Square the Circle…don’t Circle the Square

When I’m pressed for time, I’ll run a quick 2 miles around the road that circles my house. (4 laps = 1 mile)

Because I had to force myself to hit the road, I try to hurry & get it over with by cutting the corners instead of fully rounding them off.

At the time, it seems like I’m getting around the circle quicker, but after eight laps, mentally I’m trying to pull up, but my watch tells me to keep running…

It’s not yet 2 miles…

Come to find out, because I cut the corners, I end up having to take needless, extra steps.

An extra 100 ft doesn’t seem like much, but if I add that extra 100 ft up over the next 52 runs, I end up adding a mile’s worth of steps for the same “2 mile” run.

Sound familiar?

You’re tired…sore…frustrated…& the month’s been grueling…

Nothing seems to be going your way…

So you cut the corners…

In an effort to “save time,” you rush through customers, quickly assessing if they’re buying or not…

You take extra days off to rest from last week’s leg day at the gym…

You jump from one relationship into the next proclaiming, “this is the one…”

You “put it all on the card” or renew the loan this month and gamble on figuring out how to make the payments next month(s)…

You cut the corners…because it seems like it’s the quickest way to make your lap that day…

Hurry & get it over with seems logical…

But it’s costly…

Because this is a long race you’re running & you’re needlessly adding extra steps to achieve a decision…outcome…or goal.

Run the full mile you’re in…

Today, I know you don’t feel like it…I know it’s been rough…I know the extra weight of frustration, fatigue, & anger make your run slower & harder…

But take the steps now…

All of them…

Because you’ll take fewer in the long run.

When I’m on that hard ass, “don’t feel like it” run & feel like cutting the corners…

When the voices are banging in my head- screaming that no one will know that I’m cutting the corners…

I tell myself, “Square the circle…don’t circle the square.”

See, the road around my house is a circle, but the parameters are a square, so if I stay on that parameter, eight laps is two miles…

But if I circle the square & cut the corners, that same two miles ends up costing me extra steps..wasted energy & time.

Square the circle today….

When you cry to yourself, “ I don’t feel like doing this-I’m just going to round this thing off!!!”

Don’t, because it may feel like it’s quicker now, but remember your life isn’t a lap…it’s many, many miles…

Today’s lap may be hard…but in the end the steps will be efficiently fewer…& it’ll all be worth it.

Have an amazing day…

~Stay in The Sales 💪ife.

Be unmeasurable

You know, you can measure a man up pretty quickly if you know the point where he’ll quit…

where when it gets hard, he quits & turns back.

But what about the man who just keeps showing back up? Who keeps driving? Who keeps pulling himself back up?

🔥How do you measure the “unmeasurable?”

You know, if you think about it, when someone says, “I didn’t know you had it in you!” That’s because when you walked into the hard…when you walked into the heaviness…

they tried to measure you up…

They pulled out the tape and they thought to themselves, “THIS is the point where he’s going to quit…give up & turn back.”

And when you kept going…

…and made something out of nothing

🔥that’s the point where you became unmeasurable

Be unmeasurable every day…

Where you’re willing to keep coming back,

go another round,

& lay another brick.

Where you’re willing to hang in there another minute, another hour, another damn day.

To push beyond yesterday’s “far.”

To stretch beyond yesterday’s “hard.”

To make yesterday’s “finish line” today’s starting line.

Unbothered of the obstacles…

Unmindful of how close or how far away you are from the goal…

Just unmeasurable…

~Stay in The Sales Life 💪

You’re good…as of today

Whatever is considered “Best in the World” today is going to be obsolete tomorrow.

Technology is changing…

& if technology is changing so are tendencies…

& if tendencies are changing, so must your techniques.

Oh I get the fact that you’re all that and a bag of hot Funyuns…

You’ve exceeded your wildest expectations…

Making more money than you would’ve ever dreamed of…

You’re good….as of today.

🔥”Laurel” may be a good name for your dog or daughter…

🔥but it’s not a good strategy for your life.

When Kareem Abdul Jabbar broke the NBA all time scoring record, Wilt Chamberlain said, “Had I known anyone would come close to breaking the record I would’ve put it out of sight…”

Laurels…

Wilt was good…as of that “today.”

The sad thing is he knew there was more…

Even sadder is, he could’ve put it out of sight…

but didn’t.

Setting the record made him the “Best in the World….”

🔥Had he kept going…he could’ve been the best ever.

Oh you’re good…as of today.

~Stay in The Sales Life 💪

Get your row on

There’s a Latin proverb that says, “If the wind will not serve, take the oars.”

It’s crazy how we just let the wind do whatever-I mean we see the direction we’re heading & we don’t like it, yet …

(Whoosh)….

We just allow the winds of Life to push us towards doom while we just sit & watch.

We shrug and say, “I can’t help it…the wind is blowing me there!”

Your credit card debt is piling up- all you make is minimum payments & when you do chunk it down in months, you max it back out in minutes for that outfit you had to have…

Your clothes are fitting tighter as your weight creeps back up. You worked so hard last summer to get that weight off before going on that cruise…

You say you need to get back to the gym, but it never becomes a must.

Every day seems to get a little worse for you at work. As a matter of fact, you saw them conducting interviews the other day, yet you didn’t know there was a position even open.

“I wonder if they’re about to run me off,” you whisper to yourself.

Your sales numbers aren’t just down this month…

You’ve gone from a slump, to a rut, to a damn grave. Everyone around you is smashing their objectives, yet you couldn’t make a deal with your customer if you agreed to buy it for them.

(Whoosh)…

The winds are always blowing in our lives…

Some days the winds feel like hurricanes and catastrophe looks eminent.

If the wind will not serve, take the oars.”

An oar is a pole with a flat blade on the end that you use to move & steer your boat in a certain direction.

So here you are sitting in your boat, The SS Life, drifting along waiting for the next gust of wind to push you even further in the direction that you don’t want to go.

More debt…

You’re getting fatter by the second…

No sales…

and you just sit there waiting for the wind to blow favorably…

Hell if the wind did blow in the right direction, you’ve waited so long & have been pushed so far off course that you’d need 4 years of continuous wind to get you back on track.

If you don’t like the direction you’re blowing, get to rowing.

Grab your oars and start rowing.

Damn right you’re gonna face headwinds.

Keep rowing…

Does it look like you’re about to go over the waterfall of bs?

Pivot your blade as you row to adjust your course. You didn’t get here overnight so you damn sure won’t get elsewhere with one row of your oar.

Keep rowing…

Are you getting your ass kicked in sales? Are you about to go up in size in pants? Do you have more month than money?

Row…row…row…

You’re not getting the bad customers, you’re working less & the ones you do work with, you selectively chose because you thought they were the buyers & not the liars.

Joke’s on you.

I get that you’re sore and seeing no results. You’re so tired you couldn’t even lift a pen much less do another squat.

Keep rowing…you got more in you.

When you think you can do no more, you’ve only reached less than half of your capability.

“I can’t go any further,” only means that you’ve reached rock bottom of your comfort zone.

Keep rowing….

Welcome to the grit factory…

Row…

This is where warriors are forged…

Row…

This is your gladiator moment…

Row…

Anyone can paddle in calm waters.

Paddling is satisfying…

Rowing is exhausting…

When the shit gets tough…

Row…

I’ve got to…

because the wind isn’t serving me.

It’s go time…

It’s row time…

Get your row on.

Stay in The Sales 💪ife

-Marsh

It‘s not called First Replier

Million dollar real estate broker Ryan Serhant observed that one reason why you may not be finding success is because you are replying and not responding. In this automated, ever-growing commoditized world, your greatest asset as a sales person is differentiating yourself by responding instead of replying.

In this automated, ever-growing commoditized world, your greatest asset as a sales person is differentiating yourself by responding instead of replying.

We salespeople often reply when the customer we’re currently working with is the cherry to our crap-filled month. Nothing’s been going right & no one is buying, so it’s no surprise this one isn’t either. While everyone around you seems to be swimming in deals, you just so happened to have caught the one picky customer who has NO CLUE what they want; or the customer who seems to be 11 yrs out from buying; or the customer who you just don’t seem to jive with… In defense, we shut down mentally and lay up lame ass replies to their questions & concerns. Replies are words placed in the right order, said at the right time, yet void of any emotion.

We had a customer come in recently who was all busted up. Her life was turned upside down. She left her abusive husband while he left her with bad credit and a repo’d car. Obviously she was an emotional soup-crying, confused, & no idea what to do from here. A tuned out salesperson would’ve pulled her credit & replied with, “Sorry, your credit is too bad I can’t help you,” but a tuned-in salesperson would respond by saying, “Look, your credit has taken some hits, so which family member can we get on the phone right now, to get you back on track? Today is going to be your new birthday!” The responding salesperson aligned with her emotional state & offered a specific course of action.

Think about it…they’re not called First Repliers, they’re called First Responders because they come onto the scene, asses the situation, & work to get you to safety. Customers need that from you. They come in with a range of emotions & need you to asses and respond in a way that aligns with their emotions & the results they need to see. The one they do business with is the one who responds best.

That might as well be you. 😉

I’ll see you in the Sales Life.

⭐️ Catch The Sales Life with Marsh Buice podcast. You can find it on iTunes, Spotify, or Google Play

Stop Apologizing

In his book, “Lose Well,” comedian Chris Gethard  writes,

“When we decide we want to shift the standard of our life to include something new and out of the box, we tend to spend a lot of time apologizing for it and justifying it. People we encounter express incredulity and we scramble to downplay the quest we’re setting out on.”

A’int that the truth…

…as soon as you throw something big and audacious out into the universe, what’s the first thing you do when people snap back with, “You!!…you’re going to do what!!”  “You want what?!” “You think you can be what?!”

You get slippery feet and immediately back away from your loftiness, simply because you expressed your dreams to a small-minded person who has given up on their own dreams.

Look how quick you are to release the reigns of your dreams simply because some else can’t see what you see. 

The minute they push back, express doubt, or look at you like you’re a damn fool, you apologize & justify with, “I know…it probably wasn’t gonna work anyway, but I was just thinking about it…” (Poof) “I was just goofing around..I-I-I was just bullshitting with you.” (Poof)

“Other people’s opinions are one of the most dangerous things to our success”

~Chris Gethard

Stop apologizing for who you are and what you want…if you want it and you’re committed to it..then f’ing do it, and stop apologizing along the way.

I don’t care how minor or major your pivot is, whether it’s learning a new language; if it’s taking swimming lessons so you can enjoy the summer with your kids; if it’s writing a book, blog or starting a podcast; or owning the damn company you for work for now….Go!!! and don’t look back nor explain yourself with weak ass apologies.

For 10 seconds, look up from this & ask yourself, “What do I want to do, go, be, and have?” No explaining…no justifying…and damn sure no apologizing.

If you want to be a stand up comedian, go to Open Mic Nights-yes you’ll be terrible, but you’ll never be good until you get worse first.

If you want to begin speaking, turn your phone on and contribute to the world-yes you…YOU have something we need to hear.

If you want to teach school enroll in online classes…but you’ve racked up a bunch of student loans and the government is already looking for you, then start by becoming an aide just to see if it’s something you really will commit to. (And work out some sort of payment arrangements with the gov, because they will get their money eventually. Trust me, I know firsthand.)

If  want to become an area manager, become a local one first. If you want to be a top producer, learn how to be a consistent one, then stretch the goal. If you want to be a better parent or just a better human being, then go right a damn head, step forward and stop apologizing.

We apologize too much and too long. We apologize over and over and over for our past mistakes and downfalls.

When you keep apologizing for then, you’ll never live your Now.

No wonder you can’t get ahead because your spending your current days apologizing for all of your yesterdays.

And get this...even if you were blemish free, they’d still dis, judge, and talk about you because people would rather judge you than account for themselves. It’s cool though, because they’re not on your bus anyway…

You want it, then do it, & stop apologizing.

I’ll see you in the Sales Life.

The advantage you have over professional athletes

I hate to tell you this, but chances are real good that you’ll never play for an NBA, NFL, nor any other professional team. Chances are even better that you’ll never sign a multi-year mega-million dollar contract either. When we hear the news, we day dream & talk at length about the massive contracts athletes sign in the off-season. In an effort to win a championship, teams lock up key players by inking them to multi-year, mega- million dollar contracts. Some of those deals you think are no-brainers…others you say, “What in the hell?,” to, but in either case, I guess hard work really does pay off, huh?

Or does it?

Because the following season after the player signed for instant wealth, they just don’t seem to run as hard, play through the pain as much, nor magically pull out a win the same way they did before they got caked up- which makes you ask the question, “What happened?” The response is always the same, “Oh, he got paid,” but that’s supposed to happen right? Aren’t you supposed to be paid for all of the hard work and sweat equity that you put in? Why doesn’t the athlete play like he used to? Why, if he’s making the most money he’s ever made-more then most of us could ever dream of, why is he so disruptive in the locker room & headlines?

What happened?

And there’s your answer…and your advantage. It happened for them & I hope it never “happened” for you. They realized their full potential and you have not. See, once these guys reach that max contract deal, it signifies that they’ve reached the top- all of it and then some- the problem is, when you think that you’ve reached the end, you cease working for new beginnings. Playing now switches from proving to protecting. Instead of playing & proving they’re worth the investment, they instead play not to get hurt & lose what they’ve contractually won.

So while yes, they should benefit from all of their hard, work, max deals should never equal max potential. See, if there’s no longer a bar to look up to, what would you reach for? Think about this, if I sat and wrote you a check for $1 million saying, “I think this is your full potential,” what would you do next? Would you look at it as a start or finish? Would you lay up & buy a bunch of shit or would you look at it instead as a down payment & parlay that monetary gain to make it work for you. Would you move the bar of potential up or would the bar just go away because now you’ve reached a certain status?

Contrary to athletes, no one is going to pay you in advance for what they think that you’re worth, you have to push the barriers of your potential every day, and as you do, you’ll earn not only monetarily, but also you’ll amass experience, wisdom, grit, & resilience along the way. And when you reach or even exceed your wildest expectations, because you’ve put in the sweat equity and kept moving the bar up, you’ll realize that you may have exceeded your expectations, but you have not exceeded your potential.

With each notch up, you get a newer, broader perspective. Your eyes are opened wider & what seems impossible to others, is i’mpossible to you. So you push even harder, higher, & broader in all directions- some days you don’t know if what you’re doing even matters…only to discover years later, it mattered and now here’s the meaning.

What was once the finish line now becomes the new starting line of so much more. Yes, have a destination, but I hope you never “arrive.” Play to your full potential today, but I hope you never reach it so that when you fight your ass off to reach your summit, you discover that you may have reached a summit, but not the summit because when you get to what you thought was the highest peak you could possibly climb, you look around & realize there are millions more higher mountains waiting to be climbed….by you.

Never stop climbing.

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

Is it worth my time?

One of my salespeople wants to double his income this year. “If you want to double your income then you’re gonna have to at least double the amount of customers you work with too,” I told him. We calculated specifically how many customers he would have to work with each month to realize his goal. When I wrote the number down, I saw his eyes widen & the wheels of doubt began to churn.

51…

Calling out his fears I asked, “I bet you’re asking yourself how in the hell am I going to do that, aren’t you?” But when we broke the seemingly big, overall number down to a per day digit, it worked out to a manageable 2 customers per day. That’s it! To move his goal from a wish to a reality, he only needed to work with a little over two customers each day. Then I talked a little shit to him, “Are you telling me in at nine or 10 hour workday you can’t find two customers to physically work with every single day?!”

Of course he nodded emphatically in agreement- it seemed easy, but it’s not. The math is the easy part; doing it consistently for 23 straight days…well that’s the hard part. Sales by design is simple, but when it comes to putting that simplicity into action, it ain’t easy because as the rejections mount up, the effort wains. One way your brain works to protect your fragile ego is to disguise itself is being a “timesaver;” instead of taking a risk and working with the wrong customer, your mind whispers to you to selectively pick & only work with the perfect customer-the ones who look like they can & will buy today. What we really want to know is, “Is this customer even worth my time?”

Funny isn’t it when you were new in sales you didn’t even know to ask that question. Each day you spent more time working with customers and less time hanging out with salespeople and today it’s opposite; you spend more time with salespeople and less time with customers because you’re always trying to figure out, “Who’s worth my time?”

Maybe instead of self-sabotaging your success, when you’re mind flares up and asks, “Is it worth my time,” you should shut your mind down and push on by saying, “I don’t know, but they’re worth my two.” Two is all you need today! Just 2 everyday to put in your bucketful of 51 customers for the month. So the next opportunity is just a part of your bucket list this month. Regardless of the outcome- can’t buy, not ready to buy, or did buy, make it a part of your 2 (or whatever # yours calcs out to be).

Maximize the opportunity and whatever the end result throw it in the bucket and move on to the next customer. Selling is a little bit of a Jedi mind trick. To shortcut & conserve energy, your mind works in patterns. It compares your current pattern to past patterns (& outcomes) and if it doesn’t like the pattern, it tells you to bail out by asking limited, “Sorry I can’t help you,” questions. Take control of your mind & your success; when it asks, “Is it worth my time?” You respond with, “I don’t know, but it’s worth my 2!”

Put your 2 in the bucket every day & at the end of the month, you’ll pour out a pipeline of working customers, more sales, & a strong ass work ethic.

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

Why didn’t I think of that?

Have you ever used a product or an app and thought to yourself, “Damn, why didn’t I think of that?! I mean the idea was so simple – it’s been sitting there in plain sight my whole life,” slaps forehead), “Why didn’t I just see it?”

You didn’t see it because you’re not trained to see it…

VC firms have what’s called Idea Flow. Masses of people line up & pitch a continuous flow of ideas & projects to the VC members. If they like the idea, these firms will invest millions of dollars in hopes of reaping multiple millions if not billions of dollars in the future. Fewer than 1% of these ideas make it through the next stage, but some go on to become Facebook, Airbnb, Uber, and Twitter (Waitr an online food/grocery delivery app based in my hometown named sold this past summer for $308 million.) (Slaps forehead again)

Now I know what you’re thinking, I don’t have millions to spend nor years to invest, but you & VC firms share one thing in common, you both have “idea flow.”

In the book Disrupt You!, Jay Samit challenges his students to write 3 things that you notice that could be improved every day. He says that at first it’ll be easy, but as the days roll on it’ll become more and more challenging, but if you discipline yourself to do this every day it’ll cause you to become more introspective and more observant to the world around you.

Anything… Everything is up for grabs… “How can this be improved?” Recently Tesla founder Elon Musk looked at the bottleneck of Los Angeles traffic & posed the idea of building an underground tunnel were people seamlessly commute in a capsule. Will it come to life? Who knows, but that’s one of hundreds of ideas that Musk spitballs and asks, “What if?” Instead of taking life at face value, why not generate your own idea flow? When you’re standing in line, ordering, shopping, or just taking a piss, ask yourself, “How can this be improved?”

Think about Poo-Pourri, a small bottle that you can drop into the toilet bowl after you take a crap at your friend’s house to hide the stank… “Why didn’t I think of that?” (Quickly slaps forehead.)

Even on your job…what’s the bottle-neck? What can be improved? How can this be disrupted? Frustrated? Good! The more frustrated the better, because frustrating times are prime opportunities for you to take notice and ask, “How can this be bettered?” See, while the rest of the world stands around pointing and bitching, you’re strategically thinking about capitalizing on disruption. Uber took the status quo taxi service and flipped it upside down. Airbnb, which started as an air mattress on the floor and breakfast in the morning, disrupted the entire hotel industry.

Not all of your ideas will come to life, but you need a continuous flow of them for the best ones to rise to the top. Three ideas per day, that’s 90/month-that’s 1000/year. Just imagine if 1% of those ideas disrupted your life for the better? Change starts with an idea.

Try it this week and let me know how it goes.

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

They owe you nothing

Coach Nick Saban tells a story of three baby birds who fell into the ocean. The mama bird was frantic because her babies were about to drown so the daddy bird flies out and scoops the first baby bird up and sits him down on dry land and asks his son, “Now that I saved your life what are you going to do for me?” His son looks up at him and says, “Dad, when you get old I’m going to take care of you,” and with that, the dad picks up his son and drops him back into the ocean. He then scoops up the second son and brings him to dry land and asks the same question, “Now that I saved your life what are you going to do for me?” The second son says, “Dad you don’t have to worry about anything when you get old because I’m going to take care of you,” and with that the dad does the same thing he did with the first son, he drops him back into the ocean and scoops up the third son and asks the same previous question. The third son says, “Dad, I promise to do everything for my sons as you did for me.”

Your children & the people you lead– the ones who came in with bad credit and today they bought their first home; the ones who used to ride a bike or took a bus to & from work, leave today in their own vehicle; the once shy & inhibited one, who can now talk to anyone; the one who turned his life around & is married with children…those people, your people owe you nothing.

Not a damn thing…

And the best thing they can do- the only thing they should do “for you,” is to be a better parent, manager, & leader, for their kids, for their employees, for their community.

Besides what you want from them anyway? I mean when you keep throwing it up in their face when you stood in the gap, bailed them out, and turned them around…how you made sacrifices, worked two jobs, & made a way out of no way.

What really do you want from them anyway? You don’t want to thank you, you want power and the minute they resist you- the minute they push off and stand on their own by making their own mind up- the minute you feel your power slip, you try to get it back by slapping them with a reminder of all that you’ve done for them.

They don’t appreciate that, they resent it. They don’t feel all warm & fuzzy when you re-open wounds and bear their scares of weaknesses & downfalls just so that you can get the upper hand and pull their strings again.

Nothing…they owe you nothing.

The only thing they owe you is to the pay it forward- improving on what was passed down by you when they were passed up by others.

Hopefully all that you’ve done-the long talks, the sacrifices, the discipline, the love…hopefully you did all of that simply because someone did it (or didn’t do it) for you and you just wanted to improve on that.

Catch The Sales Life w Marsh Buice daily podcast. Find it on iTunes or your favorite podcast platform.