Rip Van Winkle Selling

As the story goes, Rip Van Winkle wanders up to the mountains to get away from both his nagging wife and his responsibilities. He meets a man struggling with a keg and helps him reach his destination where a group of men dressed in antiquated Dutch garb are playing nine-pins. After imbibing in the contents of the keg, Rip lies down to take a nap, his musket and dog both at his side. When he wakes up, it’s to find his musket rusted and rotting, and his dog gone.

He travels back to town, but doesn’t recognize anybody. He finds his house in ruins, learns that his wife has passed away, his dog has been long dead, and no one’s seen or heard from him in 20 years. When he gets into trouble for announcing his allegiance to King George III, he discovers that he slept through the entire American Revolution!

This story reminds me of some of the stories I’ve heard from sales people over the years. They start by shaking their heads and complaining that selling isn't what it used to be. As they continue, their frustration with management starts coming through. I nod my head because I know what they’re going to say. It doesn’t matter which department their complaining about, it still boils down to the same thing—management expecting superior results from antiquated tools. What can you do you?

If the Problem is that marketing is relying too heavily on brand name recognition as their go-to strategy for getting customers and prospects to say yes…

Your Solution may be two-fold. You might not be in a position to get management to change their strategies, but you can still bring great resource—like Hubspot—to their attention. If they’re slow to embrace digital opportunities, don’t let their limits become your limits. Improve your position by figuring out where your tech and web savvy millennial customers are hanging out. Connect with them where they are, and through resources like LinkedIn, and let that be your edge for bringing in new business.

Is the Problem that management is relying on an old CRM, a homegrown CRM, a CRM designed more for accounting than for sales, or worse yet—no CRM at all?

Your Solution could be to provide management with information about the value of updating old systems. Today’s CRMs are more cost effective, and do more than keep track of customers. Remind them that as a sales professional, knowing your company has a reliable CRM in place allows you to speak with more confidence about the products and services your company offers. But again, don’t let their limits become yours. Make sure you have your own CRM in place if they don’t.

Every company has built in challenges. If you’ve chosen to stay, then there must be a good reason why. If you’re comfortable with the thought of snoozing through the next 20 years, don’t do anything. 

If you’d like to be prepared for what comes after the next 20 years, let’s have a conversation.

Alan Luoma is a Sales Coach with extensive experience in industrial sales, sales management, new product development, sales and product training. He works part time with a national sustainable packaging company and their distributors to increase sales. Alan is an expert that speaks on eliminating behaviors that prevent you from being successful in sales and uncovering sales prevention departments that hinder your success. He is a member of the Hartford Springfield Speakers Network, The National Speakers Association and New England Speakers Association. You can view his profile on LinkedIn, or contact him at Luoma@snet.net

Time management

As busy as we are, it often seems the only way to get things done is to multitask. However, doing more than one thing at a time does not allow the ability to truly focus on doing each task as efficiently and effectively as it could be done. If time was allowed to truly focus on one task at a time it would help to alleviate this problem. Consider initiating a “model week”. Certain hours each day are set aside to do certain things. When necessary, the door is closed and no phone calls are taken to allow you to focus all of your attention on the task at hand. There are still of course times for multitasking, but the bulk of each day has a set plan and schedule to allow the focus time needed.

Watch for additional details on how to set this up in next month’s blog.

About Nancy D. Butler

Nancy, a national motivational speaker, business coach and award-winning author, has been quoted in many local and national publications including USA Today, Money Magazine, Playboy magazine, The Chicago Tribune, AARP and The Day and has been a speaker for major corporations such as Pfizer, General Dynamics and Dow Chemical. Nancy has also been a guest on several television and radio shows.

Contact Nancy for a free consultation at nbutler@aboveallelse.org. 

Shake off X-Y-Z, To Find Your Own L-M-N-O-P!

Diversity is one of the most delightful aspects of life.

So why the (seemingly) increase of the “Everyone must do x-y-z! X-y-z is the best and only way, to obtain the desired results you want.” Hmmm…is it? I doubt x-y-z is the only way - not even sure it is the best way … maybe for someone else, but not me. I have different values, target market, goals, past experiences, etc.

The more I understand my personal thoughts and my physical and emotional feelings; the more I find myself stepping back from what “everyone else” is doing. Everyone else is doing x-y-z while I am involved with l-m-n-o-p; it is sometimes lonely in l-m-n-o-p land, pretty vulnerable and scary at times too! I am thankful to have found l-m-n-o-p land and would not have it any other way.

As you know from last month, I re-started my exercise regime. With exercise back in my life, eating habits naturally change. However, eating the x-y-z healthy way does not work optimally for me. Yes, it is better than eating processed and junk foods, but I do not feel “Amazing!” My intuition said dig deeper to find my l-m-n-o-p of healthy-eating. I did!

I found it in the book Eat Right For Your Blood Type by Dr. Peter J. D’Adamo. The story is truly fascinating. In a nutshell different blood types came to be as “man” explored and moved into different regions of the Earth; changing the way “man” eats and interacts with nature and other human-kind. This is on a cellular / genetic level that started with our Cro-Magnon ancestors back in 40,000 B.C. The Cro-Magnon people were the first blood type-O individuals. They were hunters with very demanding physical activities to perform for survival. Note that Blood type-A did not show up until between 25,000 and 15,000 B.C. some 15,000 years later!

I am a blood type-O. I am to eat meat, fruit and veggies, with small amounts of dairy and carbs. My exercise is to be intense: weight training / running / martial arts / contact sports and such. These exercises allow my body to relieve stress that naturally builds in my muscles due to my hunting ancestors. Genetically I am setup to covert stress into a positive experience through intense physical exercise.

Now this stuff works wonders for me – it is my l-m-n-o-p. I would never tie it in a bow and sell it as the “Everyone must do x-y-z ! It will transform your life.” It may, if you are a blood type-O … but not if you are an A or B or AB.

It is the results and feelings that I experience that keep me following the eating and exercise guidelines, not the (x-y-z) guidelines themselves.

The same principal applies to marketing.

There are numerous marketing-ways to obtain your desired results / goals but that does not mean you should, or have to, follow a specific x-y-z model to do so.

Examples: You must be on Twitter and Facebook everyone is there. To get clients you should have a Wordpress or Squarespace website. How can you use anything but Constant Contact?  

Look a bit deeper – what drives you at the cellular level? What does your business truly need? It may differ from your own. What marketing techniques and platforms benefit the business AND truly excite you to the point where you enjoy the marketing process?

Your answer is where you will find your own l-m-n-o-p…and you will be so happy you separated yourself from the flock of x-y-z. Be careful…this potentially can dramatically increase business visibility and your happiness!

If you would like a consultation on finding what your marketing l-m-n-o-p is, I am a phone call 860-379-2794 or an email grow@greenhousegraphicsllc.com away!  

Until next time, happy marketing!

Chana Monahan

Greenhouse Graphics, llc. Where Ideas Grow

860-379-2974

grow@greenhousegraphicsllc.com

www.greenhousegraphicsllc.com

Recipe for Mediocrity

Hello Speakers, Business Owners, Future Entrepreneurs and Big Dreamers,  

 The United States has a $1.5 billion annual destruction problem. This destruction problem is caused by crazy wild pigs. These wild pigs, also known as "Wild Boar" are the culprits and they occupy 47 states in our country. They are one of the most invasive species known to mankind.

Some of these wild boar weigh between 450 to 600 pounds, and can run as fast as 35 miles an hour. They have sharp tusks that can grow up to 4 inches long and can snap a human leg like a small tree branch in seconds. They literally eat anything their path, eggs, berries, wood, small animals, waste, and possibly inexperienced hunters. They are truly wild and highly dangerous. The following story is a bit of fact and fiction.

Just ask one town in Millstone, Utah, a farming community that was  ravaged by these creatures. The town finally came together and pooled their money so they could seek out the most experienced hunters they could find to solve this wild boar overpopulation problem. They combined thousands of dollars to hire a team of the best hunters. The day came when these experienced hunters rolled into town their shiny trucks, plus a multitude of equipment and a team of hunters dressed in what looked like SWAT gear. They took the money town residents compiled and they headed into the woods to do their deed. Just about a week later they came out of the woods, but were not as enthusiastic as when they were entering the woods,  their vehicles were dented and damaged, hunters were hurt, equipment was damaged along with their egos and the results were dismal. Only a couple of wild boar were dead in the back of one of their trucks. They just kept rolling through town and never stopped and never came back. The town of Millstone was at their wits end and almost out of money. So they put an ad in the paper, labeled: "ANYONE" that can help our town eradicate "Wild Pigs!!!" PLEASE RESPOND!

About a week later, this old rickety flatbed truck comes rolling in to Millstone. Behind the wheel of the truck sat this old timer long with white hair and a dirty white beard with a stub of a cigar sticking out of the corner of his mouth. He pulled up to Town Hall and said to the authorities:

“I’m here to get the pigs.”

They came outside to see his equipment and they were flabbergasted to see he had a 40-year-old rusted flatbed truck stacked with a lot of lumber, boxes and boxes of nails, and bags of feed that probably weighed close to 3000 pounds. The authorities said to the old man "you must be kidding, you're going to kill yourself, go home now". The old man just stared at them and got in his truck and headed into the woods to get the pigs.

About a week later, this rickety old truck began to make its way out of the woods on this dirt mountain road heading into the town of Millstone. Front tires of the truck were lifting up because it had so many dead Wild Boar on the back of it.

The old geezer got out of the truck with that unlit cigar sticking on a corner of his mouth and the town residents asked him how he was able to accomplish this?

The Old Man stood there in front of everybody and said it was quite simple. The other hunters you hired thought they could meet these Wild Boar head-on with big guns and fancy equipment, maybe, in some cases it will work. These animals are born killers and every waking moment of their life is about the hunt it's about bringing food back to their sounder to feed their young. Wild Boar are just about the most ambitious motivated creature on planet Earth.

I just taught them how to become mediocre.

The first day I showed up I found a small open field and pulled my truck up in the middle of the field. I opened up about 300 pounds of feed and dumped it in the middle of the field. And I went and sat in my truck for the rest of the day. Throughout the night I could see a few of these wild boar going to the pile of feed the following night it quadrupled. On day three, I took my lumber and made two sides of the fence connecting them in an L shape fashion and I dumped about another 500 pounds of feed in the corner and headed back to my truck for the night. I estimate at least two dozen wild boar were on the scene. On day four, I built side three of the fence connecting it to side one and side two. Now I had this U-shaped corral and then filled the corral with about 1000 pounds of feed. That night, I assumed at least four dozen wild boar were on the scene. On day five, I built the final side of the fence and left it lying on the ground and I dumped the rest of the feed that night into the corral. Just as expected the boar trotted into corral to feast on the feed and when that happened I propped up side four the fence and backed my truck up against it and trapped them. As I looked into the corral some of them were so full they were sleeping. I stood on the truck and it was just like shooting fish in a barrel except this time shooting wild pigs in the corral.

The old man said mediocrity isn't something you're born with he stated “it's an environment.” It's who you hang around with and what your tuned into every day. The environment becomes a part of you and you a part of it. Once it influences you over time it grows into habit. If that habit stays with you then you have ordained your destiny.

These wild boar were not use to getting something handed to them, they are born hunters. But each night, they could run into the middle of the field and they became comfortable getting something for nothing. I created a lazy environment for them. “I’ve learned one thing in my 70 years and that's if you give something to somebody continually as a hand out you will drain their drive, their perseverance and their will. Then you have them relegated to be dependent on that environment. This environment was mediocrity. 
That is how I caught the wild boar.        

Next Blog July 25, 2015.

 “The Insurance Coach”

      John P. Slosek, Jr 

   "The Insurance Coach ™"
Insurance Coach Radio Show 
Airs Every Saturday Morning 8am 

   www.realoldies1250.net          413-246-5037

Find me on Facebook".https://www.facebook.com/theinsurancecoach 

HOW TO SCOOP YOUR COMPETITION

Doing business in our intensely competitive environments seems to be getting more and more difficult with the passage of time. The Internet provides our competitors with new and inexpensive ways to develop compelling messages to take away our target audience. Bigger and better funded companies are able to take advantage of their resources to acquire a bigger market share. So how can you, as an underfunded competitor, scoop your competition?

It is important for you to think about how you can make yourself just a little bit better than your competition. After all, how important could it be to make yourself just a tiny bit more competitive? In 1992 Al Unser, in racing the 500 miles needed to complete the Indianapolis 500, won the race by 43/1000 of a second. Imagine what Scott Goodyear could have done differently that might have made up for that 43/1000th of a second difference.

Knowledge is king. What specialized knowledge could you learn in your area of business that can help you attract more customers or clients? What is the latest and greatest marketing or branding tips and techniques that you could use to get your name out there to increase you business? The more we know, the more we can share with our target audience and provide them with a compelling reason why they should contact you, which should allow you to convert them to a client or customer. But who has the time to acquire all of this specialized knowledge? The answer is in utilizing the most under appreciated resource and that is the time that you spend in your motor vehicle. Enter, Automobile University.

The average person spends approximately one hour a day in their motor vehicle. If you work five days a week then that would equate to over 20 hours a month or 250 hours a year. The average three credit college course meets for 15 weeks per semester or 45 hours. If you were to take an average of five classes per semester then you would spend 225 hours in learning time. Some universities will grant you a Masters after one full year of classes. So if you listened to audio programs while driving in your motor vehicle, for an average of one hour a day for each working day per year, then you could obtain the equivalent of a Masters degree in two years of sitting in your vehicle.

Think of the things that you could learn and the expertise you could develop just by utilizing your time in listening to audio programs while you were in your motor vehicle. Not only could you learn about your particular area of expertise but you could also learn information about marketing, branding, social media and ways to develop new methods of developing business. You could also learn from your industry leaders who give webinars, seminars and online classes that you could listen to while in your motor vehicle. This is a greatly underutilized resource that you could turn into a Masters degree in a very short period of time.

We all have the ability to make ourselves better. Sometimes we don't realize how easy it would be to improve upon our current situation. If you take this one hour per day and turn it into Automobile University then you can provide yourself with an opportunity to improve slowly and gradually over time. This slow and gradual improvement will provide you with much needed specialized knowledge that you can utilize to make yourself better at what you do and how you market your goods or services. You will find that over time you will become much more knowledgeable and confident which will translate into greater income for you and your family.

Why not enroll yourself in Automobile University today?

People Assess Your Value/Reputation Based on How Your Actions Impact Their Emotions

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Early on in my programs, I invite a volunteer to come up and learn an Improv game.  Generally, there are very few takers.  I then ask for some of the folks who hadn't volunteered to share what thinking they went through that kept their hands from going up.  The reasons are many.  Among the most common answers are: "I don't want to look foolish," "I don't know what the game is about", "I don't like to be first", and "I was taught never to volunteer." Eventually, someone does volunteer.  As the person comes up, I ask the people sitting in the audience how they feel now that someone had volunteered.  Most of the comments are about much relief was felt, how relaxed they now were able to be, and how grateful they were to the volunteer for stepping up.  In other words, the person who stepped up had the power, through his or her action, to transform the emotional climate for the whole group.  The volunteer thereby gains a very high status in the group.  A status gained not by a conscious effort to be liked, but by a desire to volunteer to play for whatever personal reason.  And the entire group took note!

IMPROV TECHNIQUE TO PRACTICE: Trying to figure out what's right or best or most creative or most helpful or most controlling is futile in Improv.  The only way through is to be spontaneous, authentic and expeditious in your actions.  Make your statements or actions flow from what you want to do.  Whenever you notice yourself attempting to figure out what someone else needs or desires, bring your focus back to what you want or need to do.

HERE’S WHY IT WORKS: In life, once you know that others are watching you and judging you based on their own feelings, you realize you may as well act on your own beliefs and desires.  Do what you want to do and how you want to do it.  There is a saying that "nature knows neither right nor wrong, only consequences."

Since it is futile to try and figure out how to please all others or what they are expecting, you may as well do what you believe is right.  If you fail, at least you fail with your own truth. Living your own truth is the simplest way to being authentic in your life.

Izzy Gesell (Izzy's website) is an organizational alchemist who helps individuals and organizations transform their thinking from commonplace to extraordinary. Through his keynotes, trainings, coaching and facilitated sessions, Izzy offers imaginative, intuitive and immediately useful insights and programs. He is skilled at delivering meaningful material in a way that makes participants enjoy their time with him.

Izzy was one of the first to use Improv Theater concepts as tools for personal and organizational learning. He is the author of Playing Along: Group Learning Activities Borrowed From Improvisation Theater, a co-author of Cancer & the Healing Power of Play, a co-author of Humor Me: America’s Funniest Humorists on the Power of Laughter, and a contributor of a chapter on Improvisation as a facilitation tool in the IAF Group Facilitators Handbook. His video course for Lynda.com was their first  course shot before a live audience. A second Lynda.com course, "Humor in the Workplace" was just released.

The Sounds of Summer

It was the Summer of 1977. The blazing sun beat down on my shoulders, as I sat on the concrete foundation of our new garage. I could still smell the concrete, which was just poured a few days earlier. The construction crew had left for the day and I was listening to my Radio Shack transistor radio, as Jimmy Buffett sang about being “wasted away again in Margaritaville”. As a six year-old boy, I had no idea what that lyric meant, but I loved that song non-the-less. It is a memory I will never forget.

As I sat on the steps that led to nowhere, my eyes scanned the large garage foundation and the various sized piles of dirt surrounding the perimeter. I noticed a notch in the foundation where the small back door would go, and the large expansive space where the main garage door would reside. I began to imagine what the walls would look like once they were constructed. Where would the windows be located? I was “looking for my lost shaker of salt”, and eager to see how this garage was going to take shape.

That Summer, I began to imagine a building before it was built, and saw it unfold before my eyes. Each day brought a new phase of construction. I would watch the men wielding their hammers high in the air and then crash them down to meet the nail into the wood, over and over and over again. My anticipation was building as the walls went up. Then a week later, rafters and joists appeared. One day, a new worker walked up my driveway, carrying wires and a bag. He drilled holes in the wall studs and ceiling joists, then laid out all the electricity, outlets and lights. As the hot summer wore on, the roof and singles were laid down and the garage became a shady hang out spot. “Margaritaville” continued to play on my little transistor radio…

Everyday, teams of people work together in families and at companies to build things, plan events, and implement ideas. When you are stuck, look to others in your team or family to chip in and add a fresh perspective to your task. When I witnessed that team of workers build my garage from the ground up, it taught me that each individual must implement their skills, knowledge and style to help complete the job with the right stuff, at the right time, and in the right place.

…And don’t forget to reward yourself, once a job is complete.

Yesterday was Father’s Day, 2015. To celebrate dads everywhere, I kicked off my shoes, threw on my flip-flops, and sat back in my easy chair. I closed my eyes for a moment and listened to sweet sounds of “Margaritaville” on my iPhone, as I drifted back to the Summer of 1977.

 As a Professional Organizer, Speaker, Author, TV Personality, and Podcast Producer & Host, Rick Woods helps residents and businesses make room for clarity, by getting rid of the clutter that gets in their way.


Rick’s newly released book “Make Room for Clarity” is a step by step guide to getting rid of the clutter that gets in your way. Available on Amazon. Listen to Rick's free weekly iTunes & Stitcher podcast "Make Room For Clarity", which focuses on interviewing business & health experts by visiting www.makeroomforclarity.com.



Inquire about Rick's professional organizing business, "The Functional Organizer, LLC.", which focuses on decluttering, organizing, paper filing and time management by visiting www.tforganizer.com.