Avoiding Desperation In Sales By Asking "Why?"

I just finished recording a couple of segments about  the Motivation 101 process with Keith Keller of Career Success Radio.  For details on that chat, you can check out this blog post over at their Ning site.  Our conversation got me thinking, though: job seekers and salespeople have a lot in common, and they could learn a lot from each other.

One similarity in particular stood out: the need to avoid desperation and anxiety by asking “Why?”, engaging in the process and detaching yourself from specific outcomes.  Sound a little esoteric?  It’s really not.  Let me explain what I mean.

As I’m fond of saying, asking “Why?” is critical to your success because it unlocks the subconscious mind to act in your behalf in achieving your goals.  This is because it helps  identify the positive emotion behind a specific goal or outcome you’re looking for, and identifying this positive intent gives your subconscious something to move toward on a continuous basis. 

For example, let’s say you’ve got your sights set on a particular account and you’re closing in on the end of the process.  You’re pretty confident that you’re going to win the sale and, in fact, you’ve set an intention and written a specific goal about doing so successfully.  Then you find out that the prospect decided to go with a different provider.   That can be pretty devestating, especially if you’d been counting on the commission check, right?  In fact, for a lot of salespeople this kind of event is the beginning of the downward slide into the slump.  It can create a feeling of desperation to “close” the next deal at any cost, and prospects can smell that despeation 10 miles away.

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Learning to Lean (On Others)

I have to admit: I’m a bit of a megalomaniac.  As such, I have a tendency to be a bit of a control freak.  And I think I’m good at it.  I honestly believe that I have everything under control.  My condition is so bad, I once won a few hours of free administrative assistance from my friend Todd Lay, but never used it, even though I was juggling a full-time job and my own business at the time.  It’s a sickness.

I don’t think I’m alone in this.  Many people,especially entrepreneurs, have a tendency to want to “do it all”.   I think we all believe the old adage that “if you want something done right, you have to do it yourself”.  Leaning on others doesn’t come naturally, perhaps because we’ve been jaded by past experience but more likely because we just haven’t learned to trust yet.  If there is one skill the entrepreneur needs, though, it’s the ability to delegate.  It can literally be the difference between success and failure in your business.

Think about it for a minute: how much time do you lose, each and every day, procrastinating and stalling when you have a task you hate that needs doing?  One of my hated tasks is making changes to my website, mostly because it involves looking at HTML code (who came up with that garble, anyways?).  Ugh!  I’d rather have a root canal.  I can do it, though, and that was my hang-up.  I thought that if was able to do it, there was no sense spending the money to hire someone else to do it.  So I would sit down to tackle the project and immediately find 10 other things that “needed” my attention (you know…YouTube, Facebook, Twitter), and the website never got done. 

Then, I met a great web designer who was willing to do what needed to be done in trade.  So I thought, “What the heck?  I might as well give this a try.”  And I learned an incredibly valuable lesson that day: there are people in this world who, believe it or not, actually like looking at and monkeying with HTML code.  For them, it’s a joy, a delight and, as a result, they’re really good at it.  My eyes were suddenly opened to a whole new world, populated with people who were thrilled to engage in all the tasks I hated.  There are virtual assistants who actually enjoy bookkeeping and transcribing and all the administrative tasks that make me cringe.  And there are even people who get their kicks from taking the content I create and blasting it out to the thousands of sites in the social media world, another task I dread.

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'Motivation' Begins and Ends With 'Motion'

OK.  So I stole the title for this post from my friend, Joel D Canfield.  He’s a pretty forgiving guy, though, so I’m sure he’ll let it slide.  Especially when I flatter him by saying that is, quite literally, one of the most brilliant phrases I’ve ever read.

Take today, for example.  As you may or may not have already read, today started off pretty badly for me.  I was having one of “those” days, and I wanted nothing more than to just call it quits and spend the day wallowing in my funk.  I decided, instead, to take some of my own advice by getting out of the office and seeing some prospective clients.  When I got back, I had a conversation with Joel in which I mentioned to him that the minute I talked to my first prospect and she said “No,” I immediately felt 100% better.

Joel was a little confused by this, so I explained that the rejection was validation that I was in “action” mode.  And that, so long as I was in motion, I was buiding momentum.  That’s when he uttered the phrase that became the title of this blog post.  And I agree with him wholeheartedly.

You see, even though I didn’t sell anything today, I got engaged in the process.  As I’ve said before, you don’t make an orange by magic or positive intent or even by trying to force it to happen; you make an orange by planting a seed, by starting and then supporting the process that will eventual lead to an orange.  The same is true in your business: you never, and I mean never ever get results by wishing for them or trying to force them.  You only get results by taking the first step, planting the seed, then supporting the process that will lead to the outcome you’re looking for. 

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What Does the Motivator Do On the Days He's Not Motivated?

Well, I admit it.  In spite of all my rants about taking responsibility for your own motivation and doing the activity that leads to success, I still have days when I’d rather just give up and curl up on the couch.  Even though I tell everyone how important it is to control your own thoughts and choose an optimistic outlook,  I sometimes allow the negativity to creep in and seize my brain.  And there are days when all I want to do is whine about how I wish things were different.  Days like today.

So what does the guy whose constant theme  is motivation and optimism do on a day like this?  Well, here’s the plan.  First, I’m going to take some of my own advice and spend some time in quiet contemplation, visualizing a successful outcome for the day.  Then, when my head is a little straighter, I’m going to leave the office and go make a call on a local real estate agency to share the message of “Motivation 101” with them.  I’m also going to make a couple of phone calls to follow up on some great contacts I’ve made over the past several days. 

Then, I’m going to come back and let you know how it turned out.  I’m going to do all this bcause I know one thing: the only antidote to having a crappy day is to get up and do something about it.  Change your thoughts, and you change your life.

I’m curious: what do you do to break the momentum of a bad day?  What do you do to help you keep going when you really feel like giving up?  Please share your suggestions and advice in the comments section and, until next time, make it a better day!

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Are You Ready to Quit the Recession?

Well, it’s official: Ben Bernanke and, more impressively, Warren Buffet have declared that the recession is officially over (of course, my friend Raj called it a couple of days ago, but we won’t quibble over details here…).  Don’t get out the party hats and champagne just yet, though; Buffet and Bernanke are both predicting a slow recovery for the economy due to the continued ‘lack of confidence’ on the part of consumers.  That’s you and me, people.  We are the consumers’ whose lack of confidence is going to drag this thing out, if that’s the choice we make. 

Is that the choice you want to make?  I certainly don’t.  I, for one, am tired of being in a recession.  I’m ready for a change.  And I think I speak for a lot of people when I say “Enough already!”  I’m willing to bet that you feel the same way, don’t you?  So then, what can we do to change (as in ‘elevate’) consumer confidence, including our own?

Well, start by asking yourself what it would take for you to be more confident and resume things like going out to eat and buying new clothes on a regular basis?  What level of income would you need to feel comfortable buying a new car?  How about a home?  It’s not likely that there will be a better time in the next decade or two to buy things on the cheap. In fact, it would seem that the entire world and everything in it is on sale, so what better time to buy?  Of course, I’m not encouraging you to be reckless or to spend money you don’t have…just consider what you could do right now if you did have the money.  And pick a number that would make you feel confident enough to do it.

Next step?  Figure out how to get to that level of income so that you can once again join the ranks of the confident consumer.  How?  Well, the first thing you have to do is believe you can (and you certainly can); then, you have to believe that you must!  In other words, you have to have a compelling WHY, a reason that will drive you to do whatever it takes to correct your own financial situation and get your life and business back on track. 

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Guess Who's Back!!

Happy Monday, everyone!

After a brief (OK, so it wasn’t so brief…sorry!) hiatus, the Motivation 101 Blog is back and better than ever.

I’ve been spending the last couple of months exploring this wonderful device we call the World Wide Web and all of the powerful things it can do. I’ve been studying social media and Web 2.0 and Facebook and Twitter and all of the leverage they can provide to businesses who are paying attention and learning how to adapt to the new world and the new economy we find ourselves living in.

Most of all, though, I’ve been exploring my own life and business and trying to make sense out of all the advice I’ve been getting from business associates, mentors and friends.  And I’ve had an epiphany. More on that later, though. For now, I want to let you know what’s going to be happening with the Motivation 101 Blog here at it’s new home. 

First of all, this blog is going to be the home of the best content I can write.  I truly believe that the only way the current ‘economic crisis’ is going to end is if we all decide to quit playing along.  I’ve said it before, and I’m going to keep saying it: this recession has nothing to do with a lack of money or resources.  It is the result of a lack of confidence and trust.  In other words, it is a psychological  recession. 

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