This is all captured on tape.  But as soon as the ornament breaks, my brother turns to the camera and screams, “Haley did it!”

The video pans to me in my footie pajamas, minding my own business on the floor.  Not being very productive, but definitely not dropping ornaments from 6 feet above.  For my 4 year old brother, his diversion of blame was quite clever, even cute.  But to divert blame as an in independent adult – not so cute.   A waste of energy, more like it.  

We, and we alone, are 100% responsible for our own lives.  (Remember that from Southwestern’s Sales School?)  We are the ones who should take the blame for the status of our grades, the quality of our relationships, the state of our health, our careers … everything!

And when it comes to selling, and specifically, to recruiting… every result, every output – is your responsibility.  Is everything that happens completely under your control?  Ha, we wish.  But how you respond to those circumstances absolutely is.  It’s not someone else’s’ responsibility to recruit a 10-man team for you, or collect a pool of hot prospects, or get you an A in Philosophy, or make you magically feel fulfilled in the process.   Nor is it anyone’s fault if you fail to do any of these things.  There’s no one coming to the rescue… but YOU.

And once we accept this responsibility, and hold ourselves accountable for every aspect of our lives – we can much more effectively create our experiences to be the way we want them to be.    Blaming “bad PR”, or “jerky people”, or crummy facilities – doesn’t do us one bit of good.   Instead, use that energy to pick up the pieces, and proactively work to create the results you want.    You know what you want to accomplish this year, and you know what it’s going to take to get you there.  Accept that it’s your responsibility to get there, and decided that you ARE going to get there, no matter what crazy stuff happens in between.  Thoughts?  Please comment!

If you’re out there selling books with the Southwestern Company this summer,  here are some great ideas from Haley Price (author of your inspirational flip book) on how to improve.  If you’re not on the bookfield, these are still applicable to a sales career.

1. Expect it to be a killer week. Don’t hope for a great week; EXPECT one.  Behave as though there is not a doubt in your mind that you will hit your goals this week – and you may surprise yourself in finding that you do!

2. Ask for referrals. Whether Mrs. Jones buys your books or not – ask her if she knows anyone that might be interested in sitting down with you to have a look. 

3. Ask trial closing questions.  Don’t be afraid to hear the word, “No”.  Throughout your conversation, ask questions like, “So far, does this look like something that would be helpful for your family?”   Questions such as these give you the opportunity to asses Mrs. Jones’ level of interest, and also allows for you to cover various objections in advance.

4. Clean out your car every night. 

5. Don’t say a single negative thing from sun-up to sun-down on Monday.

6. Commit to giving 10% (or more!) of this week’s profit to your favorite charity or cause.

7. Give to Get. Gain trust with your customers by offering guidance , advice or insight on school, getting into college, etc.  This will make you far more credible with your customers, and you will likely sell more books.  Worst case scenario: you have helped a family through offering your perspective!

8. Add One Sit-Down Every Day.  On Tuesday, sit down with one more family than you did on Monday.  On Wednesday, sit down with one more family than you did on Tuesday – and so forth.  If you do this through Saturday, you will likely see an increase in customers and units as well.

9. Time Yourself – set a stopwatch and refuse to allow yourself to sit in a house for longer than 20 minutes.  You CAN get a yes or a no in 20 minutes. 

10. BREAK YOUR BELIEF BARRIERS- convince yourself that you CAN hit your goal this week.  Don’t look at it as too lofty or outrageous or unattainable.  It’s POSSIBLE.  YOU CAN – and WILL – HIT YOUR GOALS THIS WEEK. 

I think it might be physically impossible to have a bad day after a morning like that.

While not always a common practice, many successful people engage in similar affirmation rituals every single day. 

What exactly are affirmations, you ask?  Well, we all affirm ourselves constantly.  For better, or for worse.  Our affirmations are the stream of dialogue that flows through our brains each and every day.  They are the thoughts we have about ourselves, our abilities, our expectations, and others.  They are also in the words we speak and the actions we take on a daily basis.  This flow of information is our output into the world.  It affirms that our belief systems (the way we view the world, ourselves, and other people) … are indeed true.   These affirmations are, in effect, programming our brains.

So it is our decision whether our affirmations are positive – or negative.  They can tell us how happy and at-ease we are (or, how much we like our pajamas).  Alternatively, they can tell us that people are cruel and life is hard and we were intended to live a life of suffering.

And just like when you program a computer – what you put into it, is what you get out of it.  Garbage in; garbage out, as they say.  Same goes for how we communicate with ourselves.  We actually TELL ourselves and those around us what we want out of life. How we want to feel, what we want to experience, who we want to surround ourselves with, etc.  It’s amazing how much of our reality is actually up to us.

And yes, it may seem (or look) silly to a bystander,  but I’d be willing to bet that if we all started our days a little more like Jessica – in some capacity or other - we’d see our lives (and our summer’s) get a whole lot more fruitful. 

 

value (val-yoo)

noun

1. a fair or proper equivalent in money, commodities, etc, for something sold or exchanged, for a fair price in return 

2. worth, or degree of worth 

3. that which is desirable or worthy of esteem for its own sake; thing or quality having intrinsic worth 

Value, by definition, requires some sort of sacrifice.  You give me money; I give you milk.  You wouldn’t give me money for the milk if you didn’t think you would derive at least the same value out of drinking it as the amount of money you are paying me for it. 

As it goes with selling.  And with life, for that matter.  Most things worth having (or achieving) are not easy to achieve. That is why they’re worth achieving in the first place. They must be sought after.  They must be earned.  

You’ve got to be willing to give something of yourself in order to get what you want.  Life doesn’t go around just giving away success to people who are not working for it. You’ve got to shell out whatever it is that you consider to be of equal exchange for that success.  The bigger the success, the bigger the sacrifice. 

You’ve got to believe that your end result is going to be SO good – that you’re willing to jump hurdles and wrestle giants to get there.  And why wouldn’t you?  The feeling of success is certainly worth the sacrifice it takes to get there! 

So when you’re selling, keep in mind the value of your ideal outcome. What is it you’re working for?  Remember how good that’s going to feel!   Sure, you will endure hardships and obstacles throughout your journey.  People will say “no” to you. People will doubt you.  People will think you can’t do it.  But I dare you to prove them entirely and completely wrong. 

Try not to feel resentful that reaching your sales goals requires lots and lots of hard work.   But rather, feel excited that you’re working toward something so great, that its actually WORTH going through hell for it.  That’s how good it is; and that’s how badly you want it!

Getting there – hitting your goal – closing the sale – THAT is going to feel spectacular.

If you’d like to read more of Haley Price’s pithy blogs about attitude, be sure to visit her site at http://www.todayisthebestdayofmylife.com/ 

Just as with the coin, sales is a numbers game.  It is 100% guaranteed that you will experience both the winning, and the losing, sides of the coin.  You will hear customers say ‘yes!’ to your product and you will also hear customers tell you that your product is rubbish and, ‘no, I’m not buying’.

Matter of fact, you will likely hear the latter more often than you will hear the former.   This is not bad news; it simply is the way it is.  But how bland would your job be if you heard ‘yes’ all the time?  The reason making a sale feels so good is because you know that we’ve worked for it.  You put the time and energy into it, and you earned that sale.  Hearing nothing but ‘yes’ would take the excitement away.  Just like it wouldn’t be much fun flipping that coin if it always landed on heads.   You will hear a ‘yes’ eventually… if you are willing to stick around long enough and see it through.   It is statistically impossible for you to go at it day after day, time after time, try after try, and not make a sale.  It may take a day or a week or a month, but it will happen.  It’s got to happen. 

Colonel Sanders drove around the US for two years trying to sell his chicken recipe.  He was turned down 1,009 times.  Talk about believing in the numbers!

The people who excel in this world are not the lucky or the smart or the naturally gifted.  They are the patient, the persistent, and the tenacious.  They are the ones that got back up after they’d been chewed up and spit out. 

So get used to the word ‘no’.  Expect, embrace it, and learn to enjoy it.   Because that ‘no’ means that you are now one ‘no’ closer to your long-awaited YES.  

Haley Price sold books for three summers (2003-2005).  She is the author and illustrator of Today is the Best Day of My Life.  This book contains bite-sized life principles, presented in a light and simple way, that are intended to help guide people toward a more productive, more meaningful, and more fun life.  She tailored a version of this book specifically towards Southwestern students, and it was used for the first time in their sales kits in the summer of 2009.  While not writing, Haley works in global advertising sales for Microsoft in New York, NY.