Digging into the science behind optimism this week led me to share a few things about it.  There are a ton of really great quotes covering the subject.  Here are just a few of those thoughts.

“There is very little difference in people.  But a little difference makes a big difference.  The little difference is attitude.  The big difference is whether it is positive or negative” – W. Clement Stone

Dr. Karl Menninger said, “Attitudes are more important than facts.”

We know clearly that we cannot control what the world throws at us, COVID-19 has proven that absolutely.

However, even under the toughest and most ridiculous of “challenges” we are free to manage our thoughts and moods.  We have in each case, the chance to rise above the circumstances.  WE are in control of our reactions.  We choose the direction we take and the lens under which we examine all possibilities. Choose the lens of possibility and hard optimism.

Seen on a bumper sticker...
No sense being pessimistic.
Wouldn’t work anyway.

Per General Colin Powell, “optimism is a force multiplier”.  And in today’s battles, we need every resource we can muster up.  This one is ours to choose to use.

So, this week…. I challenge you all to have a different kind of 2-way conversation.  Each day, share with someone different, what it is today that makes you have gratitude, what makes you feel grateful.  Want to get really gutsy, do this with a client each day.  Take a moment to tell them what you are grateful for in your relationship with them.  Get specific, get detailed, get real.  No B.S. softballs here.  Think about it, do it, mean it.  Watch the walls crumble. Then have the courage to make this part of who you are with people.  You are someone that cares greatly, takes the time to understand deeply, and serves others with a big purpose (make the world a  better place!)

OK, Let’s Roll!

- Mitch

Last blog, we talked about the value of delivering insight and how it needs to be tailored to the specific client you are working with.

The best of all outcomes are achieved when you, as a serving professional, actually co-create insight that applies to a specific person within the client. It applies to that person and what they are working to achieve. It applies to that specific person and where they are in the client decision-making process and the progression of that process. This personalization is the most powerful connection that you will make at a client.

Think about the person you work with in a client-company. This person has specific needs and objectives that are unique to them. You have the opportunity to help them in ways that go beyond the overall business aims of their company. How can you help them do their job better? What constraints are pushing on them personally? What obstacles can you help remove? Can you help them meet deadlines? What information can you provide that impacts this person, not just this company?

This connection came to a clear understanding when calling on “Jim”, an engineer at a medical device client that we had been serving for years. Jim was a young father of 3 with his oldest son just turning 10. In this case, Jim was involved in the software creation of a new medical device that was due to market in the next few months. He had used our products and software tools to develop their end-products on many occasions. This time out the pressure to get the product to market was particularly high.

Added to the work pressure was the fact that Jim had just volunteered to coach his son’s soccer team. And that was a BIG community involvement in this case. We listened carefully to the conflicting needs for him to push to work overtime AND at the same time to coach his son’s soccer team. Our team had multiple solutions. We arranged for an outside consultant to assist in the project. We also coordinated our own technical experts locally and from the factory across the continent to help create the framework for the software and provided key sections of pre-written software code to address some of the special functions needed. We assisted further by helping with the quality assurance and compliance testing needed to get this medical device to market perfectly. On the personal side we were able to reach out internationally and connect Jim with a youth coaching expert that one of our European team members knew well.

In this case we delivered highly personalized insight and solutions that helped our client meet his corporate mandate and see through his personal commitment to his son. That’s how you work with your client to truly make a difference.

Insight is good. Personalized insight is invaluable.

As I find myself studying Edwards Deming more these days, I realize there is an amazing amount of fundamental business wisdom in much of his thinking and many of his quotes. This past week I was reminded of the vital nature of one of his most challenging quotes ever: “It is not necessary to change. Survival is not mandatory.”

I have had numerous discussions about dinosaurs and the desire to not become one. That focus is more critical than ever today, growing daily. Change is what defines us, change is what makes us different today and what will build our future.

I was fortunate to spend a few days with 90 of my peers in the sales world at the recent CEB Chief Sales Officer meeting. I found myself in company of an amazing group of sales leaders from the world’s leading companies. A few of these companies are Staples, FedEx, Penske, Analog Devices, Wells Fargo, John Hancock, Dow, Kemper, Airgas, Siemens Building Technologies, Vision, Jacobs Eng, Interstate Batteries, Georgia Pacific, Intelsat Daimler Trucks, Fluke, Cargill, National Instruments, Bose, Kaiser Permanente, Rockwell, Avery, Smucker, Medline, Honeywell, Herman Miller, Gates, NetJets, Kroll, Avis, Brocade, Fidelity, Gannett, Frost Bank, Comcast and a bunch of others!

These companies represented hundreds of billions of dollars of combined revenues. They come from every industry, from technology to healthcare, banking, oil and gas, materials, building, investment, pharmaceuticals, legal, foods, automotive, and a favorite of mine, J.M. Smucker (they make the best jams and jellies). These companies sell cardboards, advice, gas, pills, jams, oil, batteries, recovery, prevention, million dollar pieces of equipment and products that sell for less than a dollar, like us.

The common denominator that we all shared was that we all came from backgrounds where we sold product features and benefits with a vengeance. We all offered ‘solutions’ that we just knew were exactly what the customers needed. Why? Because that’s what our customers wanted in the past.

The challenge we face today: Our customers no longer want what they did once upon a time.

Most of the folks in attendance were still struggling to really grasp what they needed to do DIFFERENTLY. They had heard, they had read, they even believed, they were just too tied to the past to ACT. They were on a dinosaur path, they knew it and they were very uncertain. Enlightenment is just starting to take hold. It is moving quickly in the ranks of those folks that have the vision to move forward.

Only a handful of companies in the group had reformed their ‘funnel’, or pipeline, into a client perspective of how they make decisions, rather than the old view of what the salesperson needs to do. We made that shift MANY years ago and it has been a key part of our thinking ever since. Mark Sellers of Breakthrough Selling guided us in that critical stage.  Helping our clients make better decisions is our focus and it remains the best place to exist.

If you decide that survival is preferable, that relevance is better than turning into a fossil, then change is necessary. Our journey continues to grow and evolve, and it has required shifting both mindset AND methodology.