Walking pedestrians…

Ah yes – repetition.  Love it; hate it; I suppose all of us have repeated ourselves at one point or another.  For instance, repetition is common around parents and their children, yes?  We hear it directed at the kids (and at the child in us, too) as said by – well – by all of us I'd say: 

How many times do I have to tell you?!!

When I was a sales manager and later in my career, a sales enablement advisor, I used the sound byte, “Are you with me?” often.  I don’t know why.  It just became a habit. I used that phrase early, late and throughout my sales meetings and sales coaching sessions.  I used it so repetitively that one of my best sales reps, and later, one of my best clients finally spoke up: 

Gary, you’re killing me! 

Yep, too much of even a good thing can be bad, LOL! 

Sometimes, we can think repetition is being requested.  However, don’t assume the motivation behind any such request: 

In working on successive drafts of this book, I often felt like the opera tenor whose finale was greeted with enthusiastic, cries of Encore! Encore!  After the fifth encore, the tenor asked the audience, 'How many more times do you want me to song?'  And the answer came back: 'Until you get it right!' 

William Ury 

Sales prospecting habits, which were a big part of my sales career, were ingrained in me as I repeated the effort throughout my the years.  We used to call it “cold calling”.  And success was directly tied to determination.  Such ingraining happens with a lot of sales people – many of whom are mentored by the so-called “mature” and “experienced”: 

DETERMINATION: 

I remember when I was first starting out and asking a colleague I respected how many sales calls he would make on a prospect before giving up.  He told me, “It depends on which one of us dies first." 

Harvey Mackay

To be fair, I don’t take responsibility for any funerals.  Yet, I’d guess it could have been the cold-calling repetition of salespeople, me and many, many others, that led to the “No Solicitors” signs we see on home and office doors today.  Guess we sales pedestrians will just have to keep on walking. 

GAP 

When life gets tough we could get a helmet… or… we could leverage the peace and share the power of a positive perspective.

 

How long?

Things authors, quilters, artists, and salespeople share in common…  In these pursuits, and others, time impacts value (one way or another)… one way or another: 

Good pitching will always stop good hitting and visa versa. 

Casey Stengel 

Take quilting.  My wife invests hours, no, tens of hours to design, cut, sew-and-prep each component, color-match threads, layout and pattern-match the pieces, sew them all together, cut, fit, and sew on the backing, square the whole thing, then cut, fold and sew on the border, and finally quilt the entire, end product. 

She makes gifts for family and friends.  Were she to sell her quilts as some quilters do, and include the dollar value for her talented time, her masterpieces would be priced at hundreds of dollars, maybe even thousands. 

It’s like that with artists, too.  Harry Beckwith, author of Selling the Invisible ©, offered this story about Pablo Picasso’s value of time: 

A woman was strolling along a street in Paris when she spotted Picasso sketching at a sidewalk café.  Not so thrilled that she could not be slightly presumptuous, the woman asked Picasso if he might sketch her and charge accordingly. 

Picasso obliged. In just minutes, there she was: an original Picasso.

"And what do I owe you?" she asked.

"Five thousand francs," he answered.

"But it only took you three minutes," she politely reminded him.

"No," Picasso said.  "It took me all my life." 

Speaking of authors.  My readers often ask me, “How long did it take to write your book?”  They’re surprised when I say I collected the quips and quotes over the course of 25 years.  It took me 3 years to add my short stories, finalize, and copyright the manuscript.  Then I waited another 10 years for self-publishing to become user-friendly enough to match my (lack of) skills. 

Truthfully though, when it comes to the value of “How Long?”, it doesn’t matter in many cases.  The market for a book like mine, offered by an independent author like me, is less than $20 per copy regardless of how many years it took me to complete. 

Then there’s the B2B sales profession.  Time is our nemesis.  Every rep who has gone through a forecast review with their manager knows this.  When faced with the, “How long has this deal been on your forecast?”, we cringe.  Time doesn’t increase the value of our deal.  Just the opposite.  Or, has been said by every sales manager everywhere: 

Time kills deals! 

Which, of course, leads to the salesperson’s (over) reaction: 

When in doubt – discount!           

Especially when we have forecasted the deal to close this month. 

GAP 

When life gets tough we could get a helmet… or… we could leverage the peace and share the power of a positive perspective.

 

High School Sweethearts…

October; autumn … I love this time of the year.  I love the colors and smells.  It reminds me of high school, football, and dating.  Do you remember your high school sweetheart?  

High school is a special time for teenagers.  It certainly was for me.  It was a different time; an innocent time.  I always enjoyed the month of October when I was in high school – Homecoming; Halloween; dating; parties (many chaperoned, some not). 

Fifty-six years ago, this very time of the year, Glenn Vician held a party at his house.  His parents weren’t home.  I hung out with the prettiest girl in my high school at that party.  It was there that I asked her out on a first date.  I guess both events went well enough because here we are fifty-six years later and still together.  Even now I’m awe-struck by the glow of her beauty. 

I hope you enjoy this opening to Chapter XII True North of my book, The Peace & Power of a Positive Perspective © as much I enjoyed writing it and as much as I still enjoy re-reading it every October: 

Dedicated to… a crisp night in October; with a slight breeze blowing through bare trees – waiting for the coming winter.   Close your eyes.  Can you smell remnants of autumn leaves burning? 

To winning the homecoming football game.  To being carefree. To a Saturday night party at the teenager’s house whose parents are away.  Can you hear the kids having fun in the kitchen; the basement; and the backyard, all to the beat of the Rolling Stones? 

To couches, blue jeans and sweaters.  To the floor lamp reflecting on her blond hair making it shimmer with silvery streaks of light.  To the nervous small talk of a teenage boy in the presence of a varsity Pom-Pom Team member.  To the patience of the teenage girl sitting on the couch with the captain of the varsity basketball team.  Can you remember when you could actually hear your heart throbbing? 

To throw pillows, which come in handy when the small talk runs out – what else can a young boy do?  And to playful pillow fights; which lead to gentle wrestling and ultimately to that first kiss. Remember how delicate she felt in your arms – the hint of her perfume – the taste of her lips? 

To first dates – dinner and a movie.  To the movie Catch 22 and the Oriental Theatre in downtown Chicago.  To dating the prettiest girl in your high school; to falling in love; to asking her father’s permission for her hand in marriage.  Were you ever so nervous? 

To the tears welling up in my eyes even as I write this short memoir.  To all those emotions; all the happiness; all those hopes and all those dreams; some fulfilled, some yet to be; and all that I can remember today as if it just happened yesterday – that I will remember every day, as long as I live.  How can someone be so lucky? 

To 1970 - and that Saturday night in October in Elmhurst where I kissed Debbie for the very first time.  And to the friend’s house whose parents were out – to their couch, their floor lamp, to their throw pillows; and to the Rolling Stones music.  Can you imagine being so young, so infatuated, and so in love? 

I still am. 

GAP 

When life gets tough we could get a helmet… or… we could leverage the peace and share the power of a positive perspective.