Luck, Wisdom, and Humility
One of my history professors told our class that tradition held the promise that if on the first day of the month the first word that comes out of your mouth is “rabbit”, you will have good luck all month long. The first words from my mouth this first day of the month were “triple tall latte”. I wonder what kind of month that portends for me?
We are in Las Vegas for our Americas Sales Meeting and luck is on a lot of minds as we walk past the casinos in route to our full schedule of meetings. The interesting thing about being in Las Vegas is all the construction you see as you drive into town from the airport. There are so many new, swanky casino resorts, and many more are going up. When I looked at all of them, among the thoughts that ran through my mind was this one: I’m not sure if what people do in Vegas will stay in Vegas, but evidently a lot of their money does.
Would you rather be wise or lucky? When I used to shoot pool as a kid and make an obviously lucky shot, the old sharks would say, “I’d rather be lucky than good any day.” I knew this was a bit of a dig, because all of us would rather be really good. We want to make our own luck.
How does this fit in with character and selling? Proverbs 1:2-5 says, “To know wisdom and instruction, to discern the sayings of understanding, to received instruction in wise behavior, righteousness, justice and equity; to give prudence to the naïve, to the youth knowledge and discretion, a wise man will hear and increasing in learning, and a man of understanding will acquire wise counsel.”
Wisdom and understanding are key attributes of strong character, and one of the important actions we can take to develop wisdom, understanding, and learning is to “hear” and “acquire wise counsel”. Do you want these attributes? Seek them out. Open your ears and learn to ask and listen to other wise people that you respect. This is basic humility.
The more wisdom and understanding we have, the more valuable we are for our customers. So it is critical for strong character and sales. To have a sales team with strong character attributes, the first place we need to start is a desire to learn, to grow, and to mature as sales people. That takes humility. I’m not referring to milquetoast, spineless insecurity when I write about humility, but a realistic attitude that respects a need to learn and grow and that sees there are others who are wiser and can teach us some things. I like sales reps with aggressive humility. Aggressive humility will not sit still, but will seek wisdom and understanding out.
We need to constantly be on the lookout for good mentors. I have three specific mentors I go to in a professional sense and two others I go to outside the context of work.
So how do I tie this entry off? Well I missed saying "rabbit" this morning, and on the way up to the room I stopped by the roulette wheel. I lost $20 in one turn of the wheel. Bad luck. Then I walked away without feeling the need to win back what I lost. Maybe that was a little wisdom? After all, I'm still up a dollar for the week.
Posted at 09:40PM Aug 01, 2007 by George Miller in Personal | Comments[0]
Integrity - The Bedrock of Character
From www.dictionary.com: Integrity is the "adherence to moral and ethical principles; soundness of moral character; honesty."
True story: A friend of mine once worked as a systems engineer and developer for a small company where the founder pulled all the sales people together and said, "We're looking for two customers, dumb and dumber."
Several questions raced through my mind when I first heard this story.
Are there people dumb enough to do business with a company like this?
How can you live with yourself when that's your attitude?
Can I get their customer list???
(that last one was a joke)
How do you grow and sustain ANY customer loyalty when that's the culture of your company? Evidently you don't. They are no longer in business.
From Proverbs 10:9 we read: "He who walks in integrity walks securely, but he who perverts his ways will be found out."
I hear a lot of leaders speak about the desire to have sales professionals with strong character. I often ask them what they mean by character. The word they use most often in their answers is "integrity".
What Proverbs 10:9 says about integrity could be taken as a statement of fact to which we should listen and take to heart. We want to be secure in the solutions we are selling to our customers, and we want our customers to also be secure that what they have will perform as advertised. If we are selling any other way, we will eventually be found out.
I remember going through a phase when I was in elementary school. There were a whole slew of things I had done, and I walked around with a small cloud over my head fearing my parents would find out. There were the windows I'd broken at the gym, the fight I got it, stealing my teacher's paddle, and lots of other stuff (I only mention the things for which the statute of limitations has passed). Then it occurred to me one day - like switching on the lights in my head - "Hey, if I don't do these things, I don't have to worry about my parents finding out.." It was like a great weight was lifted from my shoulders and after a couple of months of walking the straight and narrow, I was surprised at how great it felt not to be worried about being found out. In addition I found the experience of not worrying as outweighing the "fun" of breaking things. There was plenty of other mischief I could get into where being discovered would not be that big a deal. (in a few more years I'll write about the dynamite)
Integrity applies to so many areas of our lives as sales professionals - how we talk with customers and co-workers. What we say about customers and co-workers. Are we building a solution that meets the customer's requirements or does it mainly meet our goaling requirements??? How do we behave when we're on the road?
And what if we start taking some very small shortcuts in the integrity area, because it helps us retire quota faster? Where will we be in the end, when we're found out?
Proverbs 19:1 also says, "Better is a poor man who walks in his integrity than he who is perverse in speech and is a fool."
That is a tough one for sales people to swallow. Nobody I know became a sales rep in order to be poor. And I'm not suggesting that it is better to be a poor man than a successful sales rep. The question is, at what price success? Never at the price of our integrity. When success in a deal or account will cost us our integrity, then it is better to walk away.
Posted at 03:00PM Jul 24, 2007 by George Miller in Personal | Comments[0]
Watch Your Mouth!
True story: My great uncle was what we called “simple minded”. Born in 1910, he grew up in a small Appalachian mountain town and only completed 6th grade. He spent his life working on the family farm, making music, and occasionally drinking white lightening (so I’ve been told). While he was not the smartest of his siblings, he could play a guitar, banjo, and piano very well. He never got a drivers’ license or learned to drive an automobile, but that did not stop a well-meaning salesman from selling him a used car. Shortly after buying his car, he had a friend take him out on the highway to see what it would do. During the inaugural ride, a policeman stopped them for significantly exceeding the speed limit. As the cop walked up to the driver’s side window, my simple-minded uncle leaned over from the passenger side and said, “Boy she’ll fly won’t she…”
In Proverbs 21:23 we read, “He who guards his mouth and his tongue, guards his soul from trouble.”
Have you ever talked your way into trouble? Watching what we say is an integral part of being a sales rep of strong character. It’s better to say too few words, than to just keep on talking until we find ourselves where we really didn’t intend to be.
In general we want to say things that the customer wants to hear or to say things that make our products or services appear superior to our competition. It can be very tempting.
I’ve sat in a meeting when a customer is looking for some unique specification for my product, and they asked, “Does it do this one thing?” First thing that wants to come out of my mouth is, “Sure does…” Proverbs 20:25 also says, “It is a trap for a man to say rashly, ‘It is holy!’ and after the vows to make inquiry.” If I tell the customer it has the specs they are looking for and then make inquiry and find out it does not, how does that affect my credibility going back to the customer? It doesn’t help me gain “trusted advisor” status. And even worse, if I find out it lacks that specification and don’t tell the customer and go ahead and book the order, what does that do, not only to my credibility, but also to my relationship with the customer? It kills it. I’m not only out of the running for “trusted advisor” status, but my chances for “supplier of the year” just took a major dive.
Always be truthful. Always measure what comes out of your mouth. Don’t be rash in your answers. Learn to listen to the customer. Get them talking. Set realistic and honest expectations.
And – when you screw up, come clean – apologize, make restitution if needed, and move on.
But is far better to guard your mouth in the first place.
Posted at 11:39AM Jul 21, 2007 by George Miller in Personal | Comments[1]
Objective Morality?
Mikael Gueck brings up the need for a couple of additional points. His most recent comment really deals with two distinct issues. We will diverge from talking about sales and character for this posting, in order to explain a couple of important preconditions that are necessary in order to have a meaningful conversation about character.
The first issue is the question of whether we can really communicate – in this case via written form – in an objective manner. Is meaning communicated objectively? To this question we answer, “Yes!”
(And I suggest that the last sentence above, can be translated into any language at all times and in all places for all people and it would still carry the same meaning.)
The sentence, “The dog has four legs,” contains an objective meaning that has a one-to-one correspondence between the sender and receiver of the communication. I could also write, “Das Hund hat vier Beine,” and it would carry the same meaning to Max Weber (Different words and language, but the same objective meaning).
Context is critical to understanding the objective meaning of a sentence because of the constantly changing use and meaning of words. For example, if I wrote, “That bitch is bad,” without knowing the context and how specific words were used in my time and culture, one could derive completely different meanings. Was I saying that the female dog was a bad dog, or that she could no longer breed? Or was I saying that woman over there was feisty and good-looking and I liked her a lot? However, the need for context does not negate the possibility or actuality of having objective meaning reside in the text of some writing.
We could go on and on with the study and debate of conventionalism and objective communications, but I will stop at this point. A comical observation I like to point out is that many academics have written many volumes making a case that objective communications is impossible.
The second question is the existence of an absolute moral standard that applies to all peoples, all places, and all times. I alluded to this question in my last post and the vigorous debate this question brings up on the college campus today. My educated guess is the idea of an absolute moral standard is argued against for several reasons. First of all if there is indeed a moral law that transcends times and cultures, then who is the moral lawgiver who transcends time and cultures? Most academics today would rather not concede that point because they have decided a priori that God does not exist, so damn the evidence before it slips through a crack in the door. The second reason we don’t want a moral law is if it really exists, then there is a standard against which to judge my actions. This is mostly a theoretical debate because of these two points.
How do we know an absolute standard of morality, right and wrong, really and objectively exists?
The best proof for it is when we are the objects of its violation. When someone steals from me, that is the point in time when I know without doubt that stealing is wrong, there has been a violation of a moral standard, and I’m really pissed.
To bring this discussion back to selling – my conviction is that while many people in our culture today may have a worldview that is not theistic, they may not personally believe there is an absolute moral law or moral lawgiver, and they may have a relativistic view of truth and morality, in reality they would prefer that their sales people sell and treat them as though a moral law did exist, and they expect their sales professionals to sell to them by that standard.
(C.S. Lewis was an academic and skeptic who changed to a theistic worldview due to the moral law. His case is presented in "Mere Christianity" and "The Problem of Pain". See: C.S.Lewis )
Relativism makes for a lively theoretical debate, but when it comes to how we are treated we demand absolutes.
Thanks Mikael for bringing up these important issues!
Posted at 08:42AM Jul 21, 2007 by George Miller in Personal | Comments[1]
Sales and Marketing - a Response to Mikael Gueck's Comments
Mikael Gueck’s comment brought up a couple of great questions.
Is selling in general a bad thing? There is a common mistrust of sales people, because we are coin-operated. This mistrust is especially true when one of the words “sales” or “marketing” is on the business card. One of my favorite movie lines comes from “The Princess Bride” when Wesley tells the princess, “Life is pain, Highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something.” The clear inference is that selling does not correspond to the way things really are.
Another way of looking at selling is that all of us who have jobs of some form are in fact selling something. When we have a salaried position, we are selling our hours to the company that in turn is selling a product or service to its customers. If we are compensated via some form of commission plan, we are selling our company’s product or services.
Selling your hours has its upside and downside. On the upside, your pay is predictable and “safe”. You don’t have to worry about what your paycheck will look like next pay period. You can put together a consistent family budget. Life as it relates to your earnings is predictable. This does not feel like selling, but it is. One of the differences between selling your hours and selling a product is the “selling your hours” sale took place during the interview and hiring process. You were selling your value to the company and trying to build up your own value as much as possible in order to get the highest return per hour for your hours. Asking for the job is what we call “closing” the deal in the sales world. Then once you land the job (close the deal) you relax (no more selling!) and start delivering.
Downside? You only have a limited number of hours you can sell during the week, and what you earn for those hours is also limited. You are setting physical limits on your earnings potential straight out of the gate.
Selling products or services for a company with a commission-based compensation plan pays based on performance that is variable. Compensation plans are very different depending on the company and the product, but in general there are also downsides and upsides.
Downside – with a commission-based comp plan, your earnings are not predictable from month to month. Sometimes it is feast, and sometimes it is famine. There is more risk and uncertainty. Risk and uncertainty increase stress. Your compensation is dependent on decisions others are making which you may be able to influence but not control. This is the daily stress you live with, and it is not for everyone.
The upside is that the compensation can be much greater (depending on the compensation plan) for overachievement of sales targets or goals. For example, if I get paid at an hourly rate, I can only sell one of my hours at a time, but if I get paid for selling a product, then I can sell multiple products at a time. In principle then, my compensation is unlimited. In reality, most compensation plans have some form of caps.
So my conclusion to the question of whether selling is a bad thing is no. We all sell. Selling in principle is not bad. How some people sell though can be very bad, and that goes for hourly (salaried) employees as well as commission-based employees.
The second question that comes to mind from Mikael’s post is the essence of this blog. How can we sell products and services in a good way – with strong moral character? I dealt with this question early on in my professional sales career. I read a lot, and one of the books I read is the Bible. In his letter to the Colossians, Paul tells the people, “Whatever you do, do your work heartily, as for the Lord rather than men…”
See: www.biblegateway.com; Colossians 3:23
When I read this, I asked myself how this verse would apply to my life since I was in sales. It seems simple to apply it in the context of being an hourly or salaried worker. Then I thought in the context of sales, what if one of my accounts was Heaven??? How would I try to effectively sell to Heaven? Couldn’t Saint Peter go to God and ask Him if we were offering them a good deal? How would you feel if you knew your customer knows everything you know about your product and the deal you were structuring for them? Some of the thoughts that came to mind were: integrity would be a given; there would be nothing but honesty and transparency in dealing with Heaven (you don’t want to piss off Saint Peter or try to deceive him); I would need to be very careful to set the right expectations; I would want to make sure I’m selling Heaven good products that perform up to the specifications we advertise; I would take their success personal; I would react well when they have a crisis; NO gouging – Heaven gets a fair price commensurate with the value of the products or services; etc…
I believe this is the passage that really started me thinking about the concept of high character in a sales profession. I decided if I could not apply this passage to what I do professionally, I would need to change careers. And here I am.
So can you be a good guy or gal in a sales profession? Yes you can. Selling in itself is not a bad thing. Stop wherever you are and look around you. Everything you see with the exception of the blue sky and natural growing plants and dirt and your skin is the result of a product or service someone designed, manufactured, marketed, and sold. You can be good in the moral sense and very successful in the “how-much-did-you-sell” sense.
Posted at 12:44PM Jul 14, 2007 by George Miller in Personal | Comments[2]
What is character?
What is character?
Dictionary.com: “the aggregate of features and traits that form the individual nature of some person…”
A couple of observations: everyone possesses their own individual nature which sums up their character; character can be bad or good; when we consider “character and selling” we are thinking of the application of good features and traits of an individual’s nature to the sales process.
Sounds pretty basic, but I can see and hear the reactions of people when I begin to imply that there may be an objective standard of what defines “good” or “right” character. When I insert the words “good moral” in front of character, people (especially HR) suddenly start to squirm in their seats. If I post “absolute moral standards” in my discussion of what qualifies as good character, then some people start to get fairly uncomfortable. I’ve seen it first hand.
I do a lot of volunteer work with university students at a local college campus in the context of our church. One of the absolutely hardest things for students to agree on in our current culture is that there exists an objective standard of right and wrong. Our culture has so affected the youth of today, that the one wrong thing for them to say is that someone is right and therefore someone else is wrong about a particular issue. The discussion invariably leads to a discussion of the Holocaust and the question of whether Hitler violated an absolute moral standard by practicing genocide. This is the place where most students finally plant a flag, draw a line in the sand and say, “Well maybe there are some moral laws which apply to all people, in all places, at all times…” I have also seen some students however that theoretically cling to the possibility that we should not judge Hitler's actions given his context. Absurd.
When I was a student (giving away some of my age here), there was never any question about whether right and wrong existed. There might be a good debate regarding some nuance, but in general there was strong agreement that there was a standard and around what the standard was. So without apology, I will approach the discussion about good moral character from the perspective that right and wrong really exist, that right and wrong are objectively definable, and that we (people) generally agree on this objective moral standard. I can assure you that your customers hope that you have an objective moral standard that guides your sales process, as do you. You want the bank in which you deposit your commission checks to have an objective moral standard of right and wrong. This is how we live, and we could not live otherwise.
So if you were going to argue against the existence of an objective moral standard, I’d say right away, that you have some character issues that need some real soul searching. I’d love to discuss it with you further.
Over the next few posts, I’ll discuss some of the traits I’m convinced make up the type of character we want to apply as we sell – things like integrity, diligence, and discipline.
Posted at 07:20AM Jul 12, 2007 by George Miller in Personal | Comments[1]
Character and Selling?
The general idea behind this weblog is to start a discussion about being a sales person of character. Character and selling may seem like an oxymoron similar to military intelligence, but I believe every customer would like to know that the person they buy products and services from is a person of strong moral character. While that may be what customers desire, many customers justifiably have a perception that sales reps are basically coin operated. After all, compensation drives behavior... I don't know any sales professional that does not like, present company included, a big fat commission check. So, I think it is a legitimate topic for blogging.
Sales professionals continually operate in a paradox. We have competing "pulls" on us most days. We need to make our quarterly numbers (the short view) while at the same time doing what's best for the overall strategic relationship with the customer and our sales pipeline (the long view). We need to do what ever it takes to win the deal while at the same time we need to preserve margin. Customers want to do business with a successful and profitable company while they want the absolute best price (free would be nice...). Living in the paradox creates a testing ground that either developes strong character or leads to compromise. I read a verse this morning that reminded me of our situation: "When the whirlwind passes, the wicked is no more, but the righteous has an everlasting foundation." (Proverbs 10:25) Many of my days feel like I'm living through the whirlwind.
Background for this weblog:
The name "Dokime" (pronounced dok-ee-may') is a transliteration of a New Testament Greek work meaning proven character. It is that type of character that has come through times and events of testing - character that is really there.
See:
I'm George Miller, a regional executive at Sun Microsystems, responsible for managing a sales region in the southeast. I served eleven years as an Air Force officer (so I can joke about military intelligence), worked two years for Computer Sciences Corporation, and joined Sun in 1996.
Posted at 12:59PM Jul 10, 2007 by George Miller in Personal | Comments[1]