I recently attended my son’s 8th grade “Gold N” ceremony.  To brag a little, the “Gold N” is awarded to those students who maintained an “A” average throughout their middle school career.  One of the keynote speakers was the district’s Teacher of the Year.

Now, this particular teacher is one of those rare individuals who knew what she wanted to do from a very early age.  She knew from the time she was still in elementary school that she would be a teacher.  Obviously, given her recent award, she was right.  Not only did she know what she wanted to do with her life, but she had a passion and conviction that blinded her to any possible obstacles.

She shared a story from when she was 11 years old.

She had managed to collect outdated textbooks from which she would use her spare time to create lesson plans.  She also went around to the teachers requesting their excess “Weekly Readers”.  Of course, the teachers were more than happy to oblige her request. 

So, now, she has textbooks, lesson plans and an abundant supply of “Weekly Readers”.  The next obvious step was to build a classroom.  She managed to talk her dad into converting part of the basement into a classroom complete with a chalkboard, pencil sharpener, and desks (for any of you dads with daughters, you know there wasn’t much resistance).

So, now she has textbooks, lesson plans, “Weekly Readers”, chalkboard, pencil sharpener, and desks.  However, there was one critical piece missing.  You guessed it – students.  So, this 11 year-old girl with a passion for teaching decided it was time to troll the neighborhood recruiting students.  It took a while, but she enrolled her first student, a 6 year-old neighbor girl.

Evidently, her new student thought that her new teacher was the greatest thing ever.  That doesn’t surprise me.  Think about it.  With as much obvious passion as this 11 year-old had, how could you not get caught up in it?!

Anyway, they spent the next few weeks working on subtraction, cursive writing, and I’m sure discussing the most recent “Weekly Reader” article. After many lessons and a fair amount of progress, the young teacher decided it was time to report on the progress.  You might think that she wrote up a cute little report card to send home with the student.

Well, you would only be partially right.

She also invited the student’s parents in for a parent-teacher conference.  And guess what?!  They showed up!!  They sat there at the little desks in the basement classroom and listened to an 11 year old “teacher” discuss the progress of their 6 year-old daughter.

How awesome is all of that?! I mean really, think about it.  There was every legitimate reason in the world why none of this would have happened, but you know why all of it did?  Passion, confidence, and determination.

It was this young girl’s passion to be a teacher, her unwavering confidence in her ability, and her determination to make it happen that caused her teachers to supply her with the necessary teaching materials, her dad to build her a classroom, her 6 year-old neighbor to enroll, and the neighbor’s parents to show up for a conference!  Wow!

That was an 11 year old. What about you?

Now, think about what you can do when you can tap into your passion, find your own level of confidence and decide you won’t stop until you succeed.  I’m guessing you would be able to attract the resources you need to help your clients, I bet your organization would be more than willing to create the environment for you execute successfully, I’m guessing you would have no problem in getting prospects/clients to listen to what you have to share, and I bet you would be more than anxious to report on what you accomplished.

The right resources, organizational support, prospects/clients, and accountability for what you accomplished added to your own passion, confidence, and determination, and it sounds like a pretty powerful formula to me.  If it worked for an 11 year-old little girl, why wouldn’t it work for you?

Photo by misskprimary.

@kevintrokey

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I believe that selling is basically a transfer of confidence and passion. 

When you are selling, you are working to give your prospect confidence that you bring a better solution to their situation than does your competition. 

You are working to give them passion about addressing the situation that your solution is intended to address. 

Confidence and passion are just like anything else.  You can’t give away what you don’t possess yourself. Confidence and passion may not be tangible in the way that you can hold something in your hand, but make no mistake, people can clearly see whether you have them or not.

The important thing for every one of us to know is what our sources of confidence are and to be honest about where our passion lies.  While we may not have control over what creates passion for us, we absolutely control those sources of confidence.  Once you’ve identified them, you have to work very purposefully to maintain them at a very high level.

Sadly, some people, when they feel their confidence and passion slipping away don’t choose to address the issue of re-building their confidence or being honest about their passion.  Instead they just talk a bigger game, they make claims about their ability and value that just aren’t true any longer.  And like the loud-mouthed athlete who is a little past his playing prime, but still claims to be “the greatest”, it is easy to spot the pretenders, and it is usually a sad sight to behold.

My advice is to be honest with yourself about your level of confidence and the source of your passion.  If the confidence has slipped, do the hard work to build it back.  If your passion has slipped, you need to search to find where it has moved. 

Maybe it has just shifted to another role in your company.  Maybe selling is no longer your passion, but mentoring other young salespeople gets you all fired up.

Or maybe your confidence and passion have shifted somewhere else entirely, and it’s time to move on.

Photo by stefg74.

@kevintrokey

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I am an avid runner.  For me, running is as much a mental exercise as it is physical.  I find that I do much of my best thinking and problem solving on a run.  In fact, I think that my time spent running is when I’m most creative.

I have a bit of a problem though; I can be a creature of habit.  When I find a favorite restaurant, I tend to go there pretty regularly.  When I find a favorite item on the menu, it's not unusual for the waiter to know what I’m going to order before I say a word.  While I absolutely love trying new things, it often takes a conscious effort to break a rut that I get started.

Being that creature of habit has recently started affecting my running, at least in terms of my “thinking space”.  So, I will share what I mean, and you may find it a little peculiar - maybe this is a therapy blog : ). 

I tend to leave “thought deposits” along my training routes.

What in the world is a “thought deposit”?! Obviously, it’s a term I made up, but I feel it is very accurate.  When I reach very specific places on my running routes, I am immediately reminded of a previous breakthrough or idea that struck me at that exact spot. 

At the foot of one hill, I had a specific idea for our sales system.  At one particular intersection I always recall a specific blog idea developing.  Down one stretch in a park, I am reminded of a prospect strategy.  At one particular turnaround point, I always think about my dad.  It’s weird.  It’s like those thoughts now reside there and just wait for me to come by for a visit. 

While I always enjoy reliving those ideas, thoughts, and breakthroughs, my running route has become a bit cluttered.  Which, unfortunately, doesn’t leave me any room for new ideas, thoughts, and breakthroughs.  So, it’s time for me to clean out my thinking space, break out of my running route rut, and add some new routes.  I don’t know what ideas are out there, but I look forward to finding them.

What about you?  Where do you go to do your best thinking?  If you don’t have a place, find one.  If you do, make sure you keep it an inspiring, fresh, and uncluttered thinking space.

Photo by Kate Ter Haar.

@kevintrokey

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Running a business is difficult.  Even under the best of circumstances, it will occasionally stress and test the best working relationships.  Add to the mix, owners/leaders who don’t like, trust, or communicate with one another and the results can be devastating.

Unfortunately, I see the situation all too often where one or more of these vital ingredients is missing.  It holds back the best companies and threatens the sustainability of the rest.

Like

Let’s start with liking the other owners/partners.  To be honest, you don’t have to like one another to be successful.  It’s great when that’s the case, but being best friends isn’t a prerequisite for being a successful team.  However, you do need to like what one another brings to the table.  

The strongest teams have very complementary skills, talents and ideas.  The skills, talents, ideas and the resulting benefits are what you need to like.  When you happen to like one another, it’s easy to see the positives they bring along.  However, when you don’t like someone, you will likely have to look harder to find what they have to contribute to the cause.  But, do it.  It’s worth the effort.

Communicate

If effective communication is important to any relationship, it is critical amongst the ownership/leadership group.  Nothing can be communicated effectively to the rest of the organization until it has been communicated effectively within the very top level.  Not sharing honest opinions, not being willing to address the “elephant in the room”, not contributing to the discussions that will lead to critical decisions, and not speaking with a unified owner/leader voice are all inexcusable.

Trust

Trust is the most critical of all.  I would argue that lack of trust among owners/leaders is an organizational cancer that if not addressed aggressively, will bring the eventual demise of even the best company.  At best, it will result in every single decision being over analyzed, challenged, and critiqued to the point that its diluted result will have very little remaining contribution.  When the rest of the organization sees the lack of trust at the top level, they will either be forced to pick sides, or even worse, no side at all.  Trust at the top is key to harmony throughout.

Leading through crisis

These are the challenges in ideal situations (and how often are things “ideal”?).  Now think about how it would affect you during times of organizational stress.  What happens when you are threatened by an aggressive competitor, when your clients/employees start to leave, when new clients aren’t materializing, or when the ink is red?  

Experiencing a crisis like one of these will absolutely expose the current situation.  If you are a strong, cohesive team, the crisis will make you even stronger and bring you even closer together.  However, if you are a loosely aligned group of individuals who don’t really like one another, can’t communicate effectively, and mistrust one another’s intentions, you will likely find that you are fighting amongst yourselves more than you are fighting the common enemy.

I don’t know about you, but when (not if) I find myself facing one of these stressful situations, I want to make sure I’m facing the situation with people whom I like, trust, and with whom I know I can communicate effectively.

And remember, none of those happen by chance.  These are team characteristics that have to be built and maintained every day.

Photo by Nils Rinaldi.

@kevintrokey

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