The Sales Experiment

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Keep Your Eyes Open

One thing I never learned as an English major or as a seminary student was to keep my eyes open for opportunities.

You’d think I’d pick this skill up while studying to be a pastor, but I have a hard head.

Nope. It’s taken five years of pounding my brain with a steady stream of sales, leadership, and, yes, personal growth content to help me realize two things about keeping my eyes open.

  1. There are opportunities everywhere.
  2. There are people who could use a hand everywhere.

Usually, the two go hand in hand.

Since I’m currently (through March 1), working through what I’ve called the Dan Miller Challenge, I’ve had to be even more observant… on the lookout for opportunities to act on what I’m reading and listening to which, in turn, keeps me on the lookout for problems to solve, people to serve, and potential to stretch.

If the quality of our life depends on our ability, willingness, and availability to create value for others, then keeping eyes open for opportunities is nearly identical with giving people a hand (and being willing to accept some value in return in the form of money – since we’re talking business and sales).

Opportunities that popped up today

I’m currently in the middle of attending a conference, so I went with the goal of finding new opportunities.

Here are a few that I stumbled upon. Most of the opportunities were seed-planting opportunities, but I wouldn’t have noticed them 6 months ago.

  • I met a vendor at the conference whom I thought could benefit from one of my prospect’s products (a software to help mental health professionals who specialize in Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA). I’d met with this prospect just yesterday, so I approached the vendor and mentioned my prospective client’s software. She immediately recognized the creator’s name and let me in on a secret. My prospect, apparently, is a groundbreaker in the field of behavioral therapy for children with autism spectrum disorders.  I never would have known.
  • Many of the vendors at the conference are national child-serving organizations. I’ve normally considered those who work solely within my state as potential clients. This time through, I’m considering the possibility of serving these national organizations. Why not?
  • I had the opportunity to help encourage a colleague in her sales efforts, uncovering niche opportunities and focuses (at least I was giving it a shot).

Those three items might not seem like a huge deal. But the biggest takeaway for me is the fact that I was being much more intentional than I’ve been in the past.

If I want to 10X my business or if I want to exceed expectations or double revenue in just over 4 months from now, then I must learn how to help and serve more people.

I must be a value creator.

The same goes for you, incidentally. I know this sounds more like a journal entry than a blog post, but you do know that I’m just guinea pigging myself, right?

You, too, should keep your eyes open. Look for opportunities. They’re there. You might not make bags of cash each time, but you’ll be exercising the right muscles.

Let me know what opportunities your ran into today. Leave a note in the comments.

Until tomorrow….

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Reading and Listening Today

 48 Days Podcast: October 17-Nov 7, 2014 

Much of the content above comes from an overflow of power-listening to Dan Miller’s stellar podcast. It’s a special experience listening to 4 or 5 in one day (I had a long commute today).  The concepts and Dan’s creative way of viewing opportunities and shedding our self-imposed limitations make for some powerful car time.

Networking Is Not Working: Stop Collecting Business Cards and Start Making Meaningful Connections – Derek Coburn

My approach at this conference is being informed by Coburn’s book.  His is a wonderfully fresh approach to networking.  

See You at the Top – Zig Ziglar

I’m still making my way through Zig’s book. Today, I got into the chapter around marriage, that if you’re marriage is rough, then everything else will follow suit. My wife thanks you, Mr. Ziglar.

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Why Not You?

This week, I busted out some classic sales and motivational literature. I’m reading See You at the Top, by Zig Ziglar. The fun thing about reading his book is that you can virtually hear him in the pages.  He writes just like he speaks.

In the opening two segments of the book, Ziglar deals with mindset and the issue of self-image.

He confronts our tendency to come up with reasons why we can’t do certain things and the reasons why we tell ourselves we won’t ever be successful.

If we don’t think we will accomplish much, we won’t. If we don’t believe we have enough talent, wisdom, knowledge, or worth, then we’ll act accordingly.

You will rise to the occasion if you feel like you can or feel like you deserve to succeed. You’ll come up short if you feel like you don’t deserve to experience success or feel like you don’t have what it takes.

You cannot consistently perform in a manner inconsistent with the way you see yourself.

It’s a simple concept.

We tell ourselves, “Why should I get such and such?” “Why do I deserve this relationship or that job?”

Consequently, we don’t get those things.

Now I’m not saying that just changing our self-talk from “Why I can’t..” to “Why not me?” will completely do the trick.

But I do think that there’s a much greater chance of success if we we switch to “Why not me?”

So… why not you?

Is there, truly, a reason why you can’t accomplish certain goals?

Do you think you empower yourself when you assume you can’t, but hope somehow things will still fall into place?

Or do you think you have a greater chance if you remind yourself that you’re just as worthy of achieving certain things as anybody else is. Doesn’t make you the best person in the world. It just puts you on equal ground. It just puts you in the game so that you can give it a shot.

So… why not you?

Seriously. Why not?

Why can’t you change, improve, grow a pair, and step out in faith? Why can’t you learn a new skill? Why can’t you make the sale, meet the girl, be a good dad?

You can. Just decide you can and get to work.

Until tomorrow…

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Reading and Listening….

See You at the Top, Zig Ziglar

Since I’ve written, I’ve logged a few pages in Zig’s book. He’s really banging on some basic self-image concepts. Why do we have low self-images? How can we recognize it? It’s great, wonderful basic stuff, as true now as it was when he penned the words back in 1974

The Tim Ferriss Show – Parts 1 and 2 of his interview with Tony Robbins

I recommend listening to these two interviews. Each part is a solid hour, but they’re very, very interesting. I love listening to Tony talk about learning how to take ‘massive action’ and developing the skills to put ourselves into more productive and effective ‘states’.

Matthew Paulson Interview – The Eventual Millionaire Podcast with Jaime Tardy

Paulson shares tips, tricks, and strategies for building a massive email list. I love his story because he sounds very relatable. Besides the fact that he has a computer science background, he makes it sound like anybody could eventually figure out how to build a list because it takes work. The fact that it takes work, iteration, and testing means that there’s no secret decoder ring for success.

This is Your Life, episodes 99, 100, and Season 1, episode 11 – with Michael Hyatt

I won’t summarize each of these episodes, but I will recommend episode 11 if you’re working on putting together a personal brand.

Whether you work by yourself or are simply trying to leverage everything you have to brand yourself in your organization or as a salesperson, this episode gives 5 immensely practical suggestions.

 

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