Pay attention…

 

I was behind a driver at a stoplight when the arrow turned green the other day.  Because she wasn’t paying attention; I missed the light.  Sound familiar?  

It reminded me of my profession and the coaching I frequently provide my clients.  In the sales profession paying attention is important.  Paying attention starts with good listening skills.  And listening skills are key.  Why?  Because then we will hear the prospect’s specific details.  In the marketplace today, specificity is a killer application.  

I know specificity can be hard.  When things are hard some believe that leads to fatigue.  Have you noticed the buzz about “Zoom Fatigue”?  One great competitor offered this: 

… fatigue makes cowards of us all. 

                   Vince Lombardi 

I choose to believe that paying attention really isn’t that hard and the reasons behind Zoom Fatigue are different.  Another great mind put it this way: 

Fatigue is often caused not by work but by worry, frustration, and resentment.  We rarely get tired when we are doing something interesting and exciting.  

Dale Carnegie 

Sales is a profession that is interesting and exciting!  When we pay attention we listen specifically for the specificity in our prospect interactions.  Prospects prefer buying from the salesperson who is paying attention.  Yogi Berra put it another way: 

You can see a lot by observing.  

I was observing the subject line of another client’s sales-prospecting emails recently.  There are people much smarter than I on the subject of email subject line mastery.  Nonetheless, I mentioned to him that I didn’t think his subject line was very appealing. 

That prompted him to look it up and he agreed.  Reviewing all of his recent email campaigns the emails with that specific subject line were, in fact, the emails least opened.  What’s remarkable about this encounter (to me at least) is my client is actually paying attention to the facts! 

Now before we go any further let me state for the record, I have my own moments.  If my wife was here she would tell you that at home, I don’t “watch” TV; I “become” the TV!  Talk about not paying attention to her; guilty as charged! 

Our lack of attention-paying is obvious to our prospects and clients and spouses (and other drivers), true?  They can tell.  It reminds me of my former colleague who offered this response when it was revealed he wasn’t paying attention during a meeting: 

You only have to tell me twice, once. 

                   Adam Katzenmeyer 

And to Adam’s credit for the remainder of that meeting he kept his word and paid attention. 

I know the challenge is harder today because of technology.  Technology leads to using multiple devices… multiple devices leads to multi-tasking…  and multi-tasking leads to not paying attention.  It’s almost as if “multi-tasking” is some sort of badge of honor – which in the eye of our prospects and customers and spouses (and other drivers) - it is not.  

Never mind there is scientific evidence stating that the human brain cannot multi-task in the first place.  The fact is we are merely switching our attention back and forth really fast across multiple, single-tasks which means (according to the facts)… we’re not paying attention to any one task very long.  Funny thing about facts: 

Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.                                 

Aldous Huxley 

Today, may we heed the facts and strive to pay attention at work - and more importantly perhaps – on the road and especially at home. 

GAP 

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