At the Edge of Explosion!

Edgy Conversations: When You (Finally) Get Tired of Being a Loser.

Dan Waldschmidt — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 13:07:43 +0000

That’s Where I’m At.

You come to a point in your life where you just decide that you have had enough of mediocrity. Your own.

Not the world around you. Not the nonsense on the television channel. Not your work commitments, your colleagues, or your church group.

You decide that you demand more of you.

And it starts right now.

Not tomorrow when you wake up. Not next week after you have time to think about it. Right this very second.

It’s time to act.

There is this tremendous sense of urgency that you feel.

For the first time, it feels like the world starts to slow down around you and you get the extra energy to ramp it into high gear for an extra lap or two.

You stop planning for what you want to be “when you grow up” and start being the rock-star you always thought you could be.

It’s the little things.

It’s when we decide to:

Whine a little less.
Think of others a little more.
Put in a little more effort.
Be a little more courageous.
Forgive a little faster.

It’s an attitude more than anything. Your problems don’t magically disappear. And, all the obstacles you faced earlier in the day are still there now.

“No special “fairy dust” gets sprinkled on the resistance that wants to grind you down and spit you out…”

But, what changes is……… everything!

Because the only thing that really mattered in the first place was your attitude.

That’s the only thing that made you a loser in the first place.

So Go Do It.

I am not talking down to you. I’m writing this for me.

It just feels like it’s about that time to do something amazing.

What will you do today?

–

(photo by Stewart Bremner)

The End of Sales Obesity (or 7 ways to get back in fighting sales shape)

Dan Waldschmidt — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 13:02:33 +0000

It’s getting to be that time of year. You push back from the table with a awkward sense of “why did I gorge myself so much”.

Any movement out of your chair is slow and painful. You just feel annoyed with yourself. About the only word you can say is “ugggggh…..”

You didn’t even enjoy anything you were stuffing into your mouth. It was in front of you along with the knife and shovel (a.k.a “spoon”) so you just kept pushing more down. Plate after plate after plate…. (The toothpicks stacked up from the cheese cubes you ate could make a small village.)

Sounds kind of like the holidays, right?

I was actually talking about how the typical sales dude spent the last 6 months of 2010….

Stuffing down lead after lead. Meeting after meeting. Without taking the time to savor each opportunity. Without a thought about what could be. No need for practice or preparation — just choke it all down before the guy in the cubicle next to you can grab the lead.

It’s a classic case of sales obesity.

I got to thinking about it not too long ago.

Two weeks ago, the New England Journal of Medicine noted that about 34% of U.S. adults, or 72 million people, are obese. That means that you weigh more than 30% more than doctors somewhere think you ought to weigh.

I don’t really care too much about all these opinions. (Frankly, I’m not too fond of people telling me what to do in the first place.) What did catch me eye was a line almost at the end of the article.

According the experts, you can add-up to four years to your life by slimming down.

Less pudding. More proteins….

Now that gets my attention. Quality of life is important. But so is quantity. I may push the limits of all things “outrageous” and set the tone of living life extreme, but I still don’t plan on checking out any time soon (not if I can help it).

I feel the exact same way about closing big deals. I don’t want to check out too soon. And I certainly don’t want to get sloppy doing what I am doing.

And yet as I look back this year, I think I see some bad habits.

Frankly, I am upset about how sluggish I feel after plowing through a year of leads. I don’t even remember most of their names or why they called me in the first place. I speak and they come to to hear me, but I don’t get the opportunity to hear all their stories — to make a difference. They called me for help, because they wanted to generate a lot more revenue, and I was too busy to really help them. I need to do better.

How about you?

Did you “qualify” your easy-money deals into your annual “102% of quota” report without putting in the extra effort to land a few “super huge ones” that only require a little more discipline — a little more sales fitness?

Did you?

Probably… (and not because I love being the “Nagging Nelly” of sales writing)

That’s probably what happened BECAUSE that is what is easiest to happen. Left alone, without a plan to stay in “selling shape”, we tend to just stuff ourselves with sales leads and hope that we close enough business to stay off of HR’s radar screen.

So what to do?

Here are a few ideas:

Create sales goals for yourself that are outrageous to your sales manager.
Treat each lead with respect even you if you decide that you won’t sell to them.
Manage your selling distractions proactively before they start effecting your performance.
Say (and really mean) “Thank you…” and “I’m sorry…” to stop negativity from controlling your attitude.
Read and meditate on a wide range of books, blogs, magazines, and videos about your craft of selling.
Keep trying even when it seems like what you trying to do is not working.
Live without regrets — don’t contribute to future bad karma coming back to you.

If I can simply trade twinkies for four more years of my life, I would be crazy to ignore that opportunity.

And it’s the exact same for selling big deals. Why would you want to stay sloppy and slow when you could be a rockstar?

So I am declaring the end of “sales obesity”. Let’s get back in shape together…

What do you say?

Care to hit it out of the park with me?

—–

This article first appeared at Paul McCord’s Sales & Sales Management blog, where Dan was asked to share his perspective on high performance selling.

Edgy Conversations: Josh, Land Rovers, and the “Numbers Game”

Dan Waldschmidt — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 20:54:17 +0000

Every walked away from an experience just demoralized at the state of the sales person on the other end of the deal. It’s a reminder to not “be that guy”…

Here is my story — the email I sent back to the sales guy:

——–

Josh,

This is a horrible sales process. I am not sure if it is incompetence or if you are intentionally trying to “dupe” me. I am assuming the former.

Here is what happened:

I went to your site looking for pricing on the the following vehicle you had advertised online:

When I clicked through to the link, I saw the following information:

I was impressed that you might be willing to offer me an “ePrice” that was lower that advertised, so I took the bait and clicked through.

So my guess was right, if I traded you my email address, you would send me a lower price and and have access to my personal information for future specials or other “what not” that you could mass email market to me.

For me, having a cheaper price was important enough to trade you my personal email address. Who knows — maybe you have some offers to send me that might be of interest when I buy another car. My primary car has just at 100,000 miles right now, and I’m starting to look around.

But, back to the topic. I filled out the form and was excited that the feedback indicated that you would be providing me a better price.

So I went to my email and refreshed. I figured that you might have a built-in 10% discount (or something like that) that you would automatically send to me.

I was eager to get a slightly cheaper price so I pushed the refresh button — once, twice, maybe three times (I forget exactly).

I started to get a little annoyed, but then I thought, “Wait a minute. Maybe this isn’t automated. Maybe they are really working to reduce the price of this vehicle for me. (I was a little chagrined that I had thought badly of you guys. After all, this is the South, and hospitality is our specialty…)

But I digress. A few hours later I got an email from you or your team… Not sure. (Not sure if you’ve read this recently.)

That’s OK.

I started reading it. I was actually skimming it pretty fast to find out what type of discount I could expect.

I didnt’ see any numbers so I honed in on a few paragraphs to see if maybe I had lost track of the reason for this email.

I re-read item #3 about you giving me the best pricing “up front” and then in a “should I be annoyed…. what is going on?” state of mind, I decided to wait for you to contact me.

And soon thereafter you did. This is what you sent me:

I have to come in to see you instead of getting a lower ePrice?

I feel duped. I gave you the benefit of the doubt and you took my attention for granted. Now I feel like a fool.

I know it’s a “numbers game” and I am just a number. But I think you could easily improve your numbers.

Think outside the box.
Be genuine.
Treat me like the individual buyer that I am.

I wanted to buy something from you and you pushed me away. That’s not the way to generate more revenue…

Dan Waldschmidt

——–

Before you jump on Josh’s case, think about what you did last week.

Who did you help halfway?

It’s a lesson for all of us. Don’t be that seller.

You won’t find many buyers…

–UPDATE–

This morning I got this email from the Sales Manager at the dealership.

It has the “right language”. Right? It’s just more of the same.

And when your buyer is skeptical and annoyed to start with, more “emails” like this don’t really work.

–ANOTHER UPDATE–

My “good” friend at Big O’ sent me another email. Does this sound believable? Am I really going to buy a car from these guys….. ever….. ever?

This is the problem with “sales automation” — in the wrong hands, it builds an army of raving enemies. It’s lazy and sloppy and horribly out of touch with the reality of my buying a car.

Shouldn’t we be building more trust?

Edgy Conversations: Depression, Dreams, and Destiny.

Dan Waldschmidt — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 13:06:35 +0000

Ever feel like one of these plastic figurines you beat down at the Mack-A-Mole game at Chuck E Cheese? Ever feel like the “game” is you getting your head beat in by everyone around you?

Like life is rigged to keep you down. Like there’s a plan to keep you away from your dreams

Let’s have an edgy conversation about that.

If you haven’t felt that way yet (like you get smacked around no matter what you do), hold on to this article because chances are you are headed to a collision with reality.

According to the National Institute of Mental Health, right now more than 33 million Americans are depressed.

Not just discouraged, frustrated, or struggling with setbacks. Clinically depressed…

It’s a Serious Situation.

Psychologists tell us that 1 out of 3 women are depressed at any one time. That it’s about 1 out of 5 for men.

More then 80% of depressed people never get help — at all, ever. And it’s no wonder — 54% of people asked, considered depression a personal weakness rather than a medical condition.

All-in-all, more than a million people (about 15% of depressed people) will take their own life this year. And what’s staggering — as many as 50 million people will make an unsuccessful attempt at doing so.

It’s estimated that by 2020, depression will be the second largest killer after heart disease — more than cancer, AIDS, and diabetes combined.

So What To Do.

Get help!

It’s that simple. You are fighting for your future. For your dreams.

Find opportunities to help others – Kindness mends wounds. Yours and the person you are helping. Go looking to encourage someone else and you will find your soul nurtured.
Surround yourself with positive people — Put yourself in a place where you can be inspired. Stop carrying the team and surround yourself with people you raise you up.
Get medical help – Invest in a psychologist, psychiatrist, or therapist. You can’t fix yourself. You didn’t break yourself in the first place, so you don’t know how to put all the pieces back in place. Get a pro on your team.

Your senses tell you to wallow in pity and sulk and pout. Like hypothermia, your body and instincts go numb. You have to take action.

The “Edgy” Truth.

We all get depressed at times. Don’t deny it. You’ve been there. So have I.

Your dream needs you. You future needs you.

Are you willing to fight another time?

“The choice to persevere in spite of overwhelming obstacles is the single biggest factor in achieving success…”

Are you Obsessed with Greatness?

Dan Waldschmidt — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 12:59:16 +0000

It’s not a hard question. Right?

It’s actually pretty simple. Are you obsessed with being great?

It’s so simple in fact that many times that we confuse the real issue.

It’s not the same as:

Being passionate,
Trying to be successful,
Working towards your goals, or
Improving on your talents.

It’s not the same.

I realized this a few weeks ago when I was running. I was about 6.5 miles into a quick 14 or 15 mile run and ahead of me at the base of the hill about a quarter mile away was a bicyclist. And for some neurotic reason I picked up the pace. The hill sloped upwards for a little more than a mile so I knew I had some time to catch up (or so I thought).

About a half mile into this “race”, I had closed the gap quite a bit. But the guy on the bike turned around and noticed that I was running up behind him and he picked up his pace. He shifted up a gear or two and I noticed that he started pedaling harder (which ticked me off). So I shifted into a higher gear.

For the next half mile we basically stayed at the same position, him pedaling faster, me running faster. And then I pushed deeper. I had to. The top of the hill was coming and I knew that I would lose my advantage.

By the time, we crested to the top of the hill, I was about 10 steps behind the bike. Where, the guy looked back briefly and then started zooming off. And so I did the only logical thing I could think of — I yelled at the guy – at the top of my lungs: “Come back here…” (Which made the guy look back at the weirdo yelling at him and pedal away even faster.)

It’s a silly story. But begins to illustrate the power of obsession.

1. Obsession is the greatness power in the world.

There really is nothing else like it. Nothing as effective.

“Obsession is passion on curiosity steroids”

It’s not just about action or passion or intensity. It’s about the effort and creativity to keep trying in spite of whatever comes along.

When you “want it” bad enough to keep trying in spite of past failures, you know that you are closer than ever to success.

2. Greatness isn’t a specific point in time.

It’s a part of who you are. Greatness (however you define that that) isn’t a finish line. It’s an attitude. It’s a perspective.

You can’t do “greatness”. That doesn’t make sense.

You are great. And so what you do leads to amazing things.

Which leads me to ask you one thing: “What are you obsessed about?”

UnfetteredTV: Sh*t or Get off the Pot

Dan Waldschmidt — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 21:26:46 +0000

Last week, Tim Pec0raro and his producers asked me to stop by the studio to be a guest on UnfetteredTV — a brand new show from the Peculiar Productions team. I knew Tim from working together on some other projects and sharing the occasional cigar, and so I anticipated that this would be fun.

The producers wanted to talk about dramatic action and picked the title “Sh*t or Get off the Pot”.

As edgy as I am, I had some reservations. (You’ll hear more about my phone call to him about when I heard the title.) But then I understood where they wanted to go and got excited about the opportunity to talk more about the topic.

So here it is:

Take action. It’s something that you have complete control over.

Be edgy!

Edgy Conversations: Introspection, Nonsense, and Hoping for More.

Dan Waldschmidt — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 12:56:37 +0000

Since when did sales come down to the fine art of improving your quarterly performance? To improving your quota by that 4% margin of victory.

Since when did we start looking back (on the worst sales year of 3 generations) to decide whether we were getting the right results.

Since when did we fool ourselves into the nonsense of arbitrary analysis.

OK. Let me lighten up a little.

As a former CEO of a fast moving technology company, I get it. I buy into the idea that you need a rolling 13 month plan of action and that you need to to measure the heck out of anything for which you can make a tick with a #2 pencil.

What you measure you can fix.

That’s partly because once you measure, you know what you need to fix.

You move past the nonsense of unabashed introspection — past the island of hopeful intentions. You get to a place where you see what really is.

It’s now fact instead of fiction.

You can stop hoping to do better and start working on being better.

And here’s where it gets fun. You get to decide what “better” even means.

You probably know what that means. Right now you have five or six things you are thinking about. And that’s key because you know your situation better than anyone else. But here are a few things you might want to look for:

How many times did you go the extra mile to provide creative solutions to your customers?
Did you increase your intensity around prospecting for new clients?
Do you enjoy doing what you are doing?

It’s introspection at it’s finest. None of the numbers. Just a focus on you and your ability to play at a high level.

It’s a look at the core you and pushing yourself to be the best “you” possible.

So what’s the deal with comparing yourself to a spreadsheet of hopes and dreams?

Who cares what happened in 2009 or the first six months of this year? Well…. you do. And I do. And frankly, we all do.

Just care enough to do it better these next six months.

—–

This article first appeared at the Sales Bloggers Union, where each month Dan joins the world’s top sales writers to share their perspective on a single selling idea.

The Karmic Charm of Action

Dan Waldschmidt — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 13:02:49 +0000

Life comes at us fast.

We are pushed to fear and faint and fail.

The deck is stacked. The odds are cast. Friends are few and foes are many.It’s not glamorous. It’s life.

It’s you versus what seems to be an insurmountable mountain of opposition to you ever reaching your goal.

Part of you even wonders why you are trying to make it work. Why you keep putting in the effort.

And yet within you, a karmic voice calls for greatness. A siren sounds for the championing of all that we could be. All that we might become. A chance at greatness.

And then you realize…

that you are the savior that you were looking for…

You understand how to free yourself from your fear and your failure. You know that action is what is required. What is demanded.

The Power of Action

Karma smiles fondly on persistent perspiration. That emotive sense of doing — because it means for a short while you are headed towards everything that you want for you. You are your goal. And those moments are what stimulate you around the rest of your impossibilities.

Action crushes fear – your heart does away with the wildness in your head
Action defines goals – you figure out what you will do instead of what you could do
Action enables success – you become the future that you always wanted for you

But it’s not all karmic charm.

The Push-Back from Action

You can not change the world around without forcing people to take sides. Some are with you. Even more are against you. As you stand up, you create a call that can not be ignored.

Action creates critics — unabashedly misunderstood intentions
Action leads to failure – at times you get it wrong
Action demands reaction — anger, skepticism, finger-wagging, and head shaking

But what did you expect? It’s not easy, it’s you creating your karma.

The Plan for Action

Act upon the wildest of your dreams for you and begin the journey through the impossible. Step by step. Inch by inch. You move. Not with intellectual justification, but a visceral sense of survival — for your dream, for your passion, for all that is within you.

Like a wild animal, you feast upon your fears with a primal sense of abandon. And then, when there is nothing but a racing pulse and a sense that you must hunt, you chase down your dreams.

That is your karma. That is why you act.

Edgy Technology: Get In Your Stribe. Connect Better.

Dan Waldschmidt — Sat, 10 Jul 2010 12:56:37 +0000

If all this hoopla about the social graph and Facebook privacy settings hasn’t made you want to jump off a cliff, if you find it mildly interesting to connect with people, if you have a message, an audience, and the passion to share — Stribe is your lucky day.

Stribe has been around for almost a year now — running their social-reingeneering in super-beta mode. They have thousands of websites signed up and the team instead decided to keep the review of their product focused until they were ready to go crazy man.

That day came last week. Stribe is now available for you.

Ohhh…. Wondering what the heck it does in the first place.

It turns your website (your blog, your company, your photos….) into a mini social network — a Facebook for everyone. Let’s jump in.

When you head over to Stribe.com, you have two ways to engage:

You can join a community, OR
You can create a new community

Both are valuable.

First, take a look at the communities that already use Stribe. Imagine connecting your site with other similar sites. More traffic. More reader. More impact. So get started. Find a category (or several) that are focused on what you are doing.

Contribute. Share. Make new friends.

Second, customize your profile and join in the discussion. Stribe makes that pretty easy.

Put in your email address and a few other details and you are up and running. Now other people that you want to engage know who you are and can continue the relationship outside of coming back to your website.

If you are bold and audacious you may want to build your own community. It will take you less than three minutes.

And if you decide to customize all the option (the look & feel, and the way emails are sent to new members, etc…), then you can spend hours make Stribe look the exact way you want it to.

Flexible yet simple.

Stribe helps you connect better.

It’s an edgy technology that you should take a look at.

Add it to your blog, your website, your community fan page.

Connect better.

Edgy Conversations: Why Success Needs to Hurt First.

Dan Waldschmidt — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 13:02:35 +0000

Because that’s the only way you’ll listen.

That’s the only way to get you out of your own way and on the path to extraordinary…

Here’s a harsh reality. Being edgy — living on the edge of outrageous opportunity hurts like hell at times.

Especially when you first decide to get started and extend yourself. When you step out and decide to live the impossible.

Success is gut-busting endeavor. The hurt is what prepares you for success.

In 1930, the 23 year old Freddie Chapman led a British expedition to Greenland. He experienced such ferocious cold that he lost all his finger and toe nails. He got lost at sea and spent 20 hours in a kayak. During one exploration he fell into a deep gash in a glacier and just barely saved himself by holding onto the handles of his dog sled – pulling himself hand over hand back to the top. At the end of this exploration he was one of only 3 people who made it out alive.

Skip forward a decade. Captain Chapman single-handedly thwarted the Japanese invasion into Malaysia. For four years he led guerrilla warfare behind enemy lines.

In 1945, two years into his stay, just as he ran completely out of supplies, all of his team members were lost to either gunfire or disease. For the next 100 weeks, he suffered from malaria, dysentery, and skin-eating leeches. He was captured by both Japanese forces and rogue Chinese bandits — and escaped from both. He was unconscious for 17 days as he succumbed to pneumonia, jungle fever, and typhus. He was wounded by a bomb and shot in the arm. His boots wore out and he walked barefoot through the jungle.

He had destroyed 7 supply trains, 15 bridges, 40 tanks and armored vehicles, and hundreds of Japanese troops.

His training in Greenland a decade earlier gave him the training and guts to return to Britain with the nations highest award — a hero against all the odds. He would later tutor Royal Prince Philip.

You can’t do amazing things until you understand how to deal with the pain.

Success hurts first. It needs to. That’s how being edgy works.