Greg's Right FIT #470

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

In this issue: 

- Thoughts on Stopping
- Being Human
- Random Stuff

Thoughts on Stopping

• If you started the year on the wrong foot already, stop, and start over. There are no rules against it. No one is perfect. 
• For sales people, stop worrying about the perfect sales process. Start worrying about the gap between what you know about how your prospects buy, and what you don't know. Closing that gap creates your perfect sales process.
• If you're watching a movie that isn't meeting expectations, you can leave. You can stop reading a book that stinks. It's your time. Make 2025 the year you stop a few times more.
• Stop cynicism. Over time, we miss opportunities, hopes get dashed on the rocks of reality, and disillusionment sets in, but don't give in to cynicism. I'm not saying be overly optimistic, just fight the protective shell of cynicism. 

Being Human - The best training advice 

"Lewin’s insight was that if you want to achieve change in behavior, there is one good way to do it and one bad way to do it. The good way to do it is by diminishing the restraining forces, not by increasing the driving forces. That turns out to be profoundly non-intuitive." – Danny Kahneman

An excerpt from "The Sales Momentum Mindset" Chapter 2

When I was a new sales manager I attended a week-long immersive sales management training. The trainers were installing a sales management system into our heads, one with a common process and language we were using across the organization. It was a laudable goal and excellent training. 

The most important piece of advice I got from this training came on the last half of the last day. We had been filled with new ideas and concepts to make ourselves better managers. We were crammed, full of innumerable sales improvement tactics, and most of us had started a detailed log of what we were going to change when we got back to the office. Since I was in one of the first groups to be trained, the trainers left us with a final instruction. There were other managers to be trained, so when we get back to the office, don’t do anything different. They practiced with us on how to do nothing, and what to say when other managers and our direct reports peppered us for hints on the changes that were around the corner. There were nearly 100 managers in our company and everyone knew this sales management training was happening, so inquiring minds wanted to know what to expect. “Please keep quiet,” the trainers said. Give us another two months to get everyone on the same page and then we could start change very slowly.

Why was this the most important thing I took from the training?
Because when I got back to my office I was changed. My lens was different and I saw my sales team in a new light. The advice to do nothing was exactly what I needed to sit back and think about what my natural instincts were (like sales-oriented thinking versus management thinking) and how to change it.

I got more from that training than any other training I’ve attended
because I stopped behaviors that were not helping me. I took things off my plate and my personal results improved. Soon my team’s results improved too.

It turns out this is a very well-known approach. I heard Nobel Prize winner Danny Kahneman talk about removing behaviors being just as effective as installing new behaviors and I thought, “Yes! I’ve experienced that.” 

(In 2025 read "The Sales Momentum Mindset" . . .you can stop if you don't like it. I'll never know.) 

Random Stuff

“I once had a sparrow alight upon my shoulder for a moment, while I was hoeing in a village garden, and I felt that I was more distinguished by that circumstance that I should have been by any epaulet I could have worn.” –Henry David Thoreau

A visitor to our humble abode saw my desk setup and said, "well, don't you have quite the view!" There are a lot of windows. It lets me study my garden, the things I want to change in my yard, the things I would change in my neighbor's yards, and keep track of the dog. I hadn't considered it to be a nice view, but it must be because there are times I catch myself sitting here and staring. 

I see a fair share of wildlife despite being tucked into the city. A deer, turkeys, foxes, hawks, guinea hens, woodchucks, and more have all wandered through with the expected squirrels, birds, mice, spiders, rabbits, bats and such. I'm sure I've told you about them. They entertain me as I contemplate their little lives. 

Occasionally, I break out the binoculars or the telephoto lens on my SLR camera. It's tough to get a good look at most of them. The sound of the patio door sends them scrambling. (not squirrels and rabbits though, they take their chances with me and Wilson - we're not as fast as we used to be, so it's a winning bet for them)

As of Christmas Day, there's been a change. I no longer have to get up and look for an optical aid. I now get up close and personal with the flying critters. I now have a Bird Buddy. 

What is a Bird Buddy you ask? 

A birdhouse with a camera. Check this out:

I like the last one. She seems to be on to me. 

Anyway, in case you wondered what I'm doing, there's a good chance I'm sitting here, staring. My inner capitalist admonishing my inner Thoreau.