You got next

Graham Betchart a sports psychologist & mental toughness coach to professional athletes begins coaching his players w/ 3 plays. These 3 plays set the foundation toward continuous growth that you & I can use…the good news is we don’t even have to run sprints or stadiums to be one of the best!

• Play #1: W.I.N. stands for What’s important now? Simply controlling the controllables. You can’t control the ultimate outcome but you can heavily influence it. Outcomes can be influenced by the 3 things within your control: Attitude, Effort, & Focus. If your attitude is one where you’re walking around blowing your breath in big huffs- looking like a big ass eye roll emoji then you’re going to get back what you put out- negative results. But if your attitude is that of being open minded- in his book Principles, billionaire investor Ray Dalio calls it being radically open-minded, this mindset keeps the channels of your mind open and flexible. Look, things are going to ebb & flow- some things will bounce your way, other times, even when done perfect will not, but you’ve got to keep the attitude and keep plugging knowing things will swing to & fro. If you think about the times that you’re all pissed off, you usually have a rigid, closed mind, don’t you? You’re also in control of your effort- concentrate on giving full effort to each day, customer, & encounter. I find that when your attitude trails off you tend to be more me focused– worried more about what you’re getting & less of what you’re giving. You just give it all you got- you’ll get what you deserve. You also control your focus. Ask yourself, What time zone am I in right now? We live in 1 of 3 time zones: Past, Present, or Future.The only one that’s productively real is what’s happening right now. Stay local (not loco).
• Play #2: Be present. Graham says it’s reeeeel easy to play present when you’re winning and everything’s going right- but can you play when your in the shit spin cycle of Life…can you play present even when you’re in pain? Graham has a saying that I love & use that re-centers me back to the present when I feel like I’m starting to drift into the past or future, “Play where your feet are.” It’s an instant slap back to reality- where are your feet right now? Play there…
• Play #3 Next Play Speed: Athletes don’t have time to get hung up on a blocked or missed shot- Graham coaches his players to hurry up and get into the next play. This prevents them from getting stuck in an action that has already happened. Whenever I don’t do well with a previous customer, I try not to park & bitch about what I did or didn’t have/do- no, I quickly get back in the mix by looking for the next play- the next opportunity or activity that I can possibly capitalize on.

So that’s it! 3 plays is all you have to remember & run today. W.I.N. (What’s Important Now); Play Present, & Next Play Speed.

Blow the whistle- You’re in!

I’ll see you in the Sales Life!

⭐️⭐️Subscribe to my weekly podcast The Sales Life w/ Marsh Buice. You can find it on iTunes, Spotify, or Google Play

Not even a second

I like Daniel Coyle’s book The Little Book of Talent: 52 Tips For Improving Your Skills-now he also wrote The Talent Code which is a good book about how individuals unlock their talent-a book that we’ll chop up later, but today I want to talk about something I hope that you’re doing every day…and that’s making mistakes-not only making them, but more specifically what you do after you make them. We don’t like to make mistakes-mistakes make us vulnerable to others…it exposes us to being laughed at, talked about, sneered at, pointed to, written up and even fired-and that’s just on the outside. The internal game -what’s going on the inside of us is even worse. When we make a mistakes, we begin to lose our internal mojo-our self-confidence, but self-confidence is a very strange thing: if you try and fail your self-confidence slips a notch…but if you don’t try for fear of failing, that too causes you to lose your self-confidence because you’re not producing- so it becomes one of those damned if you do..damned if you don’t scenarios. So here’s my thing, if you’re going to expose yourself to the possibility of losing your self-confidence either way, then why not lose it in the only direction that you have the possibility to not only gain it back but also inch it forward-and it sure as hell ain’t by sitting around…you’ll gain confidence and skills through making mistakes because as Coyle says in Tip #22, “Mistakes are your guideposts for improvement.” Coyle discovered brain scan studies that revealed that .25 seconds-a quarter of a second after making a mistake we do 1 of 2 things: We either ignore the mistake or we look hard at it…

…I’ll add a third to Coyle’s findings…

We justify the mistake. We justify why we did what we did, then ignore any sort of corrective coaching or measures thereafter. Some of the most intelligent people ask, “How could I have been wrong in the action that I took..” instead of justifying why they could’ve been right.

Don’t wait to look at the mistake- look at it right away. Players know this- as soon as they come to the sidelines they’re looking at their tablets trying to figure out how they threw the interception, how the ball was stripped out of their hands, or why they were called for pass interference- they don’t have time to explain away the mistake nor do they have time to deal with the mistake later- they analyze & correct immediately because the game is still going on…

So is yours…

…precious time is ticking away while you’re either standing around explaining (to those who really don’t even care) or you just flat out ignore one of the greatest teachers the Universe has to offer: Mistakes.

So do me you a favor…1) As long as they are not illegal, immoral, or unethical, make many mistakes today and right after you make them, 2)Look those mistakes right in the mouth- don’t wince or shy away from them…don’t blame anyone or anything for them. Own them- if you accepted the wins then you sure as hell have got to own the losses. Find & improve your mistakes. And as Coyle’s Law states, “Take mistakes seriously but never personally.”

I’ll see you on the Blacktop.

Subscribe and Listen to my daily podcast The Sales Life w Marsh Buice on iTunes or anchor.fm

Humps not Himalayas

 

 

 

 

 

 

Humps, roadblocks, …detours are a part of life, but they’re humps not Himalayas. Sometimes we get to a hump in Life & we turn the hump instantly into a Himalaya- the hump we face goes from waist deep in reality to a 22,338 foot mountain in our minds.

Soooo many things in Life are humps miraged as a mountain. They look that way to us for a couple of reasons: 1) It’s something that we’ve never faced before so we think that we’re no match for it. 2) We’ve faced a similar situation before & resulted in a shit sandwich- so we think we’re about to eat another. It’s all Bullshit.

Isn’t it crazy how we have a Redbox Rental state of mind sometimes?! You know the Redbox rental that’s right outside the store where you can rent a DVD for less than 2 bucks? We rent our problems much the same way- we walk our happy asses to the box covers of Life’s problems & we select a cheap B Flick negative rental and we play that negative movie, over & over in our minds. It’s impossible working for something to positively manifest while thinking something negative.

Look,you may be facing some big mountains in your life- no doubt, but I am telling you that you need to look at your problems through different lenses. First, stop calling it a “problem-” I call them challenges, Eckhart Tolle calls them situations. Whatever you call it, call it something other than a “problem” because often the mere utterance of the word problem stunts us right in our tracks- 1 minute we’re galloping through Life & the next scene we’re like Lt. Dan from Forest Gump, flailing around handicapped with our legs blown off. Try using the word challenge or situation & watch your whole perspective change. Your mind will shift to that of a solution mindset and will begin looking for ways to solve it by tinkering and poking at the situation.

The 2nd thing I want you to realize is that mountain that you’re facing is nothing more than a bunch of humps stuck together- they’re like big words…I tell my daughter all the time that big words are nothing more than small words clumped together. Break the bigness down- declump those ganged up humps…you don’t get to the summit in one leap.

So back to the beginning…

Humps, detours, & roadblocks are necessary in life-they’re needed for you to grow- I mean think about it, would you voluntarily subject yourself to pain, hardship, embarrassment, recourse, and ridicule? Hell my hands would be in my pocket and sure as hell not raised to be subjected to the harshnesses of Life, but we need the stimulation- i.e. kicked in the ass, in order to grow. I don’t like it any more than you do, but I know in retrospect I’ve liked who I’ve become and what I’ve accomplished on the other side of the bleakness. Yes it was painful…yes it was lonely & dark… no it wasn’t fair…but it was necessary. There isn’t a single one of us reading this that cannot look back at some cataclysmic event and not say yes it was hard, but I learned so much.

So I need you to do 2 things: 1rst charge the mountains in your Life one hump at a time..and (2), don’t look at every hump as a Himalaya.

You’ve got this!

I’ll see you on the Blacktop!

(HT to Deepak Chopra)

What you miss becomes your momentum

It’s sooo frustrating to put in the hard work only to wind up empty handed. You work with a customer for hours, days, even months only to finally catch them on the phone and discover that they bought somewhere else.

Or what about the video or blog post that you worked on for hours only to have one viewer? (Hmm I wonder who that could’ve been.)

You tried out for the team…you put in the application…you submitted a proposal…or you finally got the chance to set up a meeting, but you ended up scratching.

No jersey with your name on the back; no new fancy title; no gabillion dollar new account; and the meeting got canceled while you were sitting in the waiting room.

You could stop by the local gas station and buy that $9.99 bottle of Yellow Tail to drown your sorrow…

You could blame the man for always keeping you down…

Or you could realize that you didn’t miss anything, because what you “missed” actually becomes your momentum. 

One of my favorite phrases is, feed the machine – meaning, constantly feed your action… relentlessly feed your effort… because if you feed it, the results will show.

Maybe the results don’t show up in the way that you’d like for them to, but they always show.

Sometimes they show up in winning results…

But they always show up in feedback.

The problem is we rarely take stock in feedback.

Yes or no…deal or no deal…”Congratulations,” or “Thanks, we’ll pass,” use the feedback to tweak and refine your next approach, phone call, meeting, or submission. REGARDLESS of your immediate result. 

Because…

Feedback isn’t valuable…it’s priceless. 

Feedback is your return on effort.

Musicians know all about feedback…

When they get on stage to do a sound check, sometimes their mic gives that deafening ring – that’s feedback and the sound engineer makes the necessary adjustments so that the sound comes out clear and crisp when they get ready to perform…your process needs to be the same way.

When you step onto the stage with a customer-hell, when even you step onto the grand stage of Life– your initial feedback may be ear piercing, but keep making the necessary adjustments….

Musicians don’t just walk off stage due to the initial foul sound.

They make the adjustments- not once, but all throughout the performance.

So should you…

Whether you’re slaying it today or just flat ass bombing, make the adjustments with the feedback that you are receiving – don’t personalize or internalize it, just keep adjusting…

And if you “miss” the result, keep in mind that you made the momentum. Make the adjustments and keep on rocking.

Stay in The Sales Life!

-Marsh

 

How Cinematic Are You?

Alan Wenkus, the screenwriter for the movie Straight Outta Compton (the story of N.W.A., the group that pioneered gangsta rap) was recently interviewed on a morning talk show and asked how much of the movie was real. Wenkus thought about it for a few seconds and said, “About 80% of it was real-it’s not that the other 20% was not, but it had to be colored in order to make the movie more cinematic.” He went on to say that, yes, the rappers’ lives-growing up in South Central L.A., having to face police brutality, gangs, and witnessing homicides on a daily basis was colorful enough, but certain emotional elements had to be put into the movie so that the audience could connect more with the characters of the movie. Essentially, Wenkus took actual facts, coupled it with emotion, and beget a blockbuster hit. “Before the movie my phone hardly rang-now I can’t keep up with the phone calls and producers are throwing money at me,” said Wenkus with a laugh.

When presenting your product, how cinematic are you? Your product presentation should be like that of Wenkus’ screenplay-factually written but comes alive with an element of flare. Customers buy cars, but they pay commissions based on how well you emotionally draw them into your product. They don’t need you to be a Wikapedia of cubic inches, torque, horsepower, and departure angles-no they need to know how your vehicle will improve their lives and the only way they’ll discover that your  vehicle is their best decision, is when you add an emotional element to make your script, i.e. your knowledge about your product, leap off the pages and into the mental screens of their lives. When they can imagine how they will look and feel driving their new vehicle, they’ll buy a ticket to your movie.

Great salespeople are great storytellers. Remember, your customer may have seen many shows, but they haven’t seen your show.  Take what you know and make it come emotionally alive with a hit show.

I’ll see you next time on the Blacktop. 

They’re Matters, Not Meaning

Showing up today matters.

It matters that you show up on time for work.

It matters-even if it’s 2 words or 2 sentences- that you find something worth writing down today that will help shape you into becoming better than you  were before you captured it.

It matters how quick and how many customers you are willing to get in front of today.

It matters that you are brave enough to pick up the phone and risk hearing a customer reject you instead of hiding behind a text message.

It matters that you ask your customer optimistic building questions instead of pessimistic, narrowing ones.

It matters that your customers demo the vehicle.

It matters that you write your customers up.

It matters that you persistently press forward beyond the 1rst, third, and 4th No.

It matters that you turn your customers over to let a fresh face help you.

It matters that you follow through after the sale-you not only need your clients to make your month, you need them to make your career.

It matters that you remain walking with your customers during the frustrating moments-the moments when the warranty they paid $2500 for won’t cover the repair.

It matters that you follow up and stay in touch with your customers’ lives not their wallets.

It matters that you help others regardless of what’s in it for you.

It matters that you’re willing to be a student of your profession.

You showing up today matters because everything you do (or don’t do) is significant to the outcome of your day, month, year, career, and your life.

(Yes, your life.)

What you do matters, but the emphasis of those matters have the wrong meaning.

When a customer hangs up on you…

When a customer won’t get out of the car and give you a chance to help them…

When a customer gets annoyed because you can’t tell them a price or tell them what their trade is worth in the first 30 seconds of meeting them….

When a customer won’t demo…

When a customer refuses to come inside “for your business card”…

When a customer  jumps across the street and buys from your competitor because you didn’t turn them over…

When a customer goes off on you because you dropped the ball while their car was in service…

When a customer won’t return your phone calls…

When a customer gets cold feet after agreeing to buy…

Failing matters, but it doesn’t give a meaning to what you are worth.

The ill moments-the moments when you screwed up, blew up, got yelled at, or were left standing alone should be tied to matters of the day not meanings of your heart.  What you do has to matter-showing up today, facing the giants in your life, has to be worth it…if it’s not worth it, don’t show up. Pivot and find something worth showing up for. What you do today has got to be so significant- so important to you, that the implications of what you do is higher than the outcome that it may produce. 

 

The outcomes only define how well you did something- they don’t define who you are or what you’re worth.  

 

Rejection is a lesson in self-education not self-worth. Use the losses, defeats, setbacks, and almosts as education to move forward not excuses to fall back. While circumstances are the banality of most, you forge ahead, working and reworking today’s defeats into tomorrow’s victories.  Sure rejection hurts- we don’t like the sting of hearing NO and the stains that it internally leaves behind;  we don’t like the fact that we poured out two hours of our best efforts only to have our customer go down the road to save a few hundred bucks. Rejection hurts, but you must not let it kill you.

Rejection has matter not meaning- the significance of what you do and how you do it matters. How much you’re willing to give to that matter is what has meaning.

I’ll see you next time on the Blacktop.

Sometimes 1 is all you need

It’s just after 5 A.M. and I’m really questioning why I am doing what I am doing-now that I’m too far from home to turn back, I might as well swipe my gym membership card and pay my penance for last night’s meal consisting of crawfish etoufee and fried fish. As I walk through the front doors, I can tell immediately that spin class is in full effect. Flo Rida’s Good Feeling is jamming at club-like decibels while the maniacal instructor dares the class to sit down during an uphill ascent. As I settle into my comfortable pace on the treadmill I stare at the spin class that is sectioned off from the rest of the gym. The lights are so dim (I’m told bright lights make the room hotter.) that if it weren’t for the music and instructor you’d think the room was empty. The instructor’s commands continue to wail track after musical track with urges to “Push through the pain!” and “You’ve got to earn it!” As the commands roll off the instructor’s tongue, I can’t help but feel sorry for those unfortunate participating souls who will be crawling to bed tonight. The treadmill I’m on is one of my favorites because I have the unique vantage point of seeing the drained, contorted faces of those leaving the class. When the class ended and the doors swung open, the instructor stepped out and politely smiled at me (I know it was one of those are you man enough to show up for my classes kind of smiles). I courteously smile back, wanting her to get out of the way so I could see the volunteers file one by one out of the room, but to my dismay, the room was empty. As it turned out, no one showed up for the class, yet the instructor ran the class as if it were full.

There are going to be times in your life as well as your career when no one will show up to help you achieve your goal-you will have to scratch, fight, and claw to an audience of one.  It is at these intersections of life that you can either choose to turn back to a life of mediocrity simply because no one is watching or you can instead elect to push forward as if everyone is depending on you. When you are willing to risk putting your feet in life’s clips and ride, assertively commanding yourself to stand when you feel like sitting, push when you feel like coasting, grunt when you feel like crying, and finish when you feel like quitting, that your loneliest, darkest moments will soon become the dawns of newer, brighter beginnings.

Don’t dismount-keep pedaling and don’t ever turn back; show up and do the work because everyone is counting on you. Everyone begins with YOU.

I’ll see you next time on the blacktop. 

The car business is fair. She’ll always pay you more than you give & none of what you don’t. Unfortunately we’re always looking for the unfairness- don’t expect to receive what you’re not willing to give.

Prospecting is like shaving, if you don’t do it every day you’ll soon be a BUM.

Cavett Robert

http://www.tumblr.com/audio_file/marshbuice/59977512244/tumblr_msgco6CJ3K1qcjzgg?plead=please-dont-download-this-or-our-lawyers-wont-let-us-host-audio

Have you ever thought about the cycle of a sports athlete? In sales, it’s not about your athletic ability, it’s about your at-let-it ability. (Press play for more)