Growth Dynamics Get Down

Symptoms:

Recently, nothing stung Darren more than when his wife pointed out that he failed yet again at his promised to be home for dinner. And, tonight he knew that he wouldn't make it to dinner again. His two kids were at the ages where they always seemed to be headed from one practice or another, and his wife Jessica was feeling often deserted when she asked Darren for help with all the driving around town. “Work/life balance” meant nothing more than disappointment to Darren as his boss just kept the pressure on by asking for more sales every month.

One of the things that is an uncomfortable topic for me to share with people because I'm a bad practitioner of it, but I've learned how to manage myself despite my bad habits. And it's a question that a lot of people struggle with because it can have an impact in so many parts of our lives, but it's a simple topic of accountability. Now, I'm not bad at accountability. I work pretty hard to make my commitments and keep them and to live up to the expectations I've created with other people, not just in my business life, but in my personal life. I don't think you can master that skill in one aspect and ignore it in the other. So I'm always going to reinforce that my business and my life are essentially the same thing. It's just part of me existing here on this earth.

Situation: 

You just realized that you sell a commodity, and all that feature and benefit propaganda the Research and Development specialists fed you sounds exactly like the competitor’s features and benefits. Now you must find a way to re-invent yourself so that you are not just another “me, too” person trying to schedule a sales call here, there, and everywhere. The more you dial and ask to schedule that sales call the less agreeable people seem to be. You share some quick hitters about your “proprietary applications” and still you feel left out and frustrated. What does it take to get decision makers to want to put you on their calendar?

This one's going to be kind of quick and short. I'll give you one example of the concept that I'm thinking of, but I do want to stress to everybody that words matter, particularly in business conversations.

Symptoms:

Fully dressed in his umpire gear, Gary was behind the plate calling the 3rd inning of his son's little league baseball game. The kid on the mound was so good he was picking apart the corners of the plate on almost every pitch. Although Gary was calling them the way he saw 'em, there were so many close calls that it didn't take long for the parents and the bleacher crowd to start riding him with the usual insults, heckles and personal attacks.

It's a rainy day down here in West Chester, PA, and the weather made me think of a really important part of business development that a lot of people, sometimes are aware of and sometimes aren't.

Symptoms:
The silence was deafening. Both Valerie and her prospect sat there looking at each other waiting for the other person to speak first. Valerie had finished her presentation of the new products' features and benefits and was expecting the Director of Operations to give her some indication of how well she had done.

Hey, I'm going to reference one of my best resources, one of my best business relationships, here this week on fast tip Friday. This is a book that two people I know very well, John Condry and Paul Carpenter, wrote a few years ago. It's about management. It's not just sales management, it's just management in general.

Look, we've just entered into the first few days of Q2, quarter two of 2024, and I always liked specific things on the calendar to trigger different thoughts and processes and times to reflect on what you're going to do to increase your viability and success as you move forward throughout the year.