Greg's Right FIT #425

Quick notes to help you grow your business in less time with less effort. . . sometime next week. 

In this issue: 

- Thoughts on Tension
- Being Human
- Random Stuff

Thoughts on Tension

• There's a tension between our aspirations and our outcomes, between what we want and what we get from the world. Use that to your advantage by keeping your goals strategic. More "improving X" than "get to 55 X." 
• Tech that promises growth never delivers by itself. The promise is attractive because we want the outcome. While it's tempting to adopt their view of the world, avoid the temptation. Their vision of success isn't your vision.
• Success stories from other growing companies provide tension. We hear them and think, "why aren't we doing that?" It's a story. Next time you hear one, mentally insert, "The following is based on a true story." It releases the tension.
• Stories are how we make sense of the world. Next week, find aspirations falling short of your actual results. Remind yourself that this tension is productive, and when you tell your story, your editor will take out the misses.

Being Human - Correlation and causation

“Correlation doesn’t imply causation, but it does waggle its eyebrows suggestively and gesture furtively while mouthing ‘look over there.’" – Randall Munroe

An excerpt from "The Sales Momentum Mindset"

We almost instinctively know to respect momentum when we see it. When a top seller is “on a roll” we get out of their way and make an extra effort to help them continue their “hot streak,” but we don’t talk about it. Much like a baseball pitcher who is working on a No Hitter, we don’t dare mention the word around someone on a roll for fear of scaring the momentum away. Instead, we put in a little extra effort to keep the No Hitter going. We don’t ruffle their feathers; we don’t ask too many questions. We clear the path ahead.

It’s a human response. We’ve been socialized for it. As a matter of fact, when we see someone on a roll we don’t think about their motivation because it’s there, inside them. Just look! How else could they get those results?

On the other hand, if we see a salesperson struggling, the first thing we do is look inside for motivation. In our brain it sounds like, “Why are they not hitting quota? What’s going on in that head of theirs? They must not care. Let’s motivate them.”

Another way of saying this is, we assume good results come from internal motivation, so bad results must mean a lack of motivation. In either case, struggling or on a roll, our instinct is to ignore the role of friction or environmental factors in producing results.

Spoiler alert: Friction points and environmental factors are what we’re going to focus on in this book. Momentum needs a spark from motivation to get going, but in order to build up to anything resembling a “hot streak,” friction and environmental factors need to be removed or minimized.

More good stuff can be found in "The Sales Momentum Mindset." 

Random Stuff

"A strange thing is memory. . . Memory is history recorded in our brain, memory is a painter, it paints pictures of the past and of the day." – Grandma Moses

Around these parts it's not unusual to get a sneak peek at spring. This week has been sun filled with mild temps. Perfect for poking around the yard a bit. A few years ago I told you about my new composter. The Aerobin 4000. It holds over 100 gallons of material and gets up to 150 degrees F, making lots of lovely compost for the garden. It also collects gallons of liquid at the bottom. This leachate/compost tea is great fertilizer, but to collect it I need to sit and fill up bottle after bottle from the bottom of the unit, which I transfer into a 4 gallon container kept in the garage. 

Naturally, the mind wanders during tasks like these. Thanks to a reminder about my days running an apparel company, mine wandered to thinking about trade shows. Specifically, the Las Vegas show called MAGIC. In 2007, it was huge. As glitzy and glamorous as you can imagine. Loud music, celebrities wandering around with entourages, parties, beautiful women wearing nothing but paint. It was all there. 

On that first show, I had a few run-ins with B-list celebs as I wooed buyers. Wandering through a party, Flavor Flav's crew bumped into me, and the man himself spilled some of whatever was in his chalice on me. Later, at Margaritaville a server did the same. It wasn't a problem since I was wearing a Mad Gringo tropical shirt. While not spill resistant, it masked stains like magic. 

In the wee hours, heading back to my hotel room, I ended up in an elevator with rapper Vanilla Ice, his bodyguard, an Austin Powers impersonator, and a leggy dancer that stood easily 6'2". The details are fuzzy, but I remember her inviting the group to watch her dance at her strip club the next night. She said something like, I promise I'll have more energy. (It was late. Everyone was spent.)

As it was my first big apparel trade show, I thought, "I could get used to this." Unfortunately, the recession hit soon after and the following shows were half the size and 1/3 of the glitz. It didn't take long before lugging boxes of shirts around and pretending to be the Mad Gringo got old. Hanging with painted ladies and rap stars gave way to sneaking back to the hotel room before the clock hit double digits and scheming reasons to leave the trade shows a day early. 

Ahh, the glory days. Or day. I can't remember.