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 💪

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

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.

The Heavy Box Mentality

Marcus Luttrell wrote a book that went on to become the movie titled Lone Survivor…& Marcus has a Heavy Box Mentality- he had to have one in order to become a Navy SEAL-the best of the best,  but he also needed to have a Heavy Box Mentality when he was recovering from his injuries and surgeries…

Even though people were urging him to join a gym, he refused… he didn’t need a gym-he had a gym right there in his mind and in that gym was his Heavy Box. Even though there were days that he could only do one push-up against the sink…even though there were times when his progress skidded back down to the bottom… that Heavy Box was right there. Luttrell pushed that Heavy Box into the corners of his mind, out of the way, but still within view- he kept it right there because he was determined to work towards picking that Heavy Box back up.

We all need a Heavy Box Mentality… a Heavy Box Mentality  is the gap of choosing between doing the easy or taking on the hard…that 5 seconds when you can make a choice to slide by with the routine or make that split second decision to yank the heavy box… you’re Heavy Box.

See, the reason why most of us don’t pick… the reason why we won’t choose the Heavy Box is because a Heavy Box Mentality is strictly voluntary… it’s not mandated… it’s not a prerequisite… it’s voluntary and most of us won’t step up and volunteer-to do what is hard in our own lives.

We pick the light box instead…

 So what are they heavy boxes in your life right now? What are the hard choices – the one staring right there at you…

The ones that trip you when you’re dark… the ones you stub when trying to find light… the ones you elect to go around instead of going through…

 I get it… going through causes you to sweat… causes you to strain… going through may cause you to admit that you can’t lift your heavy box…it means you’re defeated…

… but only temporary.

The fact that you stepped up, squared your shoulders, got a wide base, and wedged your fingers underneath…

…the fact that you yanked on your Heavy Box is a start and like Luttrell, it starts with first trying, then testing your limits, then-even if it’s at your base camp, working your way back to the Heavy Box ever so present in the rooms of your mind.

That heavy box is there, we all got ’em. That Heavy Box where you can take the easy dollar $1.69, 10 piece Burger King nuggets or you can grab that salad from Wendy’s that’s four times the price. That box that you can numb the differences through silence and alcohol or that Heavy Box where you sit him down and say, “We’re” done, this ain’t going to work.” That box when you sell just enough to cover your $3000 monthly bills or the Heavy Box where you say I need to make $3000, but I’ll make five and next month I’ll make seven..then you do the math- you break the numbers down to a daily plan and go to work on your box.

The box with no sweat, no strain, no fatigue or the Heavy Box where there’s no way out but through… 

It’s voluntary…

…and you got five seconds to decide. Always pick theHeavy Box. 

Don’t forget I have a weekday podcast The Sales Life w Marsh Buice found iTunes or any of your favorite podcast stations.

Dear World,

Dear World,

We’ve been through a lot together over the decades you and I-marriages, births, deaths, fulfillment & disappointment, war & peace, good times & hard times. There were days when you were more generous to me than I could possibly have deserved. And there were days when you cheated me out of things I felt I was entitled to. There were days when you looked so achingly beautiful that I could hardly believe you were mine, and days when you broke my heart and reduced me to tears. But with it all, I chose to love you, whether you deserve it or not. (& how does one measure that?) I love you because I like who I am better when I do. But mostly I love you because loving you makes it easier for me to be grateful for today and hopeful about tomorrow. Love does that. 

Faithfully yours, 

Harold Kushner

This beautiful letter came at the end of Kushner’s book “9 Essential Things I Learned About Life.” 

(Hear what this letter means to me on my podcast The Sales Life

Strange how Life can be a mixture of such vast emotions right?

…some days there aren’t enough words to express just how wonderful things are…other days there are no words that can adequately describe just how broken we’ve become. One day we’re on high…other days we’ve painfully discovered rock bottom has many levels.

Whatever it is…however it is…it’s your world…love it no matter what. Hard to do some days I know…but it’s the only one you’ve got…and you’ll be better when you do.

Just  remember it could always be better…but it too could be much worse.

The Two You’s

Earl Nightingale said that every person really is two persons.

“There is the one person who has achieved a level of performance adequate enough to earn his pay … and sometimes he’ll get a promotion or pay raise,  but his proficiency become‘s habitual – unconscious and he uses these habitual patterns as a benchmark of measurement for his success time and time again. This is the person his employers, family, and he himself knows…”

But Nightingale goes on to say there’s another person too… “the person that he could be – the person that if strongly motivated and equipped with the right information, could narrow the gap between his habitual performance patterns and his much higher potential.”

Imagine yourself standing inside of the chalk outline of your considerably larger self…that outline represents your highest potential & and where you stand inside of that outline – the gap between the two you’s represents your untapped, unexpressed potential.

In order to narrow that gap between who you are today and who you could be, you must do a few things.

First, you must constantly study  because what you don’t know is so much larger- why anchor your Life on what you already know?

Narrowing the gap will also take self examination – sometimes it will be painful, but if you honestly look at the loops that you continuously play back and assess who or what you allow into your life you’ll begin to compress the margins between the two you’s.

Lastly, it takes the application of your talents and abilities. You could own a whole Walgreens store of medications, but none of them will work unless they’re taken off the shelf & applied– the same is true for your Life.

If you’re willing to do those 3 things, Nightingale says that you’re in rarefied company.

Now that’s for you…

But let me tell you about others….

I think so many businesses are warped with only focusing on driving up the bottom line, but what they fail to miss is that the lowest cost method to driving the emotional and financial health of a company‘s bottom line is the development of its people.

And getting more out of someone isn’t some form of manipulation-no it’s the company benefiting because they first invested in others.  

The problem is that many leaders are fearful of sharing what they know for fear of being replaced and if that is your fear, that is an indication that you’ve stopped growing. I tell my people all the time, I want you to replace me – take this chair because if you take my chair, that means I’ve moved up. Why keep all you know to yourself anyway? Why not give it all away? If you can teach it, then it deepens your awareness of truly understanding; when you teach to others you invest in not only their future but yours as well; and if you empty yourself out, you’ll have more capacity to refill & refuel with more rapidly changing information. 

Exposing others to more will cause them to have to reach deep into the reservoirs of their ability…with your guidance, skills and abilities they never knew they were capable of are revealed and brought to the surface.

In the book It’s Not Where You Start But How You Finish, entrepreneur David Schwartz says, that at McDonald’s, “the workers’ best standard is going to be the managers’ lowest acceptable standard.

The skillful manager needs to be able to stretch his employees’ capacities by setting the high bar and encouraging better performance.” When they do, others will be able to think more confidently, independently, and produce better results, resulting in better team members & human beings in the process… and your greatest payback is knowing that you had a thumbprint in their development.

Yes, in reality every person really is two persons – the person today and the person he can be tomorrow…

…but maybe there’s a third person too…

Planting your skills and abilities into the lives of others so that they too can begin to narrow the gap between who they are vs. who they can become in the tomorrow’s that lay ahead.

Stay 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