Sales Momentum #345 – This week: Emotions, Emotional, Peaches

GREG’S BUSINESS GROWTH NEWSLETTER #345
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Quick notes to help you grow your business in less time with less effort. . . sometime next week.

In this issue:

– Thinking about Momentum
– Being Human
– Random Stuff

Thinking about Momentum
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• Good sellers use emotion in their pitches. Logic justifies action, but emotion creates action. Answer the prospect’s “why bother?” question with this recipe. 2 parts emotion to one part logic. An all logic sandwich may make perfect sense, but it tastes terrible.
• If using emotion to drive action is out of your comfort zone, put your solution inside a larger trend in your industry. When you describe the future and how your product fits into your vision you’re using emotion.

• Make an effort to equalize your use of IQ and EQ next week. Your people don’t like to be made to feel stupid, but they don’t want to just get hugs either. Balance your intellectual rigor with emotional control.
• Your people remember how you say things more than what you say. Ask them, “what did you hear?” Don’t be surprised if they’re way off the mark, especially regarding your intent.

Being Human – Don’t be emotional

“In short, know this: Human lives are brief and trivial.”
– Marcus Aurelius

Stoicism is all the rage these days. I know this because while having coffee with a self-admitted non-reader colleague, he brings up his new favorite book, “The Daily Stoic,” by Ryan Holiday. If you’re not familiar with the author you might question the involuntary eye roll I give my friend.

My coffee date catches my eye-roll and jumps on it. “What’s wrong with the book?” he asks, leaning in with every halting answer I give. I explain that I don’t trust either Stoicism or Ryan Holiday as great guides for living. Holiday will do anything for a buck and the Stoics didn’t have much use for others. This doesn’t mean, nothing good comes out of Holiday’s mouth, or that my friend can’t be inspired by Aurelius. My friend defends himself with examples of how the book is changing his life for the better. I suggest he pick up the original “Meditations.”

As he presses and gets more heated I say something about for a Stoic his emotions don’t seem to be in check and we both have a little release. I apologize for insulting his new favorite book, and he accepts. We move on.

This exchange serves as a reminder that one way to lose momentum is to not have control of our emotions. In the extreme it can limit our ability to get or stay employed, but day to day it can knock us back too. Each time we get frustrated and start asking ourselves When, Who, Why questions pointed at others, the problem-solving part of our brain shuts down a bit. Momentum is slowed.

Emotions aren’t bad. They are at the root of what makes things happen. A world driven by logic alone won’t move a mountain or shake the trees. You need emotion to stimulate action. However, too much emotion, like too much of anything, isn’t useful, and does the opposite, even bringing us to a stop.

So, be Stoic and keep your emotions in check, but not too in check. And if you’re picking up a new belief system, get your hands on the source material. It has less to sell.

Good stuff.

Random stuff

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“Do I dare eat a peach?” – out of context T.S. Eliot

It’s harvest time on the Chambers backyard farm. This spring we had an arborist come out and look at our peach tree. Long time readers will remember the planting of the tree, it’s one peach, then three peaches, then one hundred peaches. Last year it barely gave us twenty-five, hence the call to the tree guy.

He whacked away at the branches and said something about air flow, year old growth, and something else. I should have filmed him. Whatever he did worked because this year we topped 500 peaches. They’re small because I didn’t cull the herd, but they’re perfect. Taste exactly like peaches.

Since many of the peaches are not ripe and some have worms or other buggers in them, we soak them in tubs, then spread them out on every available horizontal surface. My lovely bride goes to work on canning, jamming, and tarting the best ones. This takes a few days.

While the peaches are on the porch overnight they are visited by the neighborhood raccoons. The trash pandas go to town on the first night, maybe eating seven peaches and leaving nothing but the pits. The next night they bring friends because there are easily 20 peaches taken down. Some aren’t even fully devoured. It’s like they taste them and only take the freshest ones. Very discerning.

Last night my bride called it and stops canning, cooking, and jelling. She’s had enough. There’s still maybe 150 little peaches left, the runts of the litter. When I go out to clean them up this morning I see the raccoons were at it again. There’s three empty peach pits and a couple half-eaten fruits on the table.

Looks like my lovely bride isn’t the only one who’s had more than enough peachy goodness this week.

I bring this up with someone whose job it is to try and love all people, no matter what. I tell him it bothers me to see people in need, but the problem seems to big for me to fix. This holy man suggests I may be looking at it wrong. Instead of fixing it, what if all I am required to do is acknowledge another human in my presence? It’s a good point.

I try. I’m not the best at it. And so far, pulling up to an intersection and acknowledging someone in need, but giving them nothing makes me feel worse about as many times as it makes me happier. I say “hey” or nod their way, and look them in the eye.

The truth is panhandlers are a fraction of the strangers I come into contact with. Being in line, walking through an open house, talking to a store clerk, walking in the neighborhood. Add up all these instances and I rarely find myself in uncomfortable situations. It’s easy to acknowledge others.

That should be the goal. We don’t need to go as far as talking to every stranger, but we do need to acknowledge our fellow humans. A positive life is made up of millions of positive interactions. Acknowledging another person is an easy way to ring the bell.

It may make you happier and just may bring you luck.

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