I want to talk to you today about when you’re thinking about how much effort you put into what you do, and whether or not anybody actually notices. The reason for this story is because I had an opportunity to talk with the candidate just recently and they said to me, “hey Bob, you really like what you do, I can tell you really enjoy it. And this was a very interesting time for me to learn about myself. I went through this one other time and it was so obvious that the person who was reviewing my profile with me was bored. They just mailed it in and there was nothing that I really got out of that experience.” And it made me realize that people really do see the difference. People can recognize when you’re putting forth an effort to make it special and to make it good.

There are repetitive aspects of everybody’s job. Think about the Broadway actor who is playing Hamlet and needs to read “To be or not to be” six nights a week and for two matinees. But just as every single audience is different, every single candidate is different, every single client is different and you need to look what you do in the eyes of the people that you’re delivering your work for — embrace how they will feel about it, look at how they will view it and you’ll be able to move beyond any aspect of repetitive boredom.

Really enjoy and embrace what you do. There is so much pleasure in what we get to do and how we’re able to work with people. You need to take advantage of that, just like the sign says at my pet store that we visit, Bark Less, Wag More. Thanks for your time.

We’re going to review an email that I received over the weekend. These are the kind of emails that can really make a weekend special let me tell you. I’m going to leave off the details because they’re irrelevant to the story but it reads like this:

It says, “Hi Bob. I have recently joined a company. My current employer doesn’t
know this yet, so please keep that quiet. Please find copied here with, the name of the Human Resources Manager. She is our Senior Human Resource Manager and we have discussed using your services as part of our recruitment process. I would also be interested in you conducting an analysis on the existing sales team as a way to understand more deeply the team we already have in the field.” And it’s signed by this individual who is the new Senior Vice President of Sales.

So this had great meaning to me for a lot of reasons. Obviously it’s a new prospect. It looks like the sales cycle is going to be relatively short. The SVP of Sales has worked with us. He gets it. He understands what the value is. How great is that?

What’s really interesting as a business person and as a sales person is to really
grandfather where this came from because this obviously didn’t start with this company and it didn’t even start with the company that this person worked for. It started with a company one before that. Because the individual that brought our product to the company where this person was started with us about 10 years ago and we worked with that person for a number of years with that company. He then moved over into this new organization and brought our services with him.

The writer of this email was one of the managers that when our services were initially presented, kind of rolled his eyes and said, “What do we need that for?” Well that was about five years ago. We had an opportunity to work together obviously over those years and now we’re going to continue to have an opportunity to work on that.

All of this started with a cold call. All of this started because somebody who was on my team had the guts to pick up the phone and call a senior level executive and talk to them about what we did and engaged them in conversation. So for all of you cold callers out there, banging your head against the wall wondering what they’re really worth, when you strike the gold line, you can write it for a long way. This client will be the seventh client that we will do business with over the last decade that all came from that one sales person picking up the phone to talk to one prospect.

So keep at it even though it’s hard. Even though you may get disappointed based on the percentages, remember we’re not playing baseball. Nobody cares about your batting average. All we care about are hits. Keep swinging for the fences.

So you as a manager need to understand what you need to be able to do to help the people that you have on your team utilize their own strengths. For instance some sales people have as a natural strength very strong problem solving skills. So if you have good strong problem solving skills the best bet for that person is to take advantage of that and show their buyer how they can help him solve their problems. It is a very different approach and for instance a sales person that has relationship building skills nothing wrong with being a good relationship builder but it is different than being a problem solver. If you can help your sales people that have relationship building skills focused on their strengths and problem solvers focused on their strengths then you are really making a difference as a leader within your organization, thanks for your time.