In the world of a student manager at Southwestern Advantage, we encounter both sales and leadership training: the first year focuses on sales skills, and as a Student Manager, the emphasis changes to leadership.  Dan Sullivan, consultant, author and founder of The Strategic Coach, discusses the how selling and leadership interrelate for the entrepreneur.  First, the aspiring entrepreneur launches the business and spends tons of energy selling the concept/service to others, then, once established, the focus turns to leadership and running the business.  Are the two different?  Is selling as important a skill as leadership?

Share your thoughts and comments.  All of us at Southwestern Advantage are entrepreneurs at heart!

That word is “should.”

But why is “should” such a dirty word?  The problem is that “should” allows our imagination to parade around as reality. Part of it has to do with context—when we use the word. “Should” is a word that exists in both the past and the future, but it does not exist in the present. This is a problem because the only reality is the present. The past exists only partially in our memories, and the future does not exist at all. But “should” drags the past into the present and limits the possibilities of the future.

I know this is pretty abstract stuff, so let me make it more concrete with an illustration. “I should have done that differently,” is a sentence we have all uttered in one form or another in our lives. But where is the focus on this sentence? It’s on the past. Saying something like this forces our attention onto events that have already occurred and cannot be altered. But this word, “should,” confuses us into thinking that we have the power to change what has happened. We don’t! And this leads to a failure to accept our situation.

Anyone who has sold books or built a team with the Southwestern Advantage program understands the importance of accepting your situation. It’s simply another way of focusing on the controllables (discussed in a previous three-part post). In fact, accepting your situation is so important that I would argue the only reason we ever experience stress is due to a failure to accept our situation. Stressed about that test tomorrow? Accept that you didn’t start studying soon enough and start focusing on what you can do to get the best grade possible. Stressed that your top Southwestern Advantage first year went cold? Accept that they aren’t going to work with you and get back to front-door activity. Stressed that you are living paycheck to paycheck? Accept that you have mismanaged your money and get yourself on a budget.

“Should” prevents us from taking the necessary actions to remedy the unpleasant situations we find ourselves in. When we let our thoughts and utterances be dominated by “should,” we lose our focus on the present moment and begin to dwell on the imaginary world we have created in our own heads.

So if you have recently found yourself stalled in your progress in some facet of your life, examine where “should” has crept in and put a roadblock on your forward motion. Accept that no matter how much you feel the situation “should” be a certain way, it is not that way. And then begin to find a specific action you can take to create the future you want, not the future that you “should” have.

“Sometimes sales training and “advanced” sales strategies do more harm than good — especially if the techniques you adopt take you away from what works best for you. Here’s an example.

My wife wanted a new car. She likes sports cars so we went to a dealer to check out a BMW 135i. The salespeople were loitering in the lot as car salespeople without customers are wont to do, so they saw us drive up, cruise through a couple rows of cars, and park in front of the 135is.

A young guy headed over; evidently it was his turn. After a quick hello he clearly started to follow a mental sales technique checklist.

Evidently “qualify your lead” was first on his list. That didn’t go well for him so he moved on to “determine customer needs” and started asking about what we were looking for in a car. Without being rude (she has a knack for courteous deflection) my wife asked a few questions he struggled to answer, probably because he kept focusing on re-engaging his training and reclaiming the sales high ground.

Then he surprised us. He stopped talking, took a deep breath, and said, “I’m sorry. I really suck at this. Wait here and I’ll go get someone who can actually help you.”

My wife melted, as wives who are businesslike but also caring are wont to do. “No, we don’t need anyone else. You’re doing fine,” she said. “Hey, tell me; have you driven one of these?”

“Oh yeah,” he said, visibly brightening. “They’re really fast… and I probably shouldn’t say it but they handle better than an M3.” Then he glanced around to make sure no one was nearby and said, “Even if you don’t plan to buy it you should at least drive one. They’re a blast.”

We did, and she bought one (and a year later still loves it.)

Where did he initially go wrong? He let training turn him into the salesman he’s not. He tried to become a qualifying, relationship building, features and specifications spewing, commitment gaining closer.

In the process he gave up his biggest strength. He stopped being himself, a young enthusiastic guy who loves cars.

Consider the sales strategies you currently employ. Do they take you away from your strengths?

• Say you’re naturally introverted; don’t try to become this guy. Where sales is concerned, listening can be even more effective than speaking.
• If you’re perceptive and have good instincts, don’t get locked in to the qualification process. In our example, we parked a relatively expensive vehicle in front of a row of 135is, so any salesperson could safely assume we had the means and the interest. (In fact, the car you drive onto a lot probably says more about your means than any answers you provide to qualifying questions.) After “Hello,” the best thing the salesman could have said was, “Tell me which one you want to drive and I’ll grab the keys.”
• If you’re naturally casual and chatty, don’t try to be professorial or authoritative. Speak the way you speak to friends (within reason, of course). Be genuine and prospects will respond. 

Sound simple? It is… but many people lose sight of the fact the sales techniques they use should play to their strengths. Don’t try to be something you’re not; instead, focus on being a better, more effective version of you.”

So, here’s the message to all Southwestern Advantage dealers: be you!  When salespeople try to copy someone else’s style or personality–or they attempt to become “salesy”, they lose.  Prospects can pick up on phoniness and are turned off by overt sales tactics.  Be yourself; play to your own strengths and you’ll succeed.  

So what if you’ve experienced some recent setback? Perhaps some of you Southwestern Advantage student managers have returned from spring break, only to find fewer members on your team than you had beforehand.  Maybe you’ve looked at your recent round of grades and have determined that you need to overhaul your study habits.  Perhaps you’ve made a series of bad decisions with your money or your personal habits (see spring break), and you’re down on yourself.

Here’s a great question to ask yourself: “How can I turn this around?”

Simple question.  Usually when we’re mired in negative circumstances, our minds jump around—we’re bombarded by random, unhelpful thoughts:

• “What an idiot I am!”
• “Why did I do that?”
• “I’m really bad with money.” Or…
• “I should’ve prepped my team more for spring break issues.”

“How can I turn this around?” points your brain in an entirely different area—the area of creative answers.  If this question doesn’t immediately provide solutions, think of related questions, like:

• “What can I do differently to make it the way I want it?”
• “How can I change my situation going forward?”
• “What small action can I take right now to change my direction and start new habits?”

If you don’t get the answers you want at first, do you give up? Or do you keep asking in as many ways as you have to, to get the answers you need? So think about employing, “How can I turn this around?” when you need it. 

Oh, and by the way, a large percentage of teams have been built after spring break—some of our best Southwestern Advantage students were selecting late in the game.  Myself included.  I went to an info session during final week, signed up and came to Sales School later that week!  There are numerous other examples. 

What questions do you use to rebound from tough stuff?  Comment and share your strategies.  Just remember to guard your thoughts, use better questions, and you will be more successful in your Southwestern Advantage career.

In Part One, we saw that controlling hours doesn’t necessarily mean simply being “out there” for the allotted amount of time. It also means using that time productively. In Part Two, we saw that controlling your demos really means controlling the quality of the effort you put forth. In Part Three, we’ll take a look at what it means to have a positive attitude.

Many first-year Southwestern Advantage students get frustrated during the summer because they feel like they are expected to be happy all the time. This, of course, is an unrealistic goal. Aside from the fact that sometimes we just don’t feel happy, it can be hard to keep a smile plastered on our faces if the last ten families in a row refuse to even sit down and look at our books. It’s hard to enjoy yourself if you feel like you are failing. Even top producers get frustrated sometimes. But they still are able to maintain a positive attitude, because they understand that you don’t have to be happy in order to be positive.

A positive attitude is made up of five Southwestern Advantage mindsets:

1. Confidence in yourself and your ability to succeed, no matter the circumstances.
2. Belief in the value of the product or service you are providing.
3. A focus on the future and how your actions in the present will help you get there.
4. A commitment to learning from mistakes and past failures.
5. Taking responsibility for the results you get.

If those five mindsets make up the lens through which you see the world, then your attitude is positive. So attitude, then, is not a set of emotions, but a point of view. It is very possible to experience frustration and still maintain a positive attitude. We can still be disappointed in the outcome of an event—say a family doesn’t buy any books—but a person with a positive attitude will understand that that event is in the past and it is a learning opportunity, and dwelling will make no difference except to hinder further progress toward the achievement of the goal.

An example of this playing out in everyday life: consider that test you spent four hours studying for, but just barely passed. A person with a positive attitude is not jumping up and down for joy over a D-, but they are able to assess what they could have done differently, and they focus on being better prepared for the next test by finding solutions—asking more questions in class, beginning to study sooner, or visiting their professor during office hours. They take responsibility for their actions and the results of those actions, always focusing on how to move forward.

If we look at the summer and as life as being up to us in the actions we take, then our attitude truly is positive. It is no doubt the most difficult of the Three Controllables, but it is ultimately the one that will most greatly influence our success both during a Southwestern Advantage summer and in our lives.

I remember before my first summer with Southwestern Advantage, being trained by my student manager. Every week he would drill into me the importance of 30 demos. 30 demos every day; if you just get your thirty in, it’ll work; don’t worry about your sales, just focus on your demos! I had bought in so much to this idea of 30 demos, and that demos determine success, that I committed to try for 40 demos every day. I figured, “If thirty gives me one or two customers a day, then forty should give me an extra one or two each week.” In fact, I was so tied in to this idea that I was confused when I got to Sales School and the introductions for the sales managers teaching parts included talking about their sales. I remember thinking they should announce their demos instead.

As a result, I completely focused on doing 30 demos every day, and I managed to do that even my very first day. But despite getting the demos in, I wasn’t making the sales. I was so focused on the quantity, that I was oblivious to the quality. And one day, after leaving a sit down, I realized that my focus was off. Of course the demos were important, but I came here to make sales, and getting an “X” on my goal card was pretty meaningless in and of itself. The only reason to aim for those demos and sit-downs was because that’s where sales are made.

So “Demos” refers to more than just the number of demos we do. (Don’t get me wrong—the number is important, and if you’re not doing 30 a day, you need to focus on that before you worry about anything else.) It’s not just the number, but the nature. I can control if I re-demo and re-close after an objection. I can control how well I find a need. I can control how many names I use and if I make them three-dimensional or not. I can control the quality of my pre-approach so I’m showing books at the door appropriate for the kids’ age levels. In terms of a Southwestern Advantage summer, all of these things fall under the umbrella of the Demo.

So how does this relate to regular life? Well, if Hours correlates with what we do with our time, then Demos correlates with how well we do it. For instance, if you’re working on a report, either for a professor or for your boss, and you spend several uninterrupted hours working on it, that’s controlling your time. And if you do the appropriate research, verify your facts and information, take the time to proofread and revise, and make sure there is a logical organization, that’s controlling your work—your Demos.

To truly control the work you do and the quality of it, you have to do the little things that will lead to the success you are looking for. Both on and off the Southwestern Advantage bookfield, that is the key to truly controlling your Demos.

But even during the summer there are a lot of variables. Weather, cars, first-years, host families, permits, packages, sales, Sunday meetings, stat calls, gas prices—and so many of these things are completely beyond our control. That’s why we learn to focus on the Three Controllables: Hours, Demos, and Attitude. But here’s the cool part: these three things are not just controllable during a Southwestern Advantage summer, but during the rest of the year as well. This is the first in a three-part series of blogs about the three controllables and how we can apply them to our everyday lives as well.

The first of the three Southwestern Advantage controllables is hours. This is by far the easiest of the three to control. As we explain to first-years, it means starting on time and stopping on time. It means being where you’re supposed to be when you’re supposed to be there. This is critical during the summer, because if you aren’t in your sales area, it’s hard to make sales.

But I think there’s more to hours than just “being there” all day. It means what you use those hours for. It means being productive with your time, which is the most precious gift any of us have ever received. To truly control your hours means to not waste a millisecond. For instance, if you know after 8 minutes that a family won’t buy, but you stay the full twenty minutes, have you technically done anything wrong? No. You followed the 20-Minute Rule, and you were with a family for that whole time. But were you truly controlling your hours? No. You wasted twelve minutes of your day in an activity you knew was unproductive. That is NOT controlling your hours.

So how does that relate to daily life? Well, whether college students, full-time recruiters, sales managers, or any other profession, we can control the hours that we spend focusing on our work and our goals. And the winner, nine times out of ten, is the one who spends the most time working towards their goals. So, as an example, let’s consider college students.

Imagine we have two students, we’ll call them Sam and Kris. Both students decide they need to study for two hours for their upcoming Calculus test, but Sam decides to study in the library and Kris in the dorms. Ultimately, Sam is doing the best at controlling hours, because time spent studying in the library will most likely have fewer distractions than time in the dorms. So even though Sam and Kris are both “studying” for two hours, and they may even get through the same amount of material, Sam will be more successful and get more out of studying than Kris.

In life and on the Southwestern Advantage bookfield, there are very few things we have any control over, but we can definitely control ourselves and our time. As Mort Utley reminds us, what we do each day is important because we are trading a day of our lives for it. If we want to be successful in life, we will consistently use that time to its fullest potential.

This is the first in a three-part series, looking at each of the three controllables in turn, in sales and in life. Next up is a closer look at “demos” in the context of Southwestern Advantage.

Let’s go a bit deeper and explore how laying ground rules in advance can really enhance a working relationship. As a young student manager in the Southwestern Advantage program, I learned what worked and didn’t work when managing people mostly by trial and error.  Mostly from mistakes.  

Students have asked me, “How do you develop judgment?”

I say, “From experience.”

They ask, “And where do you get this experience?”

My reply, “From poor judgment.” 

After a series of badly-handled interpersonal encounters, opaque communications and poor working relationships with fellow students, I found it was 1) best to lay the ground rules first and 2) discover what made my recruit/friend/team member tick & ticked.  By the way, all of this applies also to parenting, coaching, managing and dealing with people in general.

 So, in a Southwestern Advantage team building scenario, I would have a meeting with my team member and discuss our preferences (ground rules) for how we should work together going forward.  It might sound like: 

“So Stephen, would it be OK if we talked about how we should work together this summer?  I was curious about how you like to be worked with and coached? In other words, what makes you tick? What are your preferences? 

“The flip side is I’m also curious about what you find irritating or frustrating about work relationships—maybe in the past.  In other words, what made you ticked?  What drove you crazy about a manager or coach in the past? 

“The reason I’m bringing this up is the better we understand each other on the front end, the fewer the frustrations later on. So maybe we can come up with a list of do’s and don’ts for working together.  Does that make sense?” 

Then I would literally get out paper, share preferences, and make a list.  Writing it down is always more powerful and lasting than just lightly discussing a topic once and dropping it. 

Whether you’re teaching a class, coaching a team, running an office, or parenting a child, figuring out what makes them tick or ticked is helpful.  Feel free to share your ideas or anecdotes. Certainly, in the context of building a team with Southwestern Advantage, laying the ground work first saves a lot of emotional upset later on and ensures a solid working relationship.

Here’s a fun activity for your next Southwestern Advantage campus meeting: grab a friend and tell them that no matter what, they cannot smile. Next, sit across from them and smile. See how long they can last without smiling back. Most people last less than a minute before breaking into a grin. And all you did is smile at them!

            In the book “Social Intelligence,” psychologist Daniel Goleman, Ph. D. describes how the human brain is truly a social organism. When we see an emotion on someone else’s face, our own faces naturally begin to mimic that expression and we actually begin to internalize that emotion ourselves. That’s why we cry at sad movies, and why laughter can be contagious. Goleman calls this synchronization of emotion and expression between two people “rapport.”

            But wait—isn’t establishing rapport the first part of the introduction in the Southwestern Advantage sales cycle?

            It sure is! Students in the Southwestern Advantage summer program learn that the first step in making a sale is to find a connection with their prospect. So how can we use this idea of rapport as emotional synchronization to help improve our ability to connect with Mrs. Jones?

            It’s pretty simple, actually. Most of us are guilty, at some point or another, of assuming that just because we drop a few names, our current prospect feels connected to us. And then we end up confused when the prospect doesn’t buy our product! The problem is that simply telling Mrs. Jones who else has bought your books doesn’t establish any sort of emotional connection. All it does is let her know that you’ve been trained in sales. To truly establish rapport through using names, we need to emotionally connect with our prospects.

            The best way to do this is by telling stories about your customers that elicit a shared emotional response. For example, if you know that Mrs. Jones and Mrs. Smith both have kids on the soccer team, sharing a story with Mrs. Jones about how frustrated Mrs. Smith was with long practices on a school night can remind her of her own frustration. (But remember to be ethical: only share true stories!) Because you are now both sharing the emotional experience of long practices, Mrs. Jones begins to feel connected to you. You have successfully created “rapport.”

            So for those of you frustrated with your attempts to establish a connection with your prospects, try creating that emotional synchronization. Hey, you could even ask them to try as hard as they can not to smile…

            Aside from using names during the summer more effectively, how else could you use the “emotional synchronization” understanding of rapport, either while selling or recruiting? Feel free to share in the comments section below!

For more information on Daniel Goleman and Social Intelligence, visit danielgoleman.info, or pick up the book from your local library!

First impressions are tricky.  People make rapid assumptions about new acquaintances.  Oftentimes, you can be mistaken about what you see and hear from a Southwestern candidate or a recruit. 

If you’re going to be working with someone you don’t know well, you need to manage the budding relationship, not just the first impression.   

Let’s explore an example.  If you’re following up with a new Southwestern team member and they show up late for the meeting, you have several options: 

1)     ignore the fact they’re 15 minutes late and proceed

2)     when (if) they apologize, say, “Oh, it’s no big deal.”

3)     Confront them politely. 

Early on in my Southwestern recruiting career, I would have opted for #2.  I valued the team member liking me above our business relationship.  If you pursue ignoring or excusing behavior you don’t appreciate, expect more of it.  When I said, “Don’t worry, it’s no big deal,” I was teaching that person how to treat me in the future.  I was unconsciously teaching them my time was not valuable.  Once I chose this interpersonal route, I couldn’t then be upset if they showed up late for other follow-ups. 

Option 3 might sound like this: “Jennifer, it’d be great for you to be on time when we meet again.  When you show up late, I feel like you don’t value my time…. I’m meeting with a bunch of students today, and it throws everyone off.  But I still like you!  I just wanted to let you know how I felt.”  Be sure to pause and let them feel a smidge uncomfortable. 

(Use judgment! If they’re just totaled their car and they’re bleeding, or if there’s been some calamity, you can cut them some slack. If they overslept, see above.) 

If you choose to let people know how you feel when they’ve violated one of your rules (in this case, punctuality), they will normally make adjustments.  If they are tardy again, you need to amp up the message, making it more uncomfortable.   

Punctuality is one example.  Teach people how to treat you in other areas: turning in completed reports, returning calls, responding to texts—there are many ways to let new team members know what behavior you want.  Feel free to comment!  Can you give me other examples—Southwestern or not—where this would be useful?