Millennial Sales

I listened to a podcast with Inky Johnson and Ed Mylett the other day.  If you’re unfamiliar with Johnson’s story, you should get familiar.  He grew up in a family that was poor enough that he had to sleep on the floor with a dozen of his siblings and cousins.  Football was Johnson’s way out.   Johnson eventually earned a scholarship to play for The University of Tennessee.  With only a few games before the NFL Draft, a night that would undoubtedly bring his family wealth, Inky suffered a career-ending injury that paralyzed his right arm.  Johnson, rightfully so, was in shock, depressed.  That’s why people were surprised to see him at practice the next week.  Wait, what are you doing here? He couldn’t play, but he could participate in spirit.  When asked about this decision, Johnson simply notes:  “I told Coach I’d be a great teammate.  That wasn’t conditional. I didn’t say ‘I’ll be a great teammate – unless my right arm gets paralyzed.  I said I’d be a great teammate. It’s unconditional.”  How many things in your life do you give your best, unconditionally?   It’s easy to be a great salesperson, a great girlfriend, a great neighbor – until adversity strikes. Prioritize who’s important and serve them unconditionally.    Keep that in mind when you run into roadblocks today.  This post is from our new series, Daily Momentum.  Each morning, we send a short, inspirational post via email, blog and podcast.  You can get it directly to your email here.  You can subscribe on iTunes here .

Here’s a Tuesday Tip for you.  Aaron Orendorff wrote a great article for the New York Times about why your colleagues don’t read your writing (which Elissa Fink, former podcast guest, posted on LinkedIn and caught my eye).  As a salesperson and leader, I write a lot at work.  Sometimes, people respond. Sometimes they don’t. If you’re like me, you may benefit from these tips from Orendorff’s article. Write less often  Use fewer words  Put action words in your subject line  Listen more, “talk” less Don’t answer, ask  Invert the order: lead with the need  Write a people-proof TL;DR Don’t make it about you  You may want to complement this with Tucker Max’s Harvard Business Review article on how to write a cold email.  The better we can communicate our ideas, the better the influence we’ll have over the outcomes of our lives.    PS – Happy St Patrick’s Day!  Below is an Irish Prayer to add some color to your day. This post is from our new series, Daily Momentum.  Each morning, we send a short, inspirational post via email, blog and podcast.  You can get it directly to your email here.  You can subscribe on iTunes here .  

“Having courage does not mean that we are unafraid.  Having courage and showing courage mean we face our fears.  We are able to say “I have fallen but I will get up.”  – Maya Angelou    Let’s face it: we all have fears.  Maybe it’s public speaking.  Maybe it’s walking into a dark room.  Maybe, like me, you have a fear of heights.   Our professional lives are equally scary.  There are cold calls to make, presentations to give, investments to make.  Sometimes, we have to stick our neck out to the boss. What happens if we mess up?  But being afraid isn’t the end of the story.  It’s what we do with that fear.   A useful strategy to overcome this is Mel Robbins’ 5 Second Rule.  Robbins’ rule is simple. “If you have an instinct to act on a goal, you must physically move within 5 seconds or your brain will kill it.”  The moment you feel an instinct to take action, move within five seconds.  Don’t let your brain catch up to your body’s decision to make that “risky” choice.  Real Estate Agent Ryan Serhant follows a similar strategy, saying “Ready, Set, Go” to himself whenever he is about to undertake a tough task.  Courage is not about lacking fear.  Having courage is about facing our fears and living life on our own terms.  This post is from our new series, Daily Momentum.  Each morning, we send a short, inspirational post via email, blog and podcast.  You can get it directly to your email here.  You can subscribe on iTunes here .

“Give a damn about yourself first, then those who give a damn about you, and then see if you have any damns left to give.” – Kevin Dorsey on Linkedn   The peanut gallery is awfully loud lately, isn’t it?  People can sometimes feel inclined to disrespect you without even knowing you.   But those people don’t matter.   Marcus Aurelius said that “we all love ourselves more than other people, but care more about their opinion than our own.”  We only have so many damns to give.  We should treat our damns like money and make sure we’re investing them in the right areas.   Give a damn about yourself – treat yourself well, set yourself up for long-term success, do things that’ll benefit your mind and body.  And give a damn about those that give a damn about you.  Your family, friends, mentors – anyone that’s on your team.  Know who is on your side and be on their side too. Make friendship an art.  And for everyone else – who cares what they think?  If they’re not on your team, ignore them. Or better yet, use them as fuel. PS – Shoutout to my dad.  Happy birthday! This post is from our new series, Daily Momentum.  Each morning, we send a short, inspirational post via email, blog and podcast.  You can get it directly to your email here.  You can subscribe on iTunes here .

“Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better.”  — Samuel Beckett   A few years ago, I interviewed The Wolf of Wall St, Jordan Belfort.  Love him or hate him, there are lessons to be learned by a figure like Belfort, a person who has felt the highest of highs and the lowest of lows.   When he was 23, Belfort went bankrupt running a business selling lobsters.  That event was undeniable.  However, Belfort had control of his reaction to the event.  He could have either saw it as a sign that he didn’t have any entrepreneurial or sales skills or he could have seen it as a learning lesson to bring into his next business.   He saw it as the latter and onward he went.  His goal wasn’t to succeed wildly, it was to fail quickly – he knew the odds were against him and it would take a lot of at-bats before he’d hit a home run.   If you’re stumbling – or flat out failing – it’s up to you to interpret the invent.   Should you give up?   Or are you ready to dust off and use it as a learning lesson? This post is from our new series, Daily Momentum.  Each morning, we send a short, inspirational post via email, blog and podcast.  You can get it directly to your email here.  You can subscribe on iTunes here .

“People do not decide their futures, they decide their habits and their habits decide their futures.” – Gary Keller   One reason I write so much about habits is that it’s one of the things that we control.   Our background, the weather, other people, the economy – these are things we do not control.  Waking up early.  Speaking kindly to others.  Putting in our best effort. These are in our control.  These are habits.   That’s what Keller means in his above quote.  We can’t just decide our future – a millionaire, successful CEO, visionary.  We decide our habits and that’s what determines our future.   This gives me hope.  To think that I have to do “everything” all at once is overwhelming.  But to think that building the habits of a millionaire is the best way to become one, that fires me up.  Because millionaires (or writers, or actors or great parents) are not secretive. They openly share their story and how they became who they are today.   They say that success leaves clues.  Go to Amazon and order 5 books about people you idolize.  Follow their steps to success. Copy their habits.   THAT’S how you decide your future.  This post is from our new series, Daily Momentum.  Each morning, we send a short, inspirational post via email, blog and podcast.  You can get it directly to your email here.  You can subscribe on iTunes here .

I wrote an article a few years ago breaking down my process going “Outbound Mode” in sales.  It’s a tactic to more successfully focus on prospecting – calling and emailing potential customers.   The article had four steps: prepare, block off the calendar, distractions, and action.  Unsurprisingly, the one that gets ignored is also the most boring step: preparation.  And that’s my Tuesday Tip: prepare for your day the night before.  Every day. It is infinitely easier to start working when you already know what you’re working on.  It’s easier to work out in the morning when your clothes are laid out the night before. It’s easier to eat healthy when you’ve meal prepped on Sunday.     But that’s boring.  To be successful, you need to do the monotonous things well.  Decision fatigue is a real thing.  The ancient Chinese military strategist once wrote that “every battle is won before it is fought.” There’s a battle happening today.   I hope you prepared.   If not, you’re already behind.   This post is from our new series, Daily Momentum.  Each morning, we send a short, inspirational post via email, blog and podcast.  You can get it directly to your email here.  You can subscribe on iTunes here .

“Extraordinary benefits accrue to the tiny minority of people who are able to push just a tiny bit longer than most.” – Seth Godin    In his book, The Dip, Seth Godin teaches us about the inevitable dips in our life – when to quit and when to stick.  In any of life’s journeys, there are a lot of rewards that come early in a path.  Take your first job out of college as an example. Before that, you were probably making little to no money.  Now you have a steady paycheck with more money than you’ve ever had before. You’re meeting new people, you’re learning new skills.  You feel empowered. You feel useful.  Then, you hit the dip.  You’re given more responsibility with no pay raise.  They give you the toughest project that eats up seemingly all of your free time.  It’s frustrating, your performance and confidence are dipping (no pun intended). You want to quit.   Maybe you can relate?  Godin’s advice is that, when appropriate, it will be highly rewarded when we push through this dip.  How?  “You have the power to change everything.  To create remarkable products and services.  To over-deliver. To be the best in the world.”  How dare we waste this opportunity? This post is from our new series, Daily Momentum.  Each morning, we send a short, inspirational post via email, blog and podcast.  You can get it directly to your email here.  You can subscribe on iTunes here .

A few years ago, my podcast partner and I interviewed James Altucher.  You can label him as an author, podcaster, investor, entrepreneur or – as Forbes would say, “the most interesting man in the world.” Altucher told plenty of fascinating and vulnerable stories on the ups and downs of his life but one concept from this conversation has stuck out to me: 10 ideas per day. I’ve written about the importance of journaling and some practical ways to do it.  Altucher’s 10 ideas per day is another option.  How do you do it?  It’s simple.  Each day, write down 10 ideas.  Good ideas, bad ideas, terrible ideas, ugly ideas.  Whatever. And the topic can be anything: 10 ideas to change the world, 10 ideas for what to eat for breakfast, 10 ideas for my next 10 days of idea-creation.   This is simply working the muscle of creating ideas and working with the creative part of your brain.   Open up a pad of paper and give it a try today.   You can listen to my full interview with James here.   This post is from our new series, Daily Momentum.  Each morning, we send a short, inspirational post via email, blog and podcast.  You can get it directly to your email here.  You can subscribe on iTunes here .

“A private victory always precedes a public victory.” — Stephen R. Covey   There’s a huge gap between what we see on social media and reality.  Instagram is full of people bragging about someone landing their dream job, sitting on a beach in Croatia or looking great in a bikini.  These are public victories.  If all we do is compare ourselves to public victories, we’re going to miserable.  What we really should be doing is searching within for our next private victory. These are the leading indicators of our own next big win.  Before you end up landing that dream job, you may have to spend a Saturday fixing up your resume.  That’s a private victory. Before you have that Instagram-ready six-pack, you may have to struggle through your first week of clean eating.  That’s a private victory. If you want to have a great day, sometimes you just need to take the first step and get out of bed. That’s a private victory.  Don’t compare your “middle of the race” to someone else’s “finish line”.  What private victory can you secure today?   This post is from our new series, Daily Momentum.  Each morning, we send a short, inspirational post via email, blog and podcast.  You can get it directly to your email here.  You can subscribe on iTunes here .