There is no one secret formula to doing amazing things – to achieving the impossible.  Timing, a lot of effort, and good old-fashion “luck” have a way of making what someone else has already done pretty hard to reproduce.

Which is why I have problems with a lot of the sales books I read.  They don’t tell the true story about what was the real cause of the success that happened.  Most of the time, it’s not a single, simple formula.  Like a giant game of Clue, you have to piece together a lot of different variables to make sense of what happened.  And if you do that right, usually you walk away with a couple of clues about how to do those couple of things right. A case study on what it takes to achieve the impossible.

Making big sales, running up the career ladder, being at the top of your class, winning the Tour de France 10 times — they are all possible.  You just need to know how.

Here are three clues that I have learned over the years:

1. Put in (massive) effort.

Big goals take massive effort.  Even small goals take big effort.  For some reason, we have decided that the 21st century is a place of “working smarter at all costs”.  We try to replace gut-busting, tired-as-heck effort with intellectual reasoning about project targeting and resource allocation.  There is nothing logical about working yourself to the bone to achieve the impossible.  So if you want to talk yourself out of it, it’s pretty easy.  Just don’t expect to achieve the impossible.

2. Always be different (in a big way).

Don’t try to compare yourself to the competition, your industry, or what the wonks say you should be doing.  Be different.  Lead.  Go the opposite direction.  As a matter of principle, you need to literally change course to polarize those around you.  Achieving the impossible starts with you being different.

3. Live with discipline.

You won’t conquer in a day (or two or three or four).  It will be the result of you practicing greatness for thousands of hours over many years of your life.  You can’t be sloppy and do that.  Discipline is demanded of you.  It keeps you headed toward your goal.  When you get tired and your body screams to give up, discipline keeps you doing the handful of things that you need to do to be successful.  Day after day.  Month after month.  Discipline is what separates you from your build-in mediocrity engine.

There are a lot of formulas that don’t work.  The days of selling vacuum cleaners door to door is over.  But these three clues seem to stand the test of time.

How you could you NOT achieve the impossible by putting in massive effort doing something different, and living with discipline?

I don’t think you can.

Try to prove me wrong.

Is what you doing right now something the world can’t live without?  Are you the difference between success and failure?  Are you truly indispensable?

“So, Seth, do you consider yourself indispensable?”

That’s what I wanted to say.  But I ran out of time.

The reality is that the thinking of a guy like Seth is quite indispensable.  You can’t really live without it.  You may survive.  You might be the last of your friends around at 87.  But what you did probably won’t have really mattered…

After a string of emails and the kindness of Seth (and Ishita) to take a few questions from me last week on Seth’s new manifesto, Linchpin, I started to round out the edges of my thinking around edginess…

Part 1: Is life like art?

Seth Godin is a legend in any discussion of “changing the world”.  After more a decade of writing with a distinct perspective about community and marketing and the art of being the dude that doesn’t let the wheels fly off the operation, Seth really makes it personal with the idea of fear.  He makes the case that:

“fear is the dominant emotion of our lives –Seth Godin”

What stops us from being amazingly successful is our fear of failure, our fear of being different, our fear of not doing what we are told, our fear of being laughed at.  We are afraid of our own destiny.  We have the choice to do something shocking and we trade it in for a few less laughs?

Part 2: Why are we so scared?

Gives us all something to think about.  Right?

But, Seth goes further, he talks about the value of what we do as artists.  That being edgy (on the edge of what the rest of world things is normal) is risky and amazingly rewarding…

Part 3: Can you put a price tag on what you do?

What a great reminder to avoid toxic influences in our day-to-day lives.  I make the mistake many times of trying to win over all the detractors —  at the risk of losing my core focus on the overall goal.  Many of you find yourselves doing the exact same thing.  You get burned out trying to change the wrong part of “the world”.  Some things, some people will not change while you are alive….

Know that what you do is amazing, unique, and sometimes only partially comprehensible.  And just know that means you won’t be able to convince everyone of your value.  Be edgy.  Fight for your destiny.  And avoid “schmoes” who make you insane.

Part 4: Do you expect a “Thank You”?

Part of being effective (on the edge of outrageous opportunity) is the idea of giving away your talents.  They are a gift.  Something that you don’t expect to be fully compensated for.  Can someone really pay you enough to get the extra mile with each email or phone interaction you make for your company?

That means that you create art.  And you let karma bring you the appreciation.

You do what only you an uniquely do and stop worrying about “getting the credit”.

Part 5: Are you doing enough? Anything at all?

..

Nothing gets done until someone else benefits from your passion (your “gift”).  Sadly, we too often trade what is safe for what would change the world.  That means that we fight for our “day job” and the pay raise when we should be focusing on investing in other people’s lives and our own personal development.

And putting in amazing amounts of effort is an admirable quality.  It shows discipline.  But it’s not “art”.

Art is when you finish what you started.

It’s when you close the prospect….. It’s when you finally make contact with a contact that help you influence the decision maker….  It’s when you take hopes and wishes for a deal and turn it into a relationship….

It’s not so much about about what you do but how you do it.

Part 6: Are you the guy who will successfully have bad ideas?

Wouldn’t you like to know that you are indispensable?  That without you the wheels falls and the cart crashes to the ground.  Not in a twisted egomaniacal sense of tyranny, but in a somber sense of inspiration.

Art is edgy.

From the raw definition.

Some art connects with a large audience.  Some a much smaller group.

You will fail along the way.  At least it might appear that way.  If you use failure as your laboratory for building your destiny, you will find that each time you hit an obstacle you fight to get back to the edge.

Because at the edge is where you’ll find success.  That’s when you’ll realize that you are indispensable…

]]> http://danwaldschmidt.com/2010/02/edgyconversations/seth-godin-indispensable-edginess/feed 27 http://danwaldschmidt.com/2010/01/edgyconversations/no-im-not-like-that http://danwaldschmidt.com/2010/01/edgyconversations/no-im-not-like-that#comments Wed, 27 Jan 2010 12:53:35 +0000 Dan Waldschmidt http://danwaldschmidt.com/?p=2090

We hate to be misunderstood. Better yet, we can’t stand over-hearing (in someone else’s casual conversation) that our motives or intention suck.

How many times have you been in a conversation with a bunch of people when you thought you heard your name spaced too close to an insult or some other negative nonsense?

Maybe a little something like this:

Crowd: That Dan guy….  <faded mumbles>…  what a moron!  I would never do something like that…..  idiot…. you’re telling me…  what a loser!

You: Hey, you guys talk’n to me?

Better yet (what you really want to say): “You guys talking about me?”

You’ve been there, haven’t you?  I know I have.

And for a guy who trained for an Ultimate Fighting competition, it can be hard to bite your lip and leave the area before it becomes the scene of a crime (that would be a bad intention).

Here’s the kicker:

Usually it’s our fault people challenge our intention….

Oh, sure, I know that really we can’t help what other people think or do.  We all get that.

What most of us still don’t understand is the idea of rephrasing our discussions around clearly stating our intention.

Get what I am saying?

Instead of explaining the 6 things that we are going to do; and then justifying the 19 sub-reasons why doing those things is the best way to accomplish our goal, many times it simply easier to state our intention.

Follow me?

Replace “I am going to…..” with “I intend to……”

Now don’t start throwing things at your computer screen (yet…).  You’re right.  It is a subtle shift.  It’s a small deal.  But it has strong psychological power…

People will take “pot-shots” at your actions all day long.  Frankly, it’s pretty easy to do.  Still further, you’ll find people who take what you think is a success and turn it into a “major failure”.  They’ll lambast your 1st Prize ribbon as self-serving and selfishly ego-maniacal luck.  They’ll call you all manner of sophisticated names and even use religion, race, or pedigree as a platform for mis-characterizing your activity.

If you happen to eavesdrop long enough you’ll find out that you might have even murdered the queen of England…

It’s fairly ridiculous behavior.  Right?

Here’s an observation for you:  These same people back down when you say VERY clearly what you are “intending”…

When you say “I intend to make that happen”, they say “Go to it…”.  But when you say “I am going to do that”, they say “Over my dead body”

While we are jealous and petty people at times, we find ourselves reluctant to challenge inanimate intention…  When a motive is clearly stated, we tend to accept it.  Start stating yours…

Don’t take this lightly.  Here some things to consider:

1. Be smart about the abuse you decide to take — Life is short but it certainly comes at you hard.  It’s a non-stop game of survivor.  Be careful about how much effort you place in convincing people of your point of view.  Leave the politics around tactics to someone else and state your motives right up front.  It will take a lot of guts for someone to challenge you.  Some still will.  And, maybe, you do need to be challenged.  You will find, though, that the mindless jibber-jabber fades into the background when you are clear about your intention.
2. Create your own drama to boost your productivity — Great politics is great PR.  You certainly don’t want to launch a full scale ad campaign every time you want to get something done, but it doesn’t hurt though to tell your side of the story first.  Create the narrative before people start imagining.  There is a reason we call the imagination “wild” — because it is.  Stating your intention early and often keeps all of us sane and motivated.  The more you remind people of the goals from the beginning, the less you will find yourself “challenged” as you attempt to navigate an every changing tactical landscape.
3. Make doubters look like idiots, debating themselves — Make your activities a by-product of your intention and strategical downplay your exact movements…  Let’s talk turkey here.  You don’t always know how you are exactly going to get something done.  Right?  You might have a ton of experience in a specific area, but that doesn’t mean that this challenge is exactly like all the rest.  You might want to tell us more about the destination than the journey.  Ask the doubters what tactics they would like to employ to get your goal accomplished.  One of two things will happen — your goal will get done or you will silence your critics.  Either way, I am sure you’ll be happy.

Let me show you how this works:

I intend to change the world of high-performance…

That’s my motivation.  That’s what I am “up to”.

And, no, in case you overheard the same thing I did, I’m not like “that”.  Just a guy with a different perspective trying to help you be more effective and unstoppable.

What do you intend to do?

It’s that time of year again where we take stock of our poor performance from last year and write down blissful wishes for what we want to make happen this year.

It actually a pretty worthwless activity…

From joining a new gym to going to church more to drinking less — whatever you resolve come New Years has a 78% chance of ultimately failing.  That’s almost everybody!

I didn’t make that up.  That’s what a recent international study of almost a thousand people indicated.

Just like we have been trained to do nice things for people around Christmas even though we act like inconsiderate jerks the rest of the year, so we have also trained ourselves to pause ever so briefly at the beginning of each year to wish we could do a few things differently in the coming year.

And it’s a worthless waste of time for 8 out of 10 of us.

And while I am on the subject, why are we still talking about 3-year and 5-year plans when we can’t get this yearly thing figured out?  Seems like a bunch of silly nonsense.

Seriously, are we committed to real change? Real sacrificial “it hurts like hell” change.

We don’t even apply the same level of respect to our own goals as we do the dudes we watch on ESPN.

We respect an obsessive work ethic that makes an all star like Michael Jordan sink 100 free-throws in a row before leaving practice.  We marvel at the obscene practice put in by perfectionists like Tiger Woods who practice distance putting at 3 and 10 foot intervals for hours a day.

And yet when it comes to putting in a little more effort for ourselves, we tend to be the first to come up with excuses (good ones too).  And the older we get, the more experience we gain explaining why our failure was really a good thing.

Aren’t you tired of mediocrity?  Of being an “almost all-star”?

Are you willing to do something about it?  To change?

Are you willing to:

1. Connect your goal with a larger mision in life… (turn “making more money” into “helping a small company flourish”)
2. Construct your goal into a series of smaller monthly milestones… (turn big deadlines into a series of progressive tasks)

If so, you might be ready to see breakthrough this year.  This might be the year of YOU… ALL of the 22% who accomplished their annual goals noted that these two were the two primary drivers for their success — passion and planning.

It’s amazing what you can do when you really want something more for yourself.

You might just change the world.

This weekend, the missus and I wrapped up our shopping for family for the holidays.  I have to say: “We were more thoughtful this year than any time previously…”

(at least I thought so)

We really thought through the whole process and I am pumped by the stack of “stuff” sitting in our kitchen that needs to be wrapped.

It’s about the relationship, right?

There are people you care about — people around whom you really want to build a history.  It kind of parallels your deal making process.

Makes sense, right?  You want to do business with people that you can stand being around.  People you like.

That’s about building a relationship.  Not seasonal email torpedoing.  But a consistent communication thread.

My inbox got me thinking……….

How special would you feel if you were sent the following e-card from someone that you spent money with this year?

I love the “We hope this communication is welcomed…”  Makes me feel like you really remember who I am.  And are you really giving me the option to unsubscribe from next year’s seasonal greetings?

You tell me.  Maybe I am being picky.

Now how about this one…  Are you feeling the love?

I now have to click on a link to go a site to see all the Christmas warmth you can’t wait to share with me… As if that isn’t enough to do, there is the obligatory signature language informing me that I could be sued for mishandling the email you are sending me.  WOW…. way too much baggage for me to do anything with.  I just have to archive it…

These both ended up in my inbox (along with a tiresome few others…) and I just didn’t have the energy to keep clicking through to link after link so I could get in the Christmas spirit.  It kind of made it all feel like a “chore”…

Like maybe our relationship wasn’t so important after all…

Know what I mean?

It gets you thinking.  What’s the logic behind this?

Who emerged from their marketing “bat-cave” with the fantabulous idea that impersonal seasonalized hyperlink creation was something that made customers feel like “you care”?

Was there a memo in the late ’90s that I missed?

Two words: CALL ME…

I know I’m a little cranky when it comes to this stuff, but doesn’t it seem a little dis-ingenuous?  Even if you give the sender the “benefit of the doubt”, you can’t overlook the general lack of creativity.  The fact remains that in the haste to have another “client touch”, the marketer forgot to put himself in the recipient position.

Here’s reality: No one really reads this stuff.

(not even your grandma who has unlimited Facebooktime)

Maybe the first one you get (right after Thanksgiving), but right around the second week in December you are left with no other choice but massive select-and-archive.  You even feel a little bad about it, but you justify if by telling yourself that if you have time, you’ll dig them out later at home to look through.

And you never do…  It’s just not a high priority.

Without a relationship, you just avoid all the rest of  the noise coming at you.

And certainly this mirrors a hunch I have had for some time now as I talk with C-level executives and ask about their behavior to inbound messaging.  I decided to test my theory.  About a week ago, I put a poll up on LinkedIn asking the following question:

“If relationships really do matter in sales, why don’t we build better ones throughout our selling process?”

Here are the overall results:

• 40% stated that they didn’t have enough access to the right people to build a great relationship…
• 10% noted that they tried to build good relationships but didn’t know how to keep it up…
• 20% thought that it wasn’t really a good use of their time…  AND
• 30% admitted they weren’t really sure how to build great relationships…

When you study this further, you see that ALL of the CEO’s who responded to this question answered the same — that they had not developed this skill of long term relationship building.

Are you surprised?  You might have thought that senior level executives had “schmoozing” all figured out.  Maybe not.  Maybe there’s more to that cocktail parties and fast one-liners.

The numbers get more interesting when you look at the size of the companies responding.  All of the big guys (who would have the biggest sales and marketing budgets) all noted that they didn’t have access to the right people to build great relationships.

Essentially, the guys with the most advantages toward building the best relationships were the least likely to know how to get the right people.  Interesting indeed.

When you look at the age for relationship building, it becomes even more significant.  The young guys and old guys fall into the same category — limited access to the right executives.  While the mid-life high-performers know the right people, but aren’t really sure what to do to keep their attention.

Kind of what you would expect from life, right?  You work hard to get somewhere; and then once you’re there you push so far and fast ahead that you lose valuable ties to people who could be a valuable resource to you.

Young or old, big or small — we all need to work a little harder to keep our relationships strong.  They are our lifeblood, our lifeline to accomplishing our life’s mission.

So think about how you treat your relationships.

Are you asking friends to triple-click through your e-card nonsense, or are you bold enough to just say “Thank You”…  and mean it…

P.S.  Thank you to all the amazing readers of The DEW View!  Have a Happy Holidays.  I am grateful that I was able be a part of your 2009 selling year.  Take some time to get recharged and then let’s plan on changing the world together in ’10….  Thanks again!!!

Do you have big dreams? For 2010?  For right now?

What you do, how far you succeed, what you achieve — they all come from what you think about. They all come from what you are thinking about RIGHT now…

And here’s the kicker……

Controlling your thoughts is the hardest part about struggling toward success. There is nothing more difficult. There is not a bigger challenge.  Frankly, nothing you do is more important.

Let’s face it.  The journey is brutal and you will likely end up bruised and battered along the way, but above all else you have to remain mentally tough. You have to stay focused on your future.

(Are you shaking your head yet?  Do you agree with me?)

Good.  Let’s get our hands dirty with this….

Let’s talk about your finances and your relationships.  These are the two biggest areas of concern for any of us.

When thing start going to sh#%!t in these two areas, it is harder to stay focused on your future.  Close to impossible.  You get sidetracked and start thinking about how to solve the most recent problem instead of spending effort and time on your destiny.

That’s usually never a good thing.

YES, you need to get distractions out-of-the-way before you start tackling your goals, but also you need to be cognizant of what you are doing – of the impact of your change in focus.

When you let personal matters — like your finances — go unchecked, you find yourself trading the right thing for the right now thing.

Isn’t the biggest influence on our decisions on ANY given day personal finances?   So if you don’t have a handle on your budget, start fixing it today. There are plenty of tools to help you solve this problem.

Try using Mint or Rudder to manage where your money goes. And while you are at it, go grab Peter Dunn‘s new book, 60 Days to Change.  Solve your bad habit of hoping everything works out and guarantee that it starts heading that direction.

Know what I am saying? Take control of your goals — your dreams of destiny — by taking real-world, tangible action to boost your success.

Don’t pretend this doesn’t apply to you either.  I know the “I’ll just sell more” excuse.  I was king of that line of thinking for way too long.  There is a better way to capture your dream.  Peter actually makes it fun.

Anything that comes between you and your goal — physical or mental — is your enemy and you must destroy it…  Take money off your brain and start focusing on deals that will help you be a bigger success…

—————————-

FULL DISCLOSURE:  Pete’s team asked me my thoughts on the book and here is what I wrote on the back cover of his book:

“You can’t change the world while fighting with the bank to forgive your 17 overdraft fees. To get extreme results, you have to take control of your personal finances. Pete breaks it all down with wit and wisdom into a 60-day mission of personal financial domination. In between chuckles, you’ll be kicking yourself that you didn’t read this earlier.”

Many thanks to the dozens of you who have sent me kind messages over the last two weeks asking where The DEW View! had gone. 

Nowhere.

I just didn’t have anything shockingly inspiring to share.

I really do want to change the world not waste your time.

ALSO… this blog is getting a massive upgrade.  I am working on some new content at danielwaldschmidt.com for you along with my friends at Channel V Media that I am SO excited to share with you.  That should be coming to you at the beginning of the year.  It’s really going to be VERY cool.  I will finally have a platform to offer you so much more content…

Everything that I am working on falls in the general category of high performance.  It’s a curious thought.  How can you consistently perform at amazingly high levels?

……….How can I do that?

………………..How can you do that?

…………………………How can you hold you employees to that standard?

These questions are on my mind these days.  Frankly, I think it’s on a lot of your minds too — if your emails and calls are an indication of what you are thinking about these days.

Being amazing, awesome, stellar — whatever you call it — really comes down to three attributes that any of us can have.  It’s not a hard formula to understand.  Is is however a painfully hard act to live…

Here is what defines “stellar”:

1. Desire — You have to want to be better.  This is where it all starts.  Without desire, you will quickly fall off the mark of consistent high performance.  It happens all time — well intentioned, passionate people giving up way too soon.  Their will is broken.  Their passion is quelled.  WHY?  They give up because they forget how bad they really want to be successful.  You need desire now more than ever.  With the gloom of global economic negativity in our face every day, desiring more for yourself is a must.
2. Dedication — You have to focus your time on being a high performer.  You can’t just simply want to be amazing and it magically happen.  You’re life isn’t a David Blaine performance, it’s a battle — for your time and attention.  Daily activity toward your goal is the only way to be a consistent high performer.  Small things add up to big things over time.  They do.  With the dedication toward accomplishing small goals, you will find yourself doing huge things over time.
3. Discipline — You have to train yourself to endure the bad stuff that happens along the way.  Despite the best plans and the most altruistic of ambitions, people and circumstances will rain all over your parade.  They will discourage you.  Many times they will deliberately try to hurt you.  You have to be ready to take a punch, get knocked out, and then stand back up and keep fighting — time after time after time.  No matter what happens, you have to have the discipline to reach deep within your soul and fight on.

Success is not usually an intellectual challenge.  It’s a mental challenge.  Desire, dedication, and discipline are not taught in the classroom.  They are a harsh reality of life.  You can be stellar.  You can find excellence.  You can be amazing…

How are you searching for stellar?

—————

By the way, if you missed the “Edgy Conversations” webinar I presented for Top Sales Expert International last week, click here to check out what 740 other people clicked on to see.  The video is about 60 minutes long and got some tremendous reviews from those who saw it live.  As a side note, there were a handful of the hundreds who saw this that thought I was a complete moron — so you know it has to be “spicy”…

Two stories.

One central theme.

It all started on Friday with a call from my friend, Jill Stelfox…

The Bad Movie

Between a mix of tears and laughing she told me how she had been working to secure a vendor to tape video footage of one of her clients.  Her client is a financial planner who is on MSNBC as a leading source of “money talk” and so she wanted to get a copy of all his appearances to add to his website.  (Sounds like a good plan to me…) So she reached out to several different vendors who quoted her prices between $125 to $150 per tape clip.  One vendor though struck a different tone.  He offered to provide the service at $85 per clip – provided she bought 25 up-front – and even suggested he send her a sample of her client on video.

Pleased, Jill provided more information, and a short bit later the vendor sent over the video.  After looking at the tape Jill called the vendor with a serious problem — the audio and video were synced horribly like a bad Chinese Kung Fu movie.  Jill’s client was talking and his lips were moving “out of timing” with the audio.  The video quality itself was “super spotty”.  Still — this was a FREE sample.  Maybe there was a good explanation (or not).

The vendor listened as Jill spoke and then professionally admitted that there was a problem.  He then went on to note that he “knew there was a problem and that was why he was asking for 25 up-front purchases – so he could upgrade his equipment”… (all true, I promise).  He then went on tell Jill that “he was broke and needed the money to do more work for other prospects.”

It took little time for Jill to hang up the phone in disbelief and end a shockingly bizarre buying experience.

Stolen Shoes

Saturday evening Sara and I were “first person” to our own outrageous buying experience.  It went a little something like this:

There is an children’s arcade/amusement center called Frankie’s Fun Park about 10 minutes from our house in Greenville that my two boys (Bryce and Dustin) love for me to take them.  I just went there a few weeks ago when Sara was out-of-town and found the scene morbidly un-engaging.  Employees were frowning and yawning –  like we customers were a chore that they were forced to take care of.   Needless to say, I took the boys home without spending any more money.  I also took the 15.4 seconds necessary to “tweet” to the world about my poor experience.  And then told the boys that we would never be heading back there again…

But, alas, the allure of winning tickets and climbing through indoor jungle gyms was too much for the boys to accept.  They wanted to return and I wanted to make that happen for them.  Besides, Bryce had won almost 2,000 tickets that he had not cashed in for prizes yet.  And so we made our way back into the den of sweaty over-caffeinated kid-dom.

The boys headed straight for the “jungle gym”.  Shoes off and stowed in cubby.  Borrowed socks on.  Fun everywhere with mom and dad cheering on the mayhem (I wish they made one of those for adults…).  It was when the boys got out that the problem began.  Dustin (my 2 year old) had his bright yellow crocs stolen out of his cubby — cubby that his mom and I were standing 5 feet away from the entire night.  Sure — someone might have accidentally picked up the bright yellow crocs by accident (hardly….) — but it was the way the employees handled it that made this a story.

Of course I mentioned this to the 17- year old staff member in that kids area who took a few seconds away from texting to look at me with one eye raised.  ”Steal your kids shoe?” she repeated back to me incredulously — like I was making the entire story up for.  Further outraged, I moved on to the front of the establishment to look for management.  Maybe someone old enough to have a car payment would care about my son’s bright yellow crocs.  Sadly I was mistaken.

When I reached the front desk the manager came hustling out to meet me, chattering in half-tones into an ear piece about some food cleanup.  Without any eye contact, he briefly stopped to tell me that he had “everyone looking for my shoe and that he was sure no one had stolen my sons’s bright yellow crocs.”  To which I kindly refrained from sucker punching him in his face and left with Sara and the boys.  I came to spend money and was left shoeless and insulted.  Another horrible customer experience at an establishment that should be completely focused on user satisfaction.

What’s the point?

It’s simply this.

It’s all about the EXPERIENCE your customers are having!  You can’t explosively grow your revenue when you are pissing off the people who have the revenue to help you grow.  You invest in them FIRST so that they will invest in you FOREVER.

And remember – It’s not about their trial period

…………………………or your proof-of-concept expectations

………………………………….or the support ROI you are factoring

…………………………………………..or “who is right” when a prospect complains.

It’s about how a prospect FEELS while interacting with you.  Michael Ports (what a great author…) made the observation that: “Long after people forget what you said or did, [customers] will remember how you made them feel.”

It’s feelings that we need to change.  Not facts!

By the way, that means that logic or facts have nothing to do with this discussion.  At the heart of this is the concept of “relationships” — which happen to be completely illogical.  You can’t build a spreadsheet around a customer experience strategy or “doing the right thing” (which is why so many companies just hire more schmucky sales dudes to find more prospects rather than get religious about creating an outrageous experience for their “community”).

You can’t even explain how you are going to make more money doing this.  But it works.  It’s the stuff of legends.

• It’s the pricing and staffing economics that make Southwest Airlines the only profitable airline in the US and the most enjoyable (non-luxury) traveling experience….
• It’s what takes the idea of outrageous customer fulfillment and ten years of consistent performance to build a billion dollar online site like Zappos…
• It’s the detailed online client “do-it-yourself” tools that catapult a small franchise like Washington  Mutual into a leading insurance powerhouse…
• It’s the efficiency of client  purchases and delivery that propel Amazon.com to be the leader in online purchases…
• It’s the foundation of an ACE Hardware franchise that continues to “delight” even while getting smashed by larger Home Depot and Lowe’s franchises…

It’s easy to call this “too intangible for action” and just add more dollars to the CRM budget next year.  This takes guts. And faith.  And obsessing about the details of everything you do and every word you train your people to say.  It is a religion.

But “strangely”, when you invest in your customer’s experience, you emerge as the alpha-standard.  You don’t just improve mediocrity.  You set the standard for the new “impossible”.  You are invincible!

Your ability to achieve explosive revenue growth is directly proportional to your obsession with providing an outrageous customer experience.  Suck at one and you’re guaranteed to suck at the other… (DEWism)

Last year as I trained for a UFC fight I spent time in the gym pretty much every day running on the treadmill, pushing some weights, and hitting the heavy bags (The speed bag is still a challenge…).  After I got out of the ICU from the staff infection that I caught, all the time in the gym was wasted. ). I had lost about 15 pounds in 4 days and for several months after I left the hospital I was weak and exhausted (from what I still don’t know

This year I have been back to my roots — running.  I will think about getting back into fighting shape later.  Right now I am working on the cardio aspects of my training.

To keep myself h0nest, I have been using RunKeeper on my iPhone 3GS (which uses the internal GPS) to manage my entire running process.  It then posts it to the web where I can measure calories burned and times and even track the direct link between a specific climb and the speed of attack.  It does not however add in the temperature….

Unfortunately, Greenville is a hilly place.  A really hilly place.

So is SELLING…

Most of sales is attacking a hill — a challenge, a target, a opportunity, a commission quota…  There is no level playing ground and if you should be worried if it feels like you can do your job while coasting (that means a “cheaper” someone else can probably do the same thing).

Getting in fighting sales shape is about training on the hills.  You practice on a slope and challenge yourself to run the course faster and more efficiently each time.

You become a master of winning where other people get “winded”…

High-performers in the world of “deal making” share the universal quality of self-assessment. It’s an internal process of strategically measuring the inputs and outputs of a process or idea (or just “what went down…”) and deciding if it could be done better.  And that’s all good.  It’s more than good — it’s necessary.

But it’s probably not good enough to make you an ALL-STAR (the stuff of legends)

You work better when you work with gut instinct.  At this stage in your deal process, you generally know what NOT to do (which is 2/3 of the learning process) and WHERE you need to head.  But to be the best, you have to be extraordinary — and that requires a different, new, or abstractly innovative idea.  Everything that your boss won’t probably agree with…. because it’s not safe.

But there’s actually science to prove that you do make better decisions from gut instinct rather than thinking too much.

“Whether evaluating abstract objects (Chinese ideograms) or actual consumer items (paintings, apartments, and jellybeans), people who deliberated on their preferences were less consistent than those who made non-deliberative judgments,” write authors Loran F. Nordgren (Northwestern University) and Ap Dijksterhuis (Radboud University, The Netherlands).”

And check this out.  The science gets even more compelling.  After 5 different independent studies, the authors found that “the more complex the decision, the less useful deliberation became.”

That means that less “thought-manship” and more gut instinct is the key to outrageous deal success.

P.S.  Ever wonder why outrageous success is so hard to predict (i.e. there’s no formula)?  It’s because you’re thinking too hard about it.  As you move with gut instinct you see enough of the distance to move around obstacles to get to the finish line.  And, like running at the North Pole, you don’t really need to look over your shoulder because your competition is slim…. (and that’s where I like to play)