you need to find the person who has just the right stuff to help push you through the change that needs to happen.

We can’t always get it done by ourselves. We all have blind spots and areas where we’re ignorant.

But if we’re open to it. If we don’t feel the need to be the smartest person in the room, then we just might receive that one thing, that one ingredient, that could revolutionize our lives or our work or any area where we need to see change happen.

Until tomorrow…

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Reading & Listening Today

What story are you telling? – 48 Days Online Radio Show, 11/14/14

This was a great little podcast. Dan reminded us to get the goals done for 2015. I’m needing to set some time aside to work on this.

Jaime Tardy’s Webinar on Networking and Creating a Mastermind

This webinar convinced me to make good on what I promised myself for the conference I’m currently attending: find people to interview. It will, at this point, be for blog posts, but I’m sure it wouldn’t be a bad thing.

 

 

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