Surviving and Excelling in the Whirlwind
This is a time of significant change, not only at Sun but also in the whole market place. A few days ago when I was reading Proverbs chapter 10, I read this verse: “When the whirlwind passes, the wicked is no more, but the righteous has an everlasting foundation.” Proverbs 10:25 (NASB).
I thought the whirlwind metaphor described what we are going through perfectly. The world economy is all over the map. Governments are passing unprecedented spending packages to stimulate the economy. The US business landscape is impossible to read or predict. Customers' buying habits are conservative to the extreme. Sun, like many companies, has gone through a major reduction in force and reorganization. Our jobs as sales professionals are in the process of changing to a new model unlike anything we have seen before. Change is in the wind... a great understatement.
What is there to hold on to? Is there anything that is not changing?
There are a few things that we can definitely bank on that are not changing, and these are the things that enable us to stand and not be swept away during the whirlwind.
Character. That is the first thing I believe that remains constant through the storm. My perspective on the Proverbs 10:25 verse is that the storm is what proves or demonstrates character. Whether you were affected by a RIF or stayed on and suddenly found yourself managing twice the territory is not a measure of your character. We lost good people in the recent restructuring. Your character will remain what it is throughout the great changes we are living through. The measure of character will be proved by how we manage the winds of change. Rudyard Kipling caught the essence of standing in the storm when he wrote, “If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs...” The way we respond to the whirlwind can provide a great opportunity to strengthen our character as individuals and as a community.
Opportunity. In every circumstance there is opportunity. We have so much opportunity before us now in every direction we look. One of the first opportunities we have is to create something new, a new way of growing our business. I see this as an opportunity like a new startup. We just started a new business here in the southeast, and the great thing about this new business is that we have an existing install base! There is an opportunity to be the one to come up with new ways of doing business, leveraging resources we have not leveraged in the past. We have the opportunity to be innovators, to be leaders. The opportunities we have inspire me to think and to imagine what we might build. There is also a tremendous new opportunity to develop new relationships.
Community. The communities that we build are like the icing on the cake. We have a great opportunity both within Sun and out to reinvest in the things that will last – these are the relationships built around the communities we work and live in. Belonging to a community is one of the things that makes a reduction in force so difficult, but the great thing about strong friendships is that they don't begin and end at the corporate city limit. These relationships that we build throughout our careers provide an opportunity to cultivate a community that lasts through the winds of change.
The bottom line. Going through significant changes provides great opportunities. It proves and develops our character. It helps us develop strong communities. And if we keep our heads and open our eyes, we'll find and develop a thriving business and make some money as we go along!
Posted at 07:53AM Apr 14, 2009 by George Miller in Personal | Comments[0]
Towards a Multiplying Channel Model
Sun needs to move beyond a "value-added" reseller channel sales model to a multiplying channel sales model. Developing a multiplying channel sales model will return Sun to explosive growth, instead of incremental growth or decline.
[Read More]Posted at 09:03AM Mar 05, 2009 by George Miller in Personal | Comments[0]
Falling Asleep on the Job
In Ecclesiastes 3:1 we read, “There is an appointed time for everything.” As a sales guy, I know there is a time to talk, a time to shut up and listen, a time to work hard, and a time to play. There is also a time and place for sleeping, and that is after you've turned off the lights and kissed your spouse goodnight, not while working and especially not while leaving a voicemail.
For years my wife and I would turn off the lights and pray together before we went to sleep. More often than not, one of us would be doing some heavy breathing before the last “amen” was given. That's bad enough.
Once I was essentially in this same state of drifting off to sleep while leaving a customer a voicemail message. I sunk into a monotone “voicemail speak” as I left my valued customer a message and instead of closing with, “you can call me back at blah, blah, blah,” I began punctuating the message with, “...in Jesus name we pray...” (I know. What does this say about my prayer life?) I managed to get out the “in Jesus” part, but then I caught myself right as I was about to say “name.” It came out like, “in Jesus nnn...” Pause.
Can you imagine the thoughts that quite literally raced through my mind at the speed of light as I bolted up from falling asleep? All of this taking place in less than a tenth of a second while being recorded!
“In Jesus name!?! I'm about to end a voicemail with 'in Jesus name we pray'!? What is this guy going to think???!! Should I just hang up? Then what will he think?” Panic...
At some point within this tenth of a second, I essentially came to the conclusion that I would rather be thought of as a blasphemer than a cold, orthodox, droning evangelical. I somehow tried to make it sound like something shocked me the listener could not see and that I had exclaimed, “Jesus!” right as I was about to hang up.
I finished the voicemail with something like, “...in Jesus nnn, oh wow! Sorry, I've got to run, I'll call you back!”
In Jeffrey Gitomer's book, “The Little Red Book of Sales Answers,” he writes a short chapter on “What does the voice-mail message I leave say to my customers?” His main counsel is to leave a voicemail message that is focused on the customer in which “you dangle a carrot.” He gives a couple of great examples. (You'll have to go buy the book.)
The only thing I would add to one of my favorite sales authors – that he misses completely! Know exactly what you are going to say in advance in case they don't answer, AND stay awake through the whole message.
Posted at 10:53AM Feb 28, 2009 by George Miller in Personal | Comments[0]
Drunk with Power
Mark's face displayed a combination of shock, horror, and fear. His glance at me revealed that I indeed held his very being in the palm of my hand. I relished the power for a tiny second, then saved his soul with my answer...
Mark Kinkle was a fraternity brother I had invited home with me for the weekend. Clemson University was about a two-hour drive from my home in Waynesville, North Carolina. The shortest way home would take me mostly on two-lane mountain roads, but I had stopped traveling that way during my freshman year, because the curves along with my love for speed combined to give me something on the order of 14,000 miles per set of tires. Mark however was a city-slicker from Louisville, and he wanted to see the mountains so we took the mountain roads.
As we were driving home, I thought I would give Mark a special treat. We would take a short five-mile excursion to visit one of my relatives, John D. Davis, a true Smokey Mountains farmer, who lived with his wife Mary in a small wood-framed farmhouse in Big Ridge, North Carolina. John D. and Mary were country as dirt. He typically wore bib overalls as he worked around the farm. Life Magazine had done a spread on John D. during the 1960s as a feature on the poor Smokey Mountain farmer, showing John D. plowing up a cabbage field with a mule. What the piece did not report was that John D. was also on the board of directors for a bank and probably had the first dime he ever earned.
We pulled up to the house and knocked on the door, but there was no answer. As we were walking off the porch, we heard someone hooting from down the road. We looked and saw John D. and Mary coming toward the house reaching down under the bank over the road, gathering eggs from where their chickens were nesting. John D. hollered for us that they would be right there. As they made their way on the porch John D. greeted me, I introduced Mark, and Mary didn't say a word. John D. invited us in the house into the living room. Mary was still silent.
In the living room there were two easy chairs with arm rests worn from years of service. Next to each easy chair was a large, discolored coffee can. I recognized these cans immediately as spittoons. They fit the setting perfectly to me having grown up chewing tobacco. Mark didn't realize it, but he was standing right next to Mary's spittoon. She stepped over next to him, leaned over the spittoon and slowly spit out a nice long string of black-brown, very dark tobacco juice. She had obviously been saving that one up for a while. Mark's face was frozen. It was petrified with horror. I realized right then, in his city-slicker days, he'd never seen a woman spit like that before.
The first words from Mary's mouth were, “George, are you'ins gonna stay fer dinner?” Suddenly the shock on Mark's face was mixed with fear, and he looked at me, eyes wide... I know how the cat feels when it has a mouse in its paws as a plaything. The slight pause I took to answer Mary must have seemed longer to Mark. I hesitated just long enough to make sure Mark knew that I knew. I looked him in the eyes and smiled. “Mary, we would love to... but Mom's expecting us for dinner. Thanks anyway! We just wanted to stop by and say hello.”
There is a lesson in this story on power. Power can and often does intoxicate those who wield it. This brief experience with power over Mark revealed to me just how much I enjoyed it and the potential of how dangerous this could be. Power needs to be managed carefully with accountability to others. We need to see power as the opportunity to serve others. Matthew 23:11 records Jesus as saying that “the greatest among you will be your servant.” When I look at my sales team, I need to be thinking, “How can I best serve them?” It doesn't mean that I do their jobs for them, but I look at what I can do to help them be successful. When I use my power to make others successful, I've really done my job.
Posted at 08:03AM Feb 25, 2009 by George Miller in Personal | Comments[0]
Three Rules for Selling in Tough Times
Here are three “rules” to live by during tough times and not so tough times. I developed these as reminders for myself back during the dot.com run up (when times were good from a sales guy's perspective), but now they seem more important than ever.
The first one is to remind myself, “Ain't nothing easy.” This is followed by the corollary, “If it was, every body would be doing it, and we'd be getting minimum wage.” I'm not sure my sales reps liked it the first time one of them brought a tough sales problem up to me, and I spouted this phrase out as naturally as breathing, followed by the comment, “and the last time I checked, you weren't getting minimum wage.” That is real motivation there! I should be a motivational speaker...
As with most sales organizations, our challenges in closing a sale are half the time within our own company, half the time due to the competition, and the other half of the time something to do with the customer. None of my sales reps sits by the fax machine waiting for orders the way I used to do. It is called work for a reason, and as the economic conditions continue to worsen, we'll do better the sooner we realize that. There are very few things that are really easy. It takes work.
The second reminder I have is, “Keep kicking the ball up the hill.” This is a metaphor that seems so vivid to me on how to get things done. You want to get the ball over the hill so you kick it. By the time you've taken two or three steps it is rolling back to you and you have to give it another good kick. It may have gone twenty to thirty feet up the hill with the kick, but in reality it is moving in the same relative speed as you are as you make your way up the hill. You just have to keep kicking it till you finally get it over. A lot of things feel like this at work. While I wish others would pick up the ball and run with it, when it comes down to getting something done that is really important to me, I just have to keep kicking till it's over the top.
The third reminder is to keep telling myself that, “Cool heads win the day.” This is probably the hardest one for me. When things don't go the way I want them to go, I'm reminded of things my Chief Master Sergeant used to say, “I'm gonna rip your lips off!” It's surprising that these outbursts don't have the same effect in the civilian world... People get offended when I tell them if they don't do something I'll rip their lips off. This is something I often remember about five minutes too late. What I need to do more, especially when there is a lot of pressure to perform, is to stop before a meeting or before a concall or hitting the send button, and remind myself that cool heads do in fact win the day. Nobody likes to have their lips ripped off.
Posted at 02:30PM Feb 12, 2009 by George Miller in Personal | Comments[0]
Effective Listening
Here is a true story, but first I need to provide some context. During the 1940s back in the Smokey Mountains, there was a very interesting exchange at the Jackson County Courthouse located in Sylva, North Carolina. In the days before television, the “reality TV” of the day was often played out in the courtroom. A lot of people would regularly attend the court's proceedings as a way of keeping up on the times as well as to add a little spice to life. Hardly nothing is sweeter than a good, juicy piece of gossip spilled out in a court case when people are under oath to tell the whole truth.
On this particular day, the judge was presiding over a divorce trial where the husband was suing his wife for divorce on the grounds of infidelity. The wife had conceived and given birth to a child when the husband was away in the army. Seemed like an open and shut case.
The wife calmly denied ever having an affair out of wedlock. When pressed by her husband's attorney regarding how she could have conceived a child, with her husband away and with her never having had relations with another man, the lady answered, “I had relations with a ghost.” The courtroom really started buzzing at this response.
Attorney to the lady: “Would you please repeat your answer?”
Lady: “I had relations with a ghost.”
At this point the attorney turned to the judge and said he was not sure how to proceed, he'd never heard of anyone having relations with a ghost and conceiving a child.
The judge took over and said to the lady, “Madam, I've never heard of anything like this; I'm going to open this up to the courtroom. Has anyone in this court ever had relations with a ghost?”
An older man toward the back of the courtroom raised his hand, and the judge asked him, “Sir, you've had relations with a ghost?”
Old man: “Yes I have.”
The judge asked the man to come forward to address the court. When the man approached the bench, the judge asked the man, “Would you please explain to the court your experience with having relations with a ghost?”
Old man: “Ghost??? I thought you said 'goat!'”
Can we learn something from this story? I'm not sure it matters – it is one of the funniest stories I've ever heard, and I love retelling it. My grandfather was in the courtroom when this happened, and no, he was not the old man. He was the Chief of Police for Sylva and was in the court on official business.
I think there is a good lesson to be learned here – we need to be good listeners. Obviously the old man did not accurately hear the question. Was he embarrassed? Apparently not. Why not? I have no idea. But had he heard what was really asked he may have saved a few guts. Several folks “busted a gut” laughing, my grandfather's friend slipped and nearly fell out of the balcony, and the judge had to adjourn court for a recess until he and everyone else could gain composure. In fact, I'm not sure how they ever came back and completed the case. I think it is safe to assume that the lady's case did not hold, and the husband got the divorce.
Posted at 11:01AM Apr 21, 2008 by George Miller in Personal | Comments[0]
Words of the Wise
Two things I look for in a sales rep are passion and a low tolerance for mediocrity. I want the individuals in our sales team to be passionate about being at Sun, passionate about our products and solutions, and passionate about about their role on the team. Additionally, I don't want anyone on the sales team to settle for “just good enough.” Everyone on the team needs to have an attitude of excellence in doing their part. A mediocre effort cannot be tolerated.
Having these two qualities in a sales rep can be dangerous if not accompanied with wisdom when it comes to leading the team and communicating.
Proverbs 15:2 says, “The tongue of the wise makes knowledge acceptable, but the mouth of fools spouts folly.”
Notice that the writer is not commenting on the content of the message – is seems as though it assumed that the message content is true. The focus is on how a piece of knowledge is delivered, and the wise person apparently thinks before they speak. They consider how this message will be received, and then they communicate in such a way as to make it acceptable to the receivers of the message.
Proverbs 16:23 adds, “The heart of the wise instructs his mouth and adds persuasiveness to his lips.”
Communications is an art of the wise person and a tool that can be used to influence and lead a group when used wisely or a weapon to beat down a team when used foolishly.
We need to stop and think before we speak. That is something sales people generally do before they speak with customers, but this message is particularly aimed at internal, team communications. That is where I see the greatest temptation to bite off someone's head when we perceive they are not pulling their weight or when it looks like they are giving what we perceive to be a mediocre effort.
So I guess there is that third thing I look for in a sales leader - passion and low tolerance for mediocrity coupled with wise communications skills.
Posted at 08:45AM Apr 18, 2008 by George Miller in Personal | Comments[2]
Proverb of the Day: Diligence and Planning
“The plans of the diligent lead surely to advantage, but everyone who is hasty comes surely to poverty.” Proverbs 21:5
What I like about this proverb is that it highlights one of the key attributes of the diligent: they plan. I catch a lot of flak about asking for plans, especially when it comes to documenting plans for accounts or specific opportunities. But the reality is – plans form good roadmaps and lead to success. One of the best plans is the one you take to your customer and confirm. “Is this the right process we need to go through in order to achieve success in this project?”
The problem is that planning takes time. What the proverb tells us is that the diligent see the wisdom to effective planning, and it puts them at an advantage. The converse of not planning effectively is that it leads to being hasty – I think in terms of being reactive rather than proactive. And that leads surely to poverty. In other words, you lose the deal!
The surest and quickest route to success involves planning how you are going to get there. I would not set out to drive from Raleigh to Dallas without getting a map and planning my route. It may take an extra fifteen to twenty minutes to map out a route and print the maps, but think how much time I'd lose by making a wrong turn.
Same holds true in sales regardless of your position as a territory sales rep or a big accounts sales rep. Sitting down and thinking – getting input and buy-in from others, and documenting the plan, is on the critical path to the fastest way to regularly overachieving goal. You might get lucky one year, but what we all want is consistent success.
If you are not a consistent planner, there are a couple of possibilities: maybe you are not as diligent as you would like to think you are; or maybe you are diligent, but you just are not enlightened. Well for the latter, here's an area for personal development, a chance to grow, improve, and get enlightened. For the former, here's some advice a friend gave me years ago about getting along with my wife: “George, if you don't learn to listen to your wife, you'll learn to listen to your second wife.” The proverb tells us that becoming an effective planner is on the critical path to consistent success. You can learn it in the job you are in now, or learn it in your next job.
Posted at 08:38AM Mar 21, 2008 by George Miller in Personal | Comments[0]
Thought Experiment
Next time you are in a hotel shower and washing your face with a washcloth, try to imagine the last ten people who used that washcloth and what they washed.
Then when you go to the lobby, identify the next ten hotel customers you see.
What does this have to do with "Character and Sales"? Absolutely nothing, but it may give you an idea of the sickness that I have to deal with on a daily basis.
Posted at 06:26PM Mar 18, 2008 by George Miller in Personal | Comments[0]
“Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.” Matthew 11:28
An author (whose name I don't recall) wrote that we should set goals for ourselves that are within our own control. When we have goals that involve the decisions of others, we tend to manipulate and control others, which in turn leads to frustration and anger (or some other unhealthy reaction) when we don't achieve those goals. This author's solution was to distinguish between goals and desires. Missing a goal leads to frustration, but not reaching a desire leads to disappointment, and disappointment is preferred to frustration.
I read this shortly after the end of my first year as a sales rep at Sun when my main customer stopped spending in the second half of the year, because the federal courts overturned a law which had created their main market opportunity. Needless to say, I missed my goal that year, and it was very frustrating. Luckily I'm a reader and ran across this author that helped me deal with the frustration by retooling my thinking in differentiating between goals and desires. Since my sales were not totally within my control, hitting my numbers actually fell into the category of “desires” instead of “goals”. When my sales manager gave me my goal sheet in the following weeks, I explained the difference to him and protested that it should really be a “desire sheet”. He said, “I don't care what you call it, just sign it.”
When we read through the gospel account by Matthew, we come to chapter eleven where Jesus says: “Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden (have high goals), and I will give you rest. Take My yoke (goal) upon you, and learn from Me, for I am gentile and humble in heart; and you shall find rest for your souls. For My yoke (goal) is easy, and My load (goal) is light.” (New American Standard Bible, words in parenthesis are my paraphrase).
Now we know why they call it “the good news”! Easy and light goals!!! Every sales rep's dream.
When I read this passage recently, it was like cool water to a thirsty soul. I was feeling weary and very heavy-laden, meeting with customers and partners during the days, getting calls from our area management about needing this and that, demands coming from everywhere... Then in the middle of this, Jesus says “Come to me... and I will give you rest.” I'm signing up for this; I need some rest!
But I ask myself, “How is His yoke easy and His load light?” In chapter twenty-two, verses thirty-seven through forty, He explains that all the rules and commandments in the Bible can be summarized in two things: loving God and loving others. All of that comes from within and is completely within our control. Compared to all the other demands we have on us for which we honestly don't have total control, this really is light and refreshing.
It enables me to develop a new and complete philosophy of life where my main goals are within my sphere of getting it done: I can take the Lord's yoke on myself by focusing on how I respond to Him and others. But do I forget about the “goal” assigned to me from my management? Not at all – the other key goal of my philosophy of life is: “Whatever you do, do your work as unto the Lord.” Again, how I work is within my control. At the beginning and throughout the day, I can remind myself that my goals are to respond well toward those I meet and work as though I was working for the Lord directly. While my boss may be the vice president on paper, in my heart I know I'm working for THE CEO.
Posted at 06:42AM Mar 18, 2008 by George Miller in Personal | Comments[3]
Diligence - The Precious Possesion
“The precious possession of a man is diligence.” Proverbs 12:27
Diligence is one of the key aspects of character regardless of the profession – sales representative, systems engineer, policeman, doctor, Sunday school teacher... In building a kick-butt sales force, it is an indispensable quality in your sales reps. Can you even imagine a top shelf sales force with lazy sales reps? I can think of no one who accomplished great things without diligence. Maybe you don't want to do great things??? OK. I'm fine with that. My competition has an opening on their team. I think you should apply. You have my heart felt recommendation.
Can you have strong character without diligence? I'm not sure you can. One of the historical “seven deadly sins” was sloth. Thomas Aquinas did not view sloth as being slow or a little bit lazy, but Aquinas and the church down through the ages generally viewed sloth as the sin of not giving one hundred percent in all that you do. Sloth was an absence of diligence.
In his book, “Beyond Band of Brothers”, Major Dick Winters describes the diligence he put into his own preparation for D-Day and the ensuing battles. “Those entrusted to lead must study their profession to become totally proficient in tactics and technology. Prior to the invasion, I read every tactical manual I could lay my hands on to improve my tactical knowledge and professional competence while the other soldiers were out carousing in the pubs. While they were enjoying the social life of the neighboring towns, I was reading and educating myself, getting ready to lead the men in combat.” You have to realize that this preparation was above and beyond all the daily preparation their company went through for nine months in England as they practiced and exercised virtually any tactical situation they might face once they were in battle. His additional study was on top of the twelve-hour days they were already putting in.
As it happened, shortly after they jumped into Normandy for the D-Day invasion, Winters assumed command of Easy Company, because the previous commander was killed going in. Winters was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for his leadership in destroying a battery of enemy artillery on that day, an action that is still studied at West Point as a textbook example for an infantry attack on a superior force. His leadership resulted in a great tactical victory and in the saving of many lives, because the artillery was firing on the Allied forces landing on the beaches.
The sales people at Sun must all be leaders. The days of the “Lone Ranger” sales rep are long gone in our company. Each sales rep must learn to lead a diverse team of engineers, product specialists, and partners who do not report to them. There are a lot of attributes that make a leader, but one essential element of a successful leader is diligence.
Posted at 07:25AM Feb 06, 2008 by George Miller in Personal | Comments[1]
Don't Sweat the Details
True story: My great grandmother Davis was bed-ridden in her later years. Knowing that she loved hot tea, one of her six-year-old granddaughters decided to do something nice for “Granny” by preparing her a cup of tea. She boiled up a pot of tea just like she had seen her mom do and took it to Granny who was completely delighted. Granny was a stickler for detail and noted that her granddaughter had even strained the tea. This was back before the convenience of tea-bags reached the mountains in North Carolina.
Granny sipped at her tea and asked, “Why dear, what did you use to strain out the tea leaves?”
“The fly swatter.”
Gasp…
“Don’t worry Granny. I didn’t use the new one…”
Details and process while a pain are important things. Not many sales people like details and process. We typically want to present to the customer, close the deal, then it is off to the next customer.
I think this story illustrates a couple of things. While we may have the right motivation, the right solution, and even the diligence to get it done, we still need to know the right process and have the discipline and patience to ask questions when we don't fully know all the steps. I could not begin to number the times that we have a proposal due today or tomorrow or that we have already submitted to the customer and then we realize there was an important step left out or done incorrectly. Then with our hair on fire, we demand that others drop all they are doing to address our issue.
What is the practical lesson here? I think it is this: we need to have the wisdom and discipline to ask questions and understand the process before we get in a crisis. Easier said than done. Bottom line though is we just need to do it. Just ask Granny – not all surprises are good.
Posted at 07:41AM Jan 29, 2008 by George Miller in Personal | Comments[0]
Carpe Diem
Happy Reformation Day!
On October 31st, 1517, Martin Luther nailed his “95 Theses” to the church door in Wittenberg, presenting his arguments against the church’s doctrine and practice of indulgences. By 1520 he was excommunicated and by 1521 he stood before Charles V declaring, “Hier stehe ich. Ich kann nicht anders. Gott helfe mir. Amen.” (Here I stand. I cannot do otherwise. God help me. Amen.) And thus Martin Luther was declared an outlaw and the Reformation was born.
It takes both character and conviction to stand against the tide of general consensus. We may have a conviction that something is right, but lack the courage to stand when all others are moving in a different direction. History is filled with examples of men and women who took a stand. We have read their stories. How many stories have you read of those who did not take a stand?
When Douglas MacArthur was a colonel in the First World War, someone criticized him while he was on the front in the trenches for wearing a sweater from West Point that was clearly against US Army regulations for military uniforms. His response was basically that no officer was ever noted for all the regulations he obeyed.
One question that comes to mind is, “What comes first? Courage or convictions?”
I believe the most important first step is to develop convictions. Strong convictions lead to courage, and without a strong conviction it is questionable that we’ll even have the courage to take a stand. This requires us setting aside the time to think and develop our thoughts and understanding. The easy way is to just go about the day and do the things everyone else is doing or what we’ve always done.
Luther clearly took the time to develop his thoughts as reflected in the “95 Theses” on the day he took a stand. He didn’t just get up on the morning of October 31st and say, “I think I’ll take some outrageous stand on some issue today. Now what would really piss some folks off? I know! I’ll go after the church!” He took years to develop and struggle over his convictions.
Carpe Diem comes to us to suggest that life has no guarantees; we live one day at a time. Time marches onward, you have no guarantee that you are moving into one of the many winters left in your life or your last one. So don’t let this day just pass you by. It is time to carp some diem. Think about who you are and what you stand for.
Posted at 09:05AM Oct 31, 2007 by George Miller in Personal | Comments[0]
Position of Power
During my first interview for a sales rep position, the hiring manager asked me how my personal finances were doing. When I told him we had a good budget that we lived by and that we paid all our bills and saved some, he said, “Bad answer.” He was looking for someone who was leveraged to the hilt and had to get out there and bust it just to survive and pay the creditors.
My contention was that strong character was more important than desperation. If you are looking for a hired killer, then desperation might be a good quality, but if you are building an enduring sales team, then maybe you look for some better qualities. In the big picture, a desperate person is in a weak position. He agreed and hired me.
One of the most important aspects of strong character also relates directly to power – it is the secret of contentment. Why call it a secret, and why do I look for contentment in a sales rep? Don’t I want my reps to be hungry???
Well, yes I do want my reps to be hungry. The last thing I want is a sales rep content with the status quo who just sits there doing nothing. But I don’t call that contentment; I call that laziness. What I’m thinking about is what Paul in the New Testament refers to as a secret he learned.
“I have learned to be content in whatever circumstance I am. I know how to get along with humble means, and I also know how to live in prosperity; in any and every circumstance I have learned the secret of being filled and going hungry, both of having abundance and suffering need.” Philippians 4:11-12.
A few observations:
Paul learned contentment. It didn’t come naturally to him.
He wrote Philippians from prison in Rome. So evidently it does not relate to present circumstances.
Contentment does not mean “I’m OK with the status quo.” Paul was one of the most driven individuals in the Bible. He was probably the most significant “change agent” in the New Testament.
Paul had developed an attitude that he could take into every circumstance where he was both hungry and satisfied. This sounds like a paradox, but think of the power that attitude carries with it. From a sales perspective, I don’t think there is a more powerful position to have going into a negotiation content to walk away without a deal while at the same time knowing exactly what you want.
When you are content, you cannot be touched, twisted, or manipulated. People don’t have leverage over you. It is a position of power.
Music… Da, da, da, da, da… Da-da, da-da... “Can’t touch this.”
So what is contentment and how do I develop it? That is easier to ask than to answer. Here are some of the things about contentment I’ve observed in my own life.
It is an attitude that I continually work on and develop. I’m still learning it. I often tell myself, “Practice contentment.”
It is an attitude that chiefly relates to how I view and measure myself.
It relates to me being OK with who I am and knowing that who and what I am is decided inside me, not by outside circumstances or others.
Contentment enables us to be better competitors. I am so competitive and like to win so much, I used to be afraid to compete for fear of losing (because I hated it so much and worried about what others would think). I was basing my attitude, my self worth, on whether or not I won and what others would think. So unless I had overwhelming odds of winning, I would not compete. That is pitiful.
I am still just as competitive, but I’m learning to base my contentment on other things. I still love to win, but I’m also learning I can’t win unless I compete. We just lost an RFP in an account where a year ago we never would have had the opportunity to compete. But I’m not devastated. In the last quarter we won two RFPs in which we had almost zero footprint, and we are about to repeat that in another account (where we again have zero footprint). I love it!
Contentment is a very powerful place to be. Practice contentment.
Posted at 07:58AM Aug 20, 2007 by George Miller in Personal | Comments[0]
Cool Heads Win the Day
A number of years ago when the dot.com boom was at its craziest, the company assigned me the responsibility of covering a customer poised for significant growth. I worked with them to evaluate their business plan, and we executed the appropriate contracts. It wasn’t long before they gave us our first big order, which of course they needed yesterday. I booked the order and started working on an immediate ship date. My customer service rep could see the booking in our system, but she could not get it scheduled – it was on credit hold! I had something like a $350K order and our credit department only extended $70K of credit to this company (that needed their product yesterday!!). I called our credit people, who obviously did not understand how reliable these folks were at paying their bills and how badly they needed the equipment, to set them straight. I was fairly livid at that point. Our credit department said the credit limit was the credit limit, the only way we could ship the product was if the customer paid in advance or if my finance director agreed to raise the credit limit. That meant I had to call “Dr. No”.
Here’s where we look at the proverb of the day found in Proverbs 15:1-2. It reads, “A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up trouble. The tongue of the wise makes knowledge acceptable, but the mouth of fools spouts folly.”
It was when I was in the Air Force that I first started trying to deal with anger, but rank has a way of obscuring the need. I remember Chief Master Sergeant Cornett sitting behind his large desk while a young Airman with one stripe stood shaking before it as the Chief shouted out, “Parker, I’m going to rip your lips off!” The Chief was very poetic. That is also how he cursed. It made me somehow want to emulate him. But that didn’t work well when I got home and suddenly rank was left at the door. “Honey, I’m going to rip your lips off…” didn’t go over so well with my wife. We were both learning the truth of the proverb above that when things were getting heated, a gentle answer could defuse the situation. Also, that good communication involved listening to the other to understand their concerns or feelings, so that you can then explain in a way that also gives them understanding of your concerns or feelings.
When I started calling on this credit-challenged customer, I went back to these verses (and others) to remind myself that what was needed when dealing with credit and finance was first of all, “the tongue of the wise” to make knowledge acceptable. In a calm process of listening and communicating I had to present the business case to credit and finance of why this made good business sense. I had to listen carefully to understand their concerns and realize that they had an agenda for the good of the company. As far as I can remember, each time I was about to get on a call with either credit or finance I would say out loud, “Cool heads win the day.” And then I would repeat it to myself throughout the calls. The following two years were amazing years. I developed a very good friendship with the manager of collections as we grew this customer’s credit limit to over $3M. I became a pretty good collections guy myself, so if I ever get fired, I’ll have something else to fall back on (but that’s another whole blog). We also did around $50M in business with that customer over the following two years before they went Chapter 7 and stuck us for $2.6M.
In the end, I developed one of my life sayings, “Cool heads win the day”, and have been much richer for it.
Posted at 06:59AM Aug 15, 2007 by George Miller in Personal | Comments[0]