Two Words.
Answering a question I had asked.
Who would have thought that hearing just two words would resonate so powerfully that the shackles on my cackles stood end to end at full attention? That I had an ‘out of body experience’ and an ‘a-ha moment’ paradigm shaft that shifted those cackled shackles to left of center? But that is exactly what happened earlier this week during a meeting of my HALO virtual office group called Team Excellence.
Let me set the stage before I talk about that powerful two-word answer. I manage the Western Region for HALO Branded Solutions, working with just over one hundred sales people in Southern California and Nevada. I founded Team Excellence for a group of ten ladies who are based in San Diego, Orange County, Northern California and Las Vegas. They all work remotely but yearned for the camaraderie of an office with the creative input and support of their peers.
Team Excellence was born! It is a monthly one-hour conference call in which we discuss promotional products industry issues, sales goals and growth initiatives, Halopalooza end users shows and, several times per year, I invite ‘heavy-hitter’ Account Executives to guest star and talk about how they built their business. For one impactful hour, they discuss how they came into our industry, how they landed their first customers and obtain referrals and how they organize their day and their week, how they set goals and other relevant tips and insights into a promotional products Million Dollar producer.
These guest star calls are among the most popular and most important for the Team Excellence group and it is fascinating how many different approaches these heavy hitters take to soar into the sales stratosphere. Over my many decades in Sales Management for companies such as Creative Promotional Services, The Singleton Company, Geiger, Cyrk and HALO, I’ve found that most of these high-achievers can be put into two distinct categories. I call them The Natural and The Work Horse.
The Natural is that unique right-brained fireball of an individual who seems to be born with the sales gene. They are larger-than-life, full of energy, bursting with creativity and seem to attract customers by the sheer power of their personality. They aren’t typically detail-oriented or terribly organized. They burst into buildings like a hurricane, head cocked to one side holding a cell phone against their shoulder trying not to drop the samples and paperwork clutched in their arms, bouncing from one hot project to the next, somehow cutting through the chaos to come through for their clients. They never check their commission statements, no time, no time for that at all!
The Work Horse is the left-brained Million Dollar producer – totally organized, a softer, kinder, gentler personality, possibly even a bit shy. They know what their day should look like because they made a list the night before to follow as a road map. They don’t typically land the huge orders, they work their butts off to get to seven figures in sales by booking hundreds and hundreds of well-written orders. They check their commission statements to be sure every last dollar is accounted for.
Most of my guest star sales people attending Team Excellence meetings have been the Naturals. They make GREAT guests, can immediately connect with their audience and charm them but what they do cannot be taught. So, on my monthly call this past week, I invited a Work Horse to join us, knowing that my group would get a lot out of what she had to share.
I selected Celia Hurdle, whom I’ve worked with for about twenty years at several of the above listed distributorships. Over the years she has built her sales and her client base steadily and I knew her methods would be invaluable to discuss – they are all techniques that ANYONE can do and increase their sales success with. I asked Celia the usual questions about her beginnings and how she plans out her day and what she does for self-promo and the interview went along just great – one of the best we’ve ever had. And then I ended with a question that I was particularly proud of… a question that I’d never asked anyone previously and didn’t quite know what her answer might be. A question that led to that two-word answer that we ALL should hear and embrace and live by.
Yes, we’ve taken the long route to get to the two words. It will be worth it.
My question for Celia was “If 2018 Celia could go back in time twenty years and talk to 1998 Celia to give her sales advice, what would you tell her?”
That’s good, isn’t it?
I knew I had saved the best question for last and couldn’t wait to hear Celia’s response. I asked my masterful question, she paused for just one beat and replied:
“Be Fearless!”
I literally gasped. That is GENIUS. It is brief and powerful and rings of the truth.
Celia continued, “When we are starting out, or building our client base, those of us who aren’t the larger-than-life sales personalities tend to pull our punches, to hold back a bit or even second guess ourselves. Those Fortune 1000 clients can be intimidating and difficult to go after. I know I held back or didn’t go after clients that now I wouldn’t hesitate for a MOMENT to approach. I’d tell myself to BE FEARLESS, to GO FOR IT because there is really NOTHING TO FEAR.”
Hokey Smokes. That’s really powerful advice.
I told Team Excellent to get out a piece of paper and write BE FEARLESS on it in ALL CAPS and to put that sign on the wall where they can see it every day. Words to live by. Words to learn from. And NOT from a Natural, but from a Work Horse.
To these two superlative words, I have nothing further to add. Except I hope YOU will take out a sheet of paper and make your own BE FEARLESS sign and put it on your wall and read it out loud at the beginning of each day. And live by them.
Because, seriously… we have nothing to fear but…
Rick Greene MAS is the Western Regional Vice-President for HALO Branded Solutions and writes regular ‘Be Bold, Be Different, Be Memorable’ columns for various industry publications and websites. He is also the author of the fiction books Shroom! and Boofalo! and the forthcoming biography Henry Brandon King Of The Bogeymen. And he’s FEARLESS. Except for werewolves. Those yellow fangs and the bloodshot eyes creep the hell out of him!