LIVING IN THE MOMENT

By Hank Trisler 

I attended a conference at the Ritz-Carlton in Marina Del Rey. You just don't get a better conference venue than the Ritz. The host organization spared not a dime of expense. The rooms were spacious and had a sweeping vista of the harbor. The food at every meal was simply outstanding and the wine flowed like, well, wine.

I learned a lot about software, hardware and the people who have learned to drive them well. I learned that you can always spot an extroverted programmer: He looks at your shoes when he's talking to you.

These people were girded with a panoply of electronic devices; laptop computers over which one could hunch and squint, teeny-tiny cell phones to yank out of ones' pocket and have animated conversations with unseen others. I saw a person deploy both of these devices simultaneously, while he was in a meeting. And texting? Don't get me started.

At the beginning of each session, the facilitator had to ask the crowd to turn off computers and cell phones. What a colossal waste of time and energy. The host had spent untold thousands of dollars to put on a terrific conference. People had traveled thousand of miles to attend a terrific conference, and there the damned fools sat, talking on cell phones. And if there was a problem, what were they going to do about it? If their office was burning, do you think their hose would reach that far? I think not.

Problems come in two varieties: 1) those that will work themselves out by the time you get back and 2) those that will wait for you. If the folks at home can't reach you, they can't share their problems with you and you can focus on what you were supposed to be doing in the first place.

One of the central issues in the selling business is: "What is the best possible use of my time right now?" Once you have determined that, the next task is to stay with that job until it is done and damn the distractions. Wherever you are, be there.

I learned this painful lesson more years ago than I care to divulge. I was attending a full-day seminar entitled "Time Power Squared," being conducted by a sterling fellow named Chris Heagerty. There were about a hundred of us huddled in a room at the Hyatt House, taking notes with abandon. We had each paid $395 for this seminar and that was one heck of a lot of money in those days. It's amazing how avidly you take notes when you pay that much for a seminar. In the morning session I had accumulated eight pages of single-spaced, hand-written notes on a legal length tablet. I was pumped up.

I called my office at the lunch break. Why? I don't know, it was just what I did. Rather like a subliminal message from God: "Hank, call your office." I did it automatically. 

My secretary recognized me right off; she was good. "Hank, thank God you called," she said. 

I'd been in business long enough to know that calls that begin like that are seldom good news for me. "What's the problem," I asked. 

"It's Bob Walker and he's madder than a mashed cat," she said. 

"What's he mad about?" 

"I don't know, but he said if you don't call him right back, it's all going in the dumper." 

"What's going in the dumper?" I pleaded, with a sense of growing doom.

"I dunno, he hung up." 

There is an unwritten rule prohibiting any salesperson from going to a pay phone with more than one dime (yes, phone calls cost a dime, then). I got out of line and went to the gift shop for change. When I got back, I asked the other people in the line if I could have my place back. Even though the request was not funny to me, they laughed. I waited, dancing from one foot to the other, while three more people called their offices to get bad news. 

I was a man deranged by the time I reached Sylvia, Bob's secretary. "Hank, thank God you called," she said. 

"I've been hearing a lot of that this morning," I said. "What's the problem?"

"Bob is just insane. He won't even talk to me. He's been running around all morning, slamming doors and banging file cabinets and yelling, 'I'm gonna get that S.O.B.'" 

I was concerned. "Well, let me talk to him. I'm sure we can straighten it out."

"I can't. He's on the other line, yelling at his attorney. I'll put you on hold."

She cut me off. 

I rummaged around for another dime and called her back. "Sylvia, you cut me off," I screamed. 

She said, "I know and I'm sooo sorry, but I was nervous and my finger slipped off the button and. . ." 

"Stop sniveling you twit and let me talk to Bob," I bellowed. 

"I can't. He just left. Burned rubber all over the parking lot." 

As I mentioned, I had eight pages of notes from the morning session. From the afternoon session, I had nothing but one page of doodles and incredibly filthy words. I was physically at the seminar, but mentally and emotionally I was out trying to solve a problem over which I had absolutely no control. I lost half the $395 I paid for the seminar, but that's okay, I got that back in a week. What mattered is I lost a half-day of my life, which I will never get back and all from failing to heed the advice: "Wherever you are, be there." 

Portable electronic appliances aren't the only devices designed to prevent our living in the moment. Take "call waiting," as an example. This is the rudest invention ever devised by man. You are on a call with me and your call waiting clicks in. You excuse yourself to talk to someone not more important than me, but to someone that might have the off chance of being more important than me. If that isn't rude, I don't know what rude is and I'm personally offended. 

The past is a canceled check; the future is a promissory note. Only the present is the coin of the realm and the only time you can absolutely count on. Wherever you are, be there.

PROVE IT!

By Hank Trisler

Back when the earth was still cooling and the great beasts roamed, I owned a company called Raintree Realtors, in San Jose. Our people performed well above the average in our area and I was justifiably proud of them.

During a listing presentation one evening, I made a statement that I had made on many prior occasions. I said, "The average listing on the San Jose Real Estate Board takes some 68 days to sell, while my company’s average listing sells in less than 40 days." This was powerhouse selling and sure to impress my prospective client.

The homeowner responded with, "Those are interesting numbers. How did you come up with them?"

I was thereby presented with a whole new set of problems. Those were good numbers, I was sure. I had used them often with no problems. I think I even calculated them out once, but I did not have them in writing. I found myself saying, "Err, Ahh, well now those figures are well known, errr, ahhh."

My prospect, a vice president of sales for a large semiconductor company, was not particularly impressed with my veracity. Oh, I got the listing, but I had to dance like Fred Astaire to do so, and would probably have been better off had he listed with someone else. My client now had me branded as a purveyor of "Ca Ca de Toro," and used this information to make me suffer each time we talked. He made me prove everything I said for the balance of our relationship. No matter how I tried, I could never re-establish a trust relationship with this man.

I decided then and there to never again say anything I couldn’t prove. I’d love to tell you I’ve been successful in that effort, but it’s just too hard. I have, however, found ways to prove more statements that I had ever believed possible.

A Proof Source Book is a wonderful tool to add credibility when it is needed most. Make a list of those statements you are inclined to say in the course of a sales presentation, then think of a way to offer proof on each statement. Get your proof in writing and put it in your Proof Source Book. The next time you’re challenged, you’ll be able to prove you are indeed a teller of truth.

In the example I offered earlier, I got a printout of a report from our local real estate board showing the average number of days from submission to sale. I then ran the numbers for our company and put a letter in the file verifying the number of days our average listing took to sell.

"You mean you wrote the letter yourself? What kind of proof is that?" you might well ask.

"Good enough," I answer. Clearly, get the best proof you can and verify it by a neutral third party if at all possible. If it isn’t possible, however, write it yourself, or have someone you know write it. As long as it’s true, you can’t be proven wrong and people believe the printed word more readily than the spoken word.

It is not enough to tell the truth. We must tell the truth in a manner that will be believed, which is credibility. A Proof Source Book is a great aid to credibility.

"Wait just a darned minute," you might continue, "Just last month you were blathering on about facts don’t matter. Now you want me to compile a whole book full of facts to prove everything I say. ‘Splain this inconsistency."

There is no inconsistency. We do not offer facts to actually prove product/service benefits, but to prove that we are telling the truth. Facts still don’t matter. What matters is the emotional response that offering proof engenders. If the customer feels we can prove what we say, he is more likely to believe us. It’s still an emotional reaction.

Never prove what the customer already believes. I have so often seen this in the real estate bidness. The client says, "What are homes in this area selling for?"

The Realtor replies, "About $800,000."

The client says, "That’s what I thought."

Then the Realtor whips out a Competitive Market Analysis (a form of proof) and proceeds to bore the socks off the client proving that which he already believed.

If the customer believes what you say, don’t waste time proving it, just go on to something else. Offering proof when you are already believed not only wastes time, it actually undermines your credibility.

Weasel Words. There will still always remain things that you believe to be true, but simply cannot be proven. In those instances, cultivate the use of "weasel words," so called because they suck all the meaning out of the words around them like a weasel sucks the yolk out of an egg. Phrases like "could be," "should be," "might be," "about," "around," "approximately," "if I could would you?" "If I would could you?" and "If the good Lord’s willing and the creeks don’t rise," keep you safe from locking yourself in. An old boss of mine told me "If you don’t lock, you can’t lie," and that has always served me well.

Liars have short careers in the selling profession. Be prepared to prove whatever you say and if you can’t prove it, don’t let yourself get locked into saying it.

CRITICISM

by Hank Trisler

So I missed a shot yesterday morning. It happens in tennis. My partner said, "If you'd move your big, flat feet, your big fat ass might follow them and get you to the ball." 

That statement was none the more welcome for being true. I've never learned to gracefully accept criticism and find a lot of people share my view on this. Criticism hurts.


"Constructive Criticism" is an oxymoron. Criticism, by its very nature is destructive. You criticize to destroy the behavior you find offensive.

As managers, salespeople, parents and spouses, we need to correct other people to help them bring their behavior in line with our perceptions of acceptability. The tricky part is doing this without pissing them off so badly they visit physical damage on us. Try this three-step process for delivering criticism and see how it works for you.

START. This is what I'd like to have you do that you are not doing now.

"I'd like to see you meet ten new-to-you people every day."

"I'd like to have you pick up your bedroom every day, after school, before going out to play."

"Please consider moving your feet in the general direction of the ball."

STOP. This is what you are doing now that I'd like to see you stop doing.

"You're production might improve if you stop going to the movies every afternoon with a pint."

"Please stop throwing your clothes on the floor, rather than throwing them in the closet."

"Stop yelling 'YOURS' every time the ball doesn't come directly at you."

CONTINUE. Probably the most important part of the whole sequence. Leave the other party with a feeling of approval and let them know you like them.

"I want to be sure you keep on being a valued member of our team. We need your positive attitude and sense of humor."

"The dedication to your homework is wonderful. Keep on keeping on keeping your grades up." (Kids like this kind of talk.)

"Be sure to keep bringing balls to the game. That's the only reason we let you play."

If you employ the "Start, Stop, Continue" method of delivering criticism, you may well get away with it, but it's still tricky, at best. Most people never learn to do it well. Good luck.

THREE WAYS TO TRAIN

Knowledge + Attitude + Skills = Behavior

by Hank Trisler

A lot of what passes for training these days is some old dog standing up in front of a group and telling them "How I Done it." It consists of war stories and cute-sounding phrases, most which are largely ineffectual and only partially true. That sort of training is a blast for the trainers, but often bores the learners and seldom does much to change behavior.

"What's that you say? Behavior? My job is to teach 'em how to sell, not change their behavior," one might well say. And one might well be wrong. Our job is not so much to teach people what they don't know, but to help people behave as they don't currently behave. Behavior is comprised of Knowledge, Attitude and Skills, as exemplified in the Pawn Broker's Globes above. (I used to say Pawn Broker's "Balls," but that often brings about tittering, another word almost certain to induce tittering.) Let's examine these three words and how you can use them to improve the results of your training programs.

KNOWLEDGE. If a person isn't performing in a certain way and couldn't if his/her life depended on it, the problem is a lack of knowledge. The best ways to convey knowledge are lecture and reading. Lecture has fallen into disrepute, largely due to its overuse and poor quality. Trainers love lecture, as it's the easiest form of teaching to prepare and deliver. You just jump up and run your jaws. It's also the most fun, from a trainer's point of view.       

The key to effective lecture is to see how little of it you can use to convey the bare minimum of knowledge necessary to do the deed. Good lecture is strewn with real world examples and supported with visual aids and written material, from either pass-outs or text books.


The subject of effective lecture has already filled libraries, so I'm not going to bore you with more of it here. The key is to see how little lecture you can get by with and how much learner involvement you can use to supplant the lecture.


ATTITUDES. If the thinking is stinking in your sales force, look to yourself first. Attitudes are caught, not taught. As long as we're slinging platitudes, try, "What you are speaks so loudly, I cannot hear what you say." Sales critters are like children, in that they will obtain and reflect the attitudes of their leaders. The very best way to get an honest, positive, "can do" attitude in your team is to have and project those qualities yourself.

SKILLS. A tried and true training formula taught me years ago went:

• You tell them how.
• They tell you how.
• You show them how.
• They show you how.
• You drill for skill.

A truly skillful performance will only occur after it has been repeated often enough to commit it to the unconscious mind. Now, you can do this in the field, which is where a lot of us "old dogs" did our learning, but it's godawful expensive compared to drills you can perform in the classroom.


One of the more effective drills I have found is the three-person instant role play. The group is divided into three-person teams: salesperson, customer and a neutral observer. A problem, or objection is displayed and then the salesperson has sixty seconds to deal with it. At the end of the minute, the observer tells the team what he saw and how it might be improved. Then you change roles and go for the next problem. The key is to do things fast, to avoid boredom and to quicken reaction times. Greater detail and lots more exercises are available in NO BULL SALES MANAGEMENT. Get hold of a copy, it'll make money for you.


Practice does not make perfect, practice makes permanent. If you let your people practice flawed techniques, you'll end up with flawed people giving flawed performances. Your weekly sales meeting is a terrific place for practicing for a half hour, or less. It warms the folks up and get's minds moving, in addition to honing skills.


Any thoughts on training that you'd like to share? This would be an excellent place to do so.

MY GREATEST REGRET

 by Hank Trisler

No, it's not a tattoo. That's one of very few things I've not had a run at. Regrets are actually worthless, as you can do nothing about the past. That ship has sailed.


Failure to act is far more regrettable than any mistake you might make. Malcolm Forbes said, "In looking back, I'm far more sorry for the things I didn't do, than the things I shouldn't have done.


My greatest tragedy of omission is I've lost track of the buyer of the first car I ever sold. When I left the automobile bidness, I also left Seattle and couldn't conceive that I'd ever need the names of my customers again. WRONG!


If I had my hand to play over, I'd never again lose track of a customer. No matter what I might be selling, or where I might be selling it. The only way a customer could get out of my files would be to die out of them.


You'll be exactly the same person in ten years as you are today with the exception of the books you read and the people you meet. The books are another story for another day, but the people is the entire point of this rant.

NEVER FORGET A CUSTOMER. NEVER LET A CUSTOMER FORGET YOU.

MOTIVATING SALES CRITTERS

by Hank Trisler

As a sales trainer, a question I'm sometimes asked is, "Are you one of those motivational speakers?"

The answer is, "Probably not. Motivation occurs internally and is not something one person normally does to another. If I were to motivate your people, what, specifically, would you like me to motivate them to do?"

"Go out and just sell the hell out of my Doogers. Man, we're up to our hips in Doogers and I need my sales critters to make 'em go away, pronto."

Well, I suppose that would be dandy if that's the way it worked, but if you inspire people without some clear direction of what they are to do, they just get all pumped up and run out in the parking lot looking for something to kill. Can't find their car.

Before I begin to design any sales training program, I need the clear answers to four basic questions. When, and only when, the management team and I are in agreement on these questions am I able to help them direct their people. The questions are:

1. What are your people doing well now? The hippocratic oath tells doctors, "If you can do no good, at least do no harm. " Good advice for those of us attempting to increase performance levels.

As a young man, I inherited a sales team heavily reliant on "canned pitches." They had every word memorized and lists of objections with the answers thereto. I HATE canned pitches. I think they sound phony and make one look like the negative perception people hold of salespeople. Accordingly, I banned the use of canned pitches. I told them to go forth and ask intelligent questions and offer logical solutions to the customers, based the their perceived needs.

It was a blood bath. I abolished a system that was working, though not as well as I might have desired, but working nevertheless. Without it, they were lost.

2. What should they be doing better? Let's focus on the specific activities of the sales force. Do they need more prospects? Need to do a better job of need finding? Need better questions? Should they be more persistent in asking for the order?

3. What should they be doing that they are not doing at all? This is fairly straightforward. This is probably what management has been haranguing them about for years. List the desired specific behaviors.

4, Why aren't they doing those things now? Could they do them if their lives depended on it? Pay close attention, as this is where your training exercise is created. If they don't know how to do the desired activities, education is the key. More often, there are other reasons than lack of knowledge. They know how, but they just don't want to do them, or they want to do other things more.

When we have this information in hand, we can go to the next step of program design: how we bring about changes in behavior to improve performance.  Stay tuned, because in our next issue we'll discuss knowledge, attitude and skills, which combine to determine behavior.

THEY’RE ALL SUBSERVIENT WHO ONLY STAND AND WAIT

By Guest Blogger,
Joe Klock, Sr.

   With due apology to John Milton for the above play on his words from “On His Blindness” (his version was “They Also Serve”), I sound the following wake-up call to every American who cares a rat’s ass about our country’s future: 

   Regardless of your political affiliation, ideological leaning, or degree of past apathy, you owe it to yourself, your fellow citizens and your descendants to bone up on the issues and show up at the polls on the first Tuesday of November, 2010.

   However, if we (the sheeple) run true to form, a silent majority of eligible voters will stand on the sidelines or sit in the jeering stands while the fate of the nation is shaped by an energized  minority which DOES care enough to put power into hands that are either inept, misguided, soiled, greedy, or all of the above.

   Every objective poll, most headlines and the consensus views from water coolers, neighborhood taverns and cocktail party palaver throughout the USA reveals that our elected reprehensibles have dug us into an economic ditch that, metaphorically, would make the Grand Canyon resemble a pothole.

   Partisan pundits of every political stripe, in vigorous exercises of both finger-pointing and finger-giving, can agree on very few things, among them being the passionate posit that it’s the other guys’ fault and only their own guys have the right answers.

   That is to say, they point with pride to the past records and future plans of their anointees, while viewing with alarm those with opposing views.

   The undeodorized truth is that the shape we’re in has been sculpted by those of both parties whom we selected as architects of our current governance and who have proven themselves unable and/or unwilling to shore up its foundation, remedy its faults and formulate workable plans for the future.

   Meanwhile, the road ahead is cluttered with cans that have been kicked down it, such as mountainous debts, unsustainable future commitments and unresolved conflicts between law and order.

   A cynical observer might suggest that a proper slogan for our future generations might be “Give me puberty and give me debt,” but like many other phrases spoken in jest, this one is just  too true to be good.

   Arguably sure to vote in November are those who cooked up the witch’s brew of our present condition, plus those who now benefit from the status quo, plus those who hope to do so in the future, plus those who are swayed by sloganeering, plus those who are razzle-dazzled by bloviating broadcasters, plus devotees of fringe fanaticism, plus those who blindly follow the foregoing folk.

   Sadly absent from the polling places in November, unless our Rip Van Winkles are aroused from their apathy, will be that hapless majority among us who will foot the future bills and then punt the problems to our even more hapless begats.

   Now - and only now - is the time to ask every seeker of every office on which you have an opportunity to vote come November, questions like these:
   -What do you see as the problems you will face if and when elected?
   - Exactly how do you plan to combat them?
   -Will your party support this effort?
   -  Specifically how?
 
   Pose your questions by snail-mail, phone or (preferably) in-person buttonholing, and don’t allow yourself to be brushed aside by generalized talking points, references to irrelevant past events and/or personal attacks having nothing to do with the issues.


   Above all, insist on finding out where each candidate stands on balancing future budgets and dealing with present debts, including such “third rail” issues as so-called entitlements that can’t possibly be honored.

   Chances are, you are compelled to wrestle with problems similar those listed above in your everyday life, so why shouldn’t your government?

   Where do you fit in? Thought you’d never ask!

   It has been wisely written and spake that there are three kinds of people in the world: Those who make things happen, those who watch thing happen and those who, after happenings have occurred, haven’t the foggiest idea of why and how they DID happen.

   Come November, you pays your money (in future installments) and takes your choice - or you just stands and waits while others do the choosing.

   If you’re tempted to be a waiter, remember this cynical paraphrase of the Good Book sung by Mordred, bastard son of King Arthur in the musical “Camelot:”  It’s not the earth the meek inherit, it’s the dirt.
 
   Another jest that’s just too true to be good.
 

Freelance wordworker Joe Klock, Sr. (joeklock@aol.com) winters in Key Largo and Coral Gables, Florida and summers in New Hampshire. More of his "Klockwork" can be found at www.joeklock.com