Dealing with stuckness during a Southwestern summer.

I travel to many weekend meetings during the summer.  On Sundays, I always meet with Southwestern students–many of whom are struggling–with their self-imposed limitations, with their belief levels in selling, with feelings of frustration because they’re not hitting their goals.  Invariably, they’re in a mental “death-loop”: their self-talk is negative, which leads to a mental image of what they don’t want, which leads to an outcome or action that confirms their self-talk!  A self-fulfilling sales prophecy that is limiting.

We’ve all done this in some way if we’ve sold with Southwestern: You look at a house and think to yourself: “I know I’m not going to get in.”  You form a mental picture of this negative outcome.  You muster up the courage anyway, knock and shock–you didn’t get in; then you tell yourself: “See! I knew that wouldn’t work.”  We don’t get what we want; we get what we picture.

So my PC (personal conference) might sound like this:

Me: “Tell me what’s happening.”

Student: “I just can’t get in doors.  People don’t let me in.  Ever.”

Me: “Really.  No one ever lets you in.”"

Student: “Well…some do.”

Me: “Tell me more.”

They go on to describe their stuckness in great detail.  Using all kinds of universal statements, like “everyone”, “no one”, “always” and “never”.  First person, present tense, with emotion.  All their assertions reinforce what they don’t want!

I finally counter with a key question: “What do you want to happen?” 

This usually brings an abrupt halt to their sad monologue.  Southwestern students who are locked into their mental morass are not often looking for solutions, and the new question interrupts their train of thought. They are wallowing in self-pity and a vicious self-defeating cycle.  After I ask, “What do you want to happen?” they typically give their right answer.  Example: “I want to get in doors so I can make a sale.”

My reply? “Great, let’s talk about how to do that.”  A how-to question allows us both to explore options and think about what the Southwestern student can do differently to reach a different outcome.  Most people who are suffering from stuckness are in the “why-question” mode: “why is this happening to me?” or “why can’t I get in doors?”  Breaking their state a bit with an entirely new question–”what do you want to happen?”–can launch the conversation into a much more useful area: the how-to-fix-this area.

If you’re selling (or studying or working out or feeling bad about yourself) and you’re mentally stuck, you don’t need me to PC you.  Ask yourself, “What do I want to happen?” or “How do I want to feel?”  Your brain will begin to give new & improved answers.  Thoughts?  Comments?  Southwestern veterans, chime in and let me know if this makes sense!

1. Desire for gain (usually financial)
2. Fear of loss (money, power, respect)
3. Comfort and/or convenience
4. Security and protection
5. Pride of ownership
6. Ego satisfaction 

Now think about recruiting people to Southwestern.  Which of the above emotional triggers do you employ?  Probably the first two play a big role in whether or not someone you know joins your team or not.  Think about it: desire for gain, in terms of money, personal growth, experience, resume, college credit—all play a big part of our offering. 

Now look at #2, fear of loss.  This may be key to your friend NOT joining Southwestern!  His or her friends or parents may be employing fear of losing money or respect against you.  (“I can’t believe you’re thinking of selling door-to-door!”)   How can you sell them on the desire for gain outweighing the fear of loss?  Perhaps you can even discuss how NOT selling books might hurt them later in a career interview by having nothing notable on their resume (fear of loss).  You could paint a picture of what it might be like without Southwestern experience to draw from in an interview setting. 

You could also sell #4—security and protection to your advantage.  Southwestern provides future security if they’re willing to suck it up now and work with you.  If they work with you now, their future ability to have a job and excel are almost guaranteed.  If your friend pays the price now, his/her earning potential and future career trajectory increase dramatically, leading to future comfort and options (see #3). 

There’s nothing manipulative about using these emotional triggers in making a sale.  It is simply a matter of understanding how people make decisions.  Customers will buy using emotion whether or not you sell this way or not.  You can bomb them with logic, but their emotional undercurrent is the guiding factor in their decision.

How can you use these emotional reasons more effectively in your presentations?  Are there new and different ways you can present your product or service?  Comments are welcome–even from non-Southwestern readers!  

Is There Life before Death?

 
Often people don’t pay much attention to the words they use to describe themselves, and the consequences and ramifications of using these words. For instance, people who have had horrible experiences–particularly in early childhood–often describe themselves as “scarred for life.”

In the first place, they are engaged in fortune-telling without being qualified:  No one can predict the future that well.  Some people continue to suffer from traumatic experiences into their later years, but many others don’t.  Secondly, they don’t examine the meanings of the words they use. Most people go “Oh, ‘scarred for life,’ Yes, terrible!” without thinking about what the words actually mean. I have quite a few scars, and none of them bother me a bit. Scar tissue is often considerably tougher than the original. Only a few scars continue to produce discomfort, and even then the discomfort is more often due to damage that never fully healed, than to the scar tissue itself. Scarring is actually a sign that the body healed itself and made itself whole again.

Even the meaning of obvious scars depends on how they are viewed. Early in this century in Germany, a visible dueling scar was considered a badge of honor. When I was in high school in New Mexico in the 1950′s, many students flaunted their knife scars as a sign of bravery. Some African tribes deliberately create elaborate decorations on their skins by scarring. I have even met quite a few women with scars that made their faces much more interesting than they would have been without them.  So what does “scarred for life” really mean?–only what you choose it to mean.

So what words do you use to describe your week?  Here’s what I’ve heard at Southwestern Sunday meetings:

“It’s horrible.” 
“I’m dying out here.” 
“I’m got slaughtered this week!”

Are these descriptors really that accurate? 

One sharp, bubbly Student Manager I met with even had her own nickname: DRAMA.  She got this moniker because she said she took little things and made them complicated and complex.  She overthought and consequently everything became a big deal!  Second-guessing herself felt natural–her life was “always a drama”! 

Cute and memorable?  Yes.  Helpful?  No.

The metaphors and images–even our nicknames–have a way of steering our thinking and our lives. It’s wise to be cautious about the ones we use, and it’s wise to examine them to see if they are taking us where we really want to go.

What words, thoughts and comments does this invoke?  How do you label your experiences?  Let me know.

So here’s a question for salespeople: what music motivates you?  Do you get fired up before your sales day with some old time Rock & Roll?  or with some heavy-duty rap?  Or do you like to get centered, focused and calmed down with a dose of Brahms (classical), or even some Dave Brubeck (jazz)?

I’m conducting the most un-scientific study ever. The poll is in the margin to your left.   Vote for the music genre that inspires you to be your best!  That puts you in the mood to sell.  Also, feel free to comment if you want to get really specific with a group or performer.  (Eg. “James Blunt really gets me jacked up!”)  Let’s see how we use music to get into a peak selling state.

When you meet and greet, the question is inevitable.   ”And what do you do?”  Here are some possible answers:

“Uh, I’m in sales.”  (A fascinating opener–they yawn.)

“I’m a recruiter with ______ company….”  (Wait for them to shout–”Oh my gosh!  Let’s do business!”)

“I’m glad you asked!”  (Then ramble for 10 minutes.)

Not exactly descriptive or gripping. 

So, after having attended a great workshop with Cindy Hazen, of Sales-Executives, I discovered a better way.  Here is her formula.  First, create your defining statement.  Position yourself by concept, not titles/services/products.  Think about the following questions:

1. What is unique about my services or product?
2. Why should anyone do business with me?
3. 3-5 words long with not more than one “and”
4. Try words like “work with” and “want”

So take this, and build a short “elevator speech” introduction, emphasizing your benefit–not what you do, but what they get…

• What you do: “I am a real estate agent.”  Try: “I help my clients find & live in their dream home.”
• What you do: “I am an executive recruiter.”  Try: “I work with companies who struggle with hiring the right performance-oriented employees.”
• What you do: “I work at Southwestern.”  Try: “I help college students develop the skills and character they need to achieve their goals in life.”

These new, improved responses really juice your first impressions.  Make it interesting and establish the benefit of what you do in the first sentence.  Then you can further describe exactly what you do and how you do it as you talk.

So, next time you’re at a job fair, a networking event, or just a large party, give this a try.  You may even have people interested in what you have to say!  I welcome your comments/stories/questions.

Just before I began my first summer with The Southwestern Company, I had the opportunity to meet  Anthony Burgess when he came to our campus.  Who is Anthony Burgess you ask?  He is my favorite British author, most famous for writing A Clockwork Orange, later made into a movie by Stanley Kubrick.   (Assignment: go attempt to read this short novel–it’s brilliant and violent–all written in nadsat–a teen slang with Russian roots that Burgess created.)  His novel took just two weeks to write.

OK, enough literary background.  This is a sales blog.  Right.

I had lunch with him and some other grad students, then had the good fortune to hear Mr. Burgess give a lecture that night.  It was called “The Author’s Daily Damnation.”  Intriguing title!  What did Mr. Burgess discuss?  How authors need daily discipline–how they need to write, regardless of how inspired they feel!  How they need to plant their rear ends in the chair and crank out a minimum of a few pages a day–even if it’s not great material.  In short, he was, in Southwestern parlance, citing the value of “30 demos a day” or “putting in the hours.”

Burgess stressed how, as an author, you worked, you wrote, you typed, every day.   Your inspiration, your creativity, listening for your muse–were all secondary to the task of sitting down and working.  (He also proposed that part of the author’s daily damnation was to become famous for your worst work–in this case for his Clockwork novel, but again that’s for another literary blog.)

So, my sales droogs, think about your daily disciplines–those activities which determine your success as a salesperson.  Are you motivated to make calls?  To approach people?  To conduct info sessions?  I welcome your thoughts.

Focus.  What do you focus on?  This blog seemed to tie in to Valentine’s Day coming up, so…

How can you fall out of love with your job?  At Southwestern, you can notice how few people say yes, on the heat, on random negative thoughts, on how you dislike the feeling of failure, on the weight of your bookbag.  If this is what you notice–what you give your attention to–soon, you will be falling out of love with your sales job.

Now to your significant other.  Remember all the habits that you once found cute, or overlooked?  His inability to ask for directions, his talking with his mouth full, his leaving his dirty clothes all over the floor?  Early on in your relationship, you overlooked these foibles and concentrated on what you loved about him.  You were noticing his strengths and ignoring his weaknesses.  (You could fix those up later, right?)

Now, what you ignored you notice–all those habits become irritations.  The crumbs on the counter, never replacing the toilet paper roll, all the time he spends with his friends…what a schmuck!  (How did I ever like him?)  You are  noticing what you don’t like.  You will fall out of love at some point and may not know why! 

So, since this is a sales blog and not eHarmony, it might be time to refocus your focus–in other words, if you’re tired of your sales career, you may want to notice what you’re noticing.  You may need to decide to be grateful.

Here are a few good questions to ask yourself at the end of the day:

• What have I given today?  (not gotten, given)
• What have I learned today?  (people who are learning are liking what they do)
• How has today been an investment for my future?  (not just a day closer to the weekend)
• What do I love about what I do?

After you have been in a love relationship or a career for awhile, the shiny newness tends to wear off.  When it does–and it will–you have to be deliberate in your focus.  You have to affirm what you want, consciously.  Left to my own devices, my mind automatically drifts into negativity.  It’s far easier for me to notice what’s wrong than what’s right.  Are you like this?  I have to consciously make an effort.  At times, I have to notice what I like/love about my job–and my wife.  I’m sure she has to do the same. 

 A sales career, a loving relationship–both take energy and investment to work over the long haul.  Action point: Send your sales opportunity some flowers or a nice box of chocolates.  It deserves it.

I welcome your thoughts and comments.  What are your strategies to stay in love with what you do?

“I’ve got major problems.” 

“This whole thing sucks.” 

Whether you sell books with Southwestern, or sell real estate, cars, clothes, insurance, stocks, or sales seminars, you experience frustration from time-to-time.  When it happens, we make blanket statements which convey our upset.  We declare our negative feelings through our self-talk.  Our self-talk, in turn, leads us to an emotional state which then affects our behavior.  Welcome to a potential Sales Slump. 

So how do you regain perspective?  I’ve found one great way to bounce back mentally: 

Ask “Compared to what?”  Compare your situation to someone else who has exponentially more to deal with.  Using the “My life stinks” example above, yes, your life does stink until you compare your problems with a Haitian citizen who lost everything in an earthquake, or with someone you know whose child has died.  When you make that quick comparison, you think, “Well, my life isn’t that bad.”  If you think, “my job sucks,” then ask compared to what?  Compared to not having one?  I’m sure you would appreciate your sucky job more when you ponder being one of the millions of Americans who are out of work right now.  See?  Instant gratitude. 

My fifth year as a bookman, there was a week when I really hated my life, my team, & my summer work.  I mean I was seriously negative.  My self-talk was crap.  My expectations were low, to say the least.  Obviously, my sales were tanking.  I wasn’t getting in doors, customers were not responding and I was FRUSTRATED!  I’d even forgotten my “compared to what” technique….  

God then decided to help give me some perspective: I trudged up to another house, glancing at the ramp to the front door.  After I knocked, a young boy opened the door—from his wheelchair—gave a big smile, and cheerfully said, “Hi!  Can I help you?”  Wow.  Ding!  New perspective!  Instantly!  I thought I had problems—until I met this young man whose legs didn’t work.  Yet he was happy, and I had my head up my butt. 

So the good news is you can make this shift without God having to intervene.  We are constantly evaluating what is going on around us, labeling experiences, talking to ourselves, making judgments…it’s impossible to turn our minds off, but you can keep the negativity in check, by asking, “compared to what?”

–Tryon Edwards

“I’m getting ready to commence to begin to start to recruit.”  This isn’t an exact quote, but I’ve heard several excuses from Southwestern Company student managers over the years regarding recruiting and getting their teams started.  Confusion and procrastination are often just cop-outs (“cop-out”, for my international friends, means “excuse”). 

Usually we know very well what needs to be done and we even know how to do it.   As we’ve often said, “Recruiting/selling is simple—but it’s not easy!”  Oftentimes, if we’re honest, we have to admit the “what am I supposed to do?” isn’t the real question at all. 

Any young athlete knows what to do: you don’t miss practices, you sacrifice video games after school, and you drill new techniques over and over until they feel natural and automatic.  Good students, too, understand that they need to hit the books no matter how they feel.  They practice good study habits until they have good study habits. 

Achieving your sales goals, reaching your recruitment goals, having an improved new year consists of conscientiously repeating positive actions—nothing real mysterious or confusing about it.  We must be willing to exercise the discipline if we want to reap the rewards. 

Today, I will welcome the patterns that lead to success, and this will lead to a very Happy New Year.   As always I welcome your comments!

This week, my wife and I were considering consolidating our phone services, and getting new phones for our daughters.  We headed into a local long distance service provider store (OK, it was Sprint).  We walked in; the store was empty.  I was excited because I knew we wouldn’t have to wait for a sales associate to finish with another client–we’d get his full attention and expertise!

“Dave” greeted us as he looked up from his PDA (we’ll call him Dave, his real name was Jake.): “Hi.  Welcome to Sprint.  May I help you?”  Pretty neutral stuff.  He didn’t look overly excited that we’d interrupted the game on his phone.  Undeterred by his nonchalance, my wife cheerfully explained our problem and asked about phone plans and models.

Dave gave short answers to questions and seemed a bit annoyed that we couldn’t immediately decide how to reconcile 5 different users on 3 different plans.  “Here’s the phone I like,” he said.  “It’s made entirely of sustainable, biodegradeable, recycled alloids.”  Or something like that.  My wife and I looked at each other and thought–not a selling point for us.

Dave was not too engaged with us.  Technically, he revealed some product information, but it was always in terms of his preferences, not our needs.  He didn’t ask many questions; he didn’t offer many solutions.  He watched us wallow in options.  He did shut down one big sale though…the sale of an upgraded phone to me.  How?

Background: I like buying stuff, and I like having the latest versions of equipment.  I happened to show my HTC Touch Pro phone to Dave/Jake.   He said something to the effect that 1) my model had problems and 2) the new HTC Titanium Quasar World Phone (something like that) was better.  [Salespeople, remember: always question the customer's judgement by insulting their previous purchases.]

“New model?” I asked.  (My wife quietly said, “Oh no.”)  “What’s better about the upgraded phone?”  Dave pointed out a couple cool new design improvements, then added, “But it costs like $549.”  My wife attempted to steer the conversation back to the matter at hand–phone plan consolidation and phones for daughters.  After a few minutes, I asked again about the advantages of owning the new HTC model.  His response? 

“Why would anyone pay that much for a phone?”  Literally, that’s what he said. 

Wow.  (Like, “A BMW? Why would you buy that?’  Or “Who in their right mind would purchase a Goldmund Epilogue Full sound system?”)  In short, are you nuts?

So, we quietly finished our conversation, without making a sale–a small one or a big one.

What are the lessons here?

1. Make a good first impression.   Be curious about your customers and their needs.
2. Ask lots of questions.
3. Listen for nibbles: hints that guide the direction your presentation should go.
4. Let your customer buy.  Forget your preferences and focus on what they want, not what you like.

Have you encountered a salesperson who should be in another profession?  Share a tale!  Or comment.