If You Motivate An Idiot… – Guest Post by Carl Taylor

Carl Taylor, Entrepreneur and Author

There are a lot of websites and speakers that are trying to motivate you. They motivate you to take action, to get off your ass and achieve more. But if you’re an idiot and someone motivates you, you are now just a motivated idiot, and you are going to do idiotic things faster.

Motivated idiots are those people who go to their first property seminar, hear a sales pitch disguised as education that says you must invest right now in this off the plan unit block, immediately sign on the dotted line and a few years later wonder why they don’t have the returns they expected.

I’m not meaning to have a go at seminar selling, or even property seminars; they are viable business methods and have their place.  What you should be focusing on is “their first” as in it was their first seminar. The presenter did a great job and got them motivated, but at this stage they were just a motivated idiot and they made an idiotic decision because they didn’t know what questions to ask.

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Calling All Members of the Choir: It’s My Un-Bio

Great: they asked me to write a bio for a new collaboration project I’m working on. I hate writing bios. No matter how hard I try, they always come out sounding plastic and fake and manufactured. So instead of writing a bio, I just wrote a bunch of stuff about me.  I know that sounds like a bio, but it’s not.  In fact, you could call it my Un-Bio.

And since I’ve been railing on in the last several posts about sharing who you are and what you believe in and why you do what you do, I decided to post my Un-Bio here, too.  Let me know what you think.  Or, better still, share your Un-Bio (or a link to it) in the comments.

1. I’m pretty opinionated. I don’t think that’s a bad thing; in fact, I embrace it. Really. I even include it in my bio sometimes, usually preceded by the word “outrageously”. And if you don’t believe me, just ask my friends what I think of James Cameron’s “movies”, or anyone who’s ever met me what I think of Bob Dylan’s “music” (I don’t know how, but it always seems to come up in conversation…genius my ass).

2. I love ideas. I think ideas are what make life fun. I love having ideas, and I love sharing them even more (see #1). I love hearing other people’s ideas, too, especially the brilliant ones. I love it when my ideas have sex with other people’s ideas (you can blame Matt Ridley for giving me that phrase to play with), and my ideas are pretty promiscuous. They also refuse to practice safe sex, so don’t be surprised if our ideas get together, have loads of idea sex, and spawn lots of tiny new baby ideas.

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Put Some Heart In Your Marketing…It’s Good for Business!

When I say this has been an interesting week, you should understand that I’m probably making one of the most egregious understatements of my life so far.  Without going into too much detail, let’s just say that my vision of who I am and what I do has been shattered and rebuilt over the course of the past few days.  It wasn’t as bad as it sounds; in fact, it was just what the doctor ordered.

For the past several years, I’ve thought of myself (and promoted myself) as something of a sales expert.  I want very badly and am working very hard to travel the country and the world revitalizing the lives and careers of salespeople everywhere, to be the sales trainer of choice for organizations everywhere.

I have a great WHAT: a system I call HERO Selling, which you can learn about elsewhere on this blog.  HERO Selling is, I’m sure, going to change the face of sales for decades to come.  I realize that belief is stupidly optimistic, and I’m OK with that.

I also have a great HOW.  My vision is to talk about the things no one else is talking about, to bring topics like character, honesty and spirituality to the forefront of the conversation about what makes a great salesperson.

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What Wile E. Coyote Can Teach You About Business

“Then it comes to be that the soothing light at the end of your tunnel, was just a freight train comin’ your way.” – Metallica, No Leaf Clover  

Wile E. Coyote, the poster-child for persistence

Do you ever feel like you’ve been channeling Wile E. Coyote in your business or career?  

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10 Steps to Become the Greatest Salesperson in the World – Part 10

“I will pray for guidance.” – from The Scroll Marked X, The Greatest Salesman in the World by Og Mandino

Man is born with an innate spiritual need, a hunger that longs to be fulfilled. Since the beginning, we’ve sought to fill that need by discovering the nature of God and the meaning of life. Everyone has, at one point or another, asked “Why am I here?” To deny the reality of that impulse is to deny our nature.

No matter what your belief system, I’m sure you’ll agree that we all want something more than to spend our days just providing for our necessities; we want to know that what we’re doing has a purpose, a meaning greater than ourselves. This scroll speaks to that part of you.

Mandino makes it clear that he’s not preaching religion; he’s simply speaking as a man conscious of his spiritual need. He points out that we all possess the impulse to cry out for help in times of need and, he reasons, we wouldn’t have that impulse if there weren’t some superior power able to answer. And when you stop to ponder the vast complexity of the universe, you probably agree; it seems reasonable to believe that there’s something greater than us. For now, let’s not get hung up on exactly what that something is or what it should be called; call it what you will, we sense it instictively.

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Understanding the Root of Motivation

When it comes to creating and maintaining forward momentum in your career or in your business, there is one factor that rises above all the others: your why, your reason for doing things, the motivation behind your motivation.  It’s been said that you can accomplish any what, so long as you have a big enough why.  I’m a firm believer in the truth of that statement.

Have a look around, and you’ll see that those who get what they want out of life are driven to succeed by their why for doing it.  In other words, their reason for succeeding is bigger than any defeat they may experience along the way.  These may sound like empty platitudes, but look a little deeper and you’ll see what I mean.

Think of a time when you were close to achieving some particular goal but stopped just short of getting there because of some obstacle that came up.  Most likely, like the fox in Aesop’s fable, you made a declaration of “sour grapes”, justifying to yourself that not attaining the goal was probably for the best anyways.  Dig beneath the surface, though, and I’ll bet you’ll realize that, no matter how important attaining that goal may have seemed to you at the time, somewhere along the way you lost your zeal for it: you no longer had a big enough why.

Now think of a time when you did achieve some goal you’d set for yourself, in spite of any roadblocks that may have come up.  No matter what the setback, you got up, dusted yourself off, and kept right on going, pushing ahead until you got what you wanted.  What kept you going in this case?  Examine your motivation, and I’m sure you’ll find that in this case, you had a really significant reason for achieving that particular goal.  In this case, your why was big enough to accomplish the what.

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It’s Time For a Little Chat…With Yourself!

In case you haven’t noticed, I’m a big believer in the power of positive thinking.  I know there’s no better way to get what you want than to believe that you can; I also know that optimism is essential to success.  The big question everyone always asks, though, is “How do I do it? How do I become a positive thinker when my life/business/career is so crappy?”

That’s a great question with a really simple answer: you need to have a little chat with yourself.  I’m serious!  One of the biggest saboteurs to success is that nagging little voice in your head that says things like “Yeah, but…”, “I can’t do that!”, “That’ll never really happen!” and all the countless other negative phrases we say to ourselves when we have a great idea or try to take some kind positive action.  The voice might be that of a parent, a teacher, a sibling, an old boss…all those folks who, whether they meant to or not, planted seeds of negativity in our brains that we’ve never quite been able to shake.

Well, it’s time to strangle that little voice and replace it with a new, more supportive one, and it’s going to be easier than you think.  I’m going to encourage you to do something that’s going to feel a little weird, possibly even a little uncomfortable (imagine that!), but that will pay huge dividends in your personal development.  I’m going to encourage you to start doing…*gulp*…affirmations.

Now before you write me off as a new-age wacko in salesperson’s clothes, let me remind you that the Great Ones (Zig Ziglar, Jim Rohn, Brian Tracy, etc.) all encourage affirmations in one form or another.  And I agree with them all: positive self-talk is good for the soul.  More importantly, though, positive self-talk is GREAT for activity, which leads to results, which reinforces beliefs, which opens your eyes to greater potential, which spurs even greater activity…and so on.

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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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It's Time to Get Motivated!

As the name of this blog indicates, I believe that proper motivation is one of the fundamental building blocks of a successful life.  In sales (a category which includes all you entrepreneurs and small business owners, whether you like to admit it or not), motivation is the key distinction between success and failure.  It’s a simple formula: having the right motivation keeps you moving and in action.  Without it, you stop.  Over the past several days, I’ve shared five techniques that will help you stay motivated, no matter what is going on in the world around you.  Let’s do a quick recap.

The first step was to start asking yourself the power question: “Why?”  Why do you want to acheive a particular goal, a certain level of income or anything else?  Asking “Why?” helps you identify the emotional component of your goals, which in turn engages your unconscious mind to help move you closer to their accomplishment.  So stop asking yourself “How am I going to do that?” and start asking yourself “Why do I want to?”  You’ll find the results much more satisfying.

Second, we talked about shutting off the news to create your own National News Free Week.  This step will help you avoid distraction and stay focused on doing the activities that are in harmony with your purpose.  While news overload can create anxiety, worry and despair, living a news-free life is liberating.  You are far less susceptible to negativity and far more open to possibility and gratitude.

The third topic centered around the need for passion, enthsiasm and excitement for your work.  Instead of being among the 87% of Americans who hate their jobs, finding passion for what you do puts you in the happy minority of people who actually enjoy thir work, even considering it to be a form of play.  And if you can’t find passion for what you are doing now, remember: you are always free to pursue something that you are passionate and enthusiastic about.

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Want Results? Better Get Moving!

Question: What have you done this week to move yourself closer to your goals? Do you have a clearly defined, written plan to get you where you want to be? If not, what are you waiting for?!

We’ve all heard that what gets written down gets done, yet the majority of us don’t do it. It really amazes me how many salespeople I talk to who have no idea what they need to accomplish on a daily, weekly, monthly and annual basis to help them achieve their goals; in fact, I still encounter many people who have no idea what their goals are! I only have one question: if you don’t know where you’re going, how will you know when you’ve arrived? More importantly, how will you even know if you’re on the right course to get there?

Specific written goals are vital to your success. You know that. If you haven’t written out your goals for this year, stop reading and go do it now. Don’t come back until you’re done, because what I’m going to suggest next will require you to have your written goals in front of you. This is a powerful tool that will help you achieve any goal you set, and it is actually very easy to do. Unfortunately, anything that’s easy to do is also easy not to to do, so I want you to make a commitment, here and now, to try this method out for the next seven days. If it doesn’t work for you, you can stop; but you have to try it for at least seven consecutive days before passing judgment. Ready?

Looking at your list of goals, I want you to think of the six most important things you could do tomorrow to move you closer to their accomplishment. Limit your list to only six things, the six most critical. Now, prioritize the list in order of highest impact; in other words, the most impactful thing you could do becomes number one and so on. Now comes the hard part.

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