“There are no such things as limits to growth, because there are no limits on the human capacity for intelligence, imagination and wonder. ”
 

Ronald Reagan

1911-2004, 40th President of the United States

There are only 2 more Selling Days in September and in the Quarter!!!

 As I thought about these words from President Reagan, I thought about my favorite poet T.S. Eliot  who called upon in his works a vast store of images, symbols and allusions that, deployed in a historical context, enabled the poet to keep his readers’ focus on such themes as the redeemability of the individual and the complex relationship between existence, reality and time. 

Indeed, the setting of the his entire work seems to be “the point of intersection of the timeless / With time.” So our takeaway ought to be – our time is now, not tomorrow or yesterday but today for tomorrow may never come.

 Go out and have a Great Selling Day and make a difference in at least one person’s life today.

 WED

“Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter, and those who matter don’t mind.“
 

 - Dr. Seuss 

There are only 3more Selling Days in September and the Quarter!!! 

I’m tackling quality, or the lack of it, in today’s epistle.  I’m truly confounded at the persistently diminishing quality of goods and services. From newly purchased clothing whose buttons fall off after one wearing, to cars that are total losses in what would’ve been a “fender bender” twenty years ago, things just aren’t made to last. Then there’s the “service” sector. I found myself standing at a checkout counter the other day, ready to spend my hard-earned dollars on their products, only to find that I had to wait for the cashier (late teens/early twenties) to finish texting before she could ring up my purchases. I’d like to say this is the first time I’ve encountered this, or that it is always the younger generation. Sadly, that is not the case.

I know, I know. I sound like a curmudgeon. I’m okay with that, because I don’t think I’m the only person who’s scratching his head on this. Day after day, we’re bombarded with how desperate these economic times are, with no bright light on the horizon. This alone would seem to necessitate a company delivering service and products that shine above the rest – just to maintain market share. Yet, the sour marketplace seems to have soured quality right along with it.

It’s my opinion that, whether times are good or bad, a company dedicated to the best in product and service is going to deliver just that. When times are tougher, they’ll deliver even more on that promise. Although a bit simplistic it may be, I also think it’s a commitment to higher quality that is the key to pulling out of this economic nose dive. It’s only by holding ourselves, our products and services to being the best we can be that we can truly soar again – are you with me? 

Go out and have a Great Selling Day and make a difference in at least one person’s life today by being honest, fair and professional.

WED

“Nothing is as potent as the silent influence of a good example.“
 

James Kent

There are only 6 more Selling Days in September and in the Quarter!!!

 Remember when your mother would tell you to stop hanging around someone because they were a bad influence or that she liked one of your friends because they were a good influence, in my case a far better student.  Remember how much you hated those comments. As a kid we are not so open to the comments of our parents or those close to us, but then again we often don’t like it when we are adults either.

I have finally realized, I get it. I understand now what I didn’t back then. Now I see it in others. What I mean is I now see the influence that others can have on us. We often don’t see it ourselves until it is pointed out to us but it is easy to be influenced when you talk or spend time with particular people.

Take a friend of mine Jay. When I see Jay I can pretty much guess who he was last talking to by the way he talks to me or treats me. For example if he starts talking using bad language which he knows I have a very low tolerance for I can tell he was just talking to friend A, if he is extra nice he was talking to friend B or C etc.

Now I know not everyone is this easily influenced and Jay probably doesn’t realize it but it is so obvious. The other thing I realize about Jay is that he is not particularly honest with his friends. What I mean is that he adjusts his personality so much depending on the person he is talking to that he doesn’t really let anyone see who he is or what he believes. An example of this would be if he was talking to friend A, he would go along with the conversation of filth to be popular and never really tell this friend that he has different values and beliefs. We all have friends like this for me I tend to shy away from these – in other words he is not a friend for long. It’s a fascinating trait. I’m the opposite of this. I am always upfront about what I feel and believe. I don’t sway from that as I use to during my mis-spent youth. I would hate someone to get the wrong idea about my values. I can have a joke with someone but eventually I would have to make sure they realize that I am not that person. I think if I was like Jay I would find it difficult for people to know who I am. Maybe the next time I see or talk to Jay I’ll have to ask him how he can stay true to himself if he is always someone different – for as Saint Paul said, “the word is the deed.”  How exhausting. 

Go out and have a Great Selling Day and make a difference in at least one person’s life today by being honest, fair and professional.

WED

A long-lost, highly valuable Moon rock brought back from the Apollo 17 mission has turned up in the files of Bill Clinton.

The rock was one of 50 presented to each state, and was given to Arkansas while the ex-president was governor. The rock, worth millions of dollars, had been missing since at least 1980 until an archivist found it in old gubernatorial papers. Bobby Roberts, director of the Central Arkansas Library System, told Reuters the archivist opened a box previously archived as “Arkansas flag plaque.” The rock and a state flag were originally affixed to the plaque, but the rock had fallen off and the plaque had been misplaced.

“The moon rock, which is in a plastic container, had fallen off the plaque,” Roberts said, explaining that the rock was at the bottom of the box. “The archivist immediately knew what he had discovered.”

The rock was originally presented to Arkansas Gov. David Pryor in 1976 and hung in the governor’s office during the term of Pryor’s successor, the future president. Roberts figures that when Clinton lost his bid for re-election in 1980, everything got packed up and the plaque and its rock from outer space were misplaced.

Other states have misplaced their Apollo 17 Moon rocks, including New Jersey ad Alaska. Last year, former Colorado Gov. John Vanderhoof admitted he had kept his state’s rock, and agreed to give it back. Perhaps they should have entrusted The File Room’s secured stroage facility for such a major keepsake.

“The more I want to get something done, the less I call it work.”
~ Richard Bach ( Author )

There are only 8 more Selling Days in remaining in September and in the Quarter!!!

And ultimately people are gonna serve their own best interest no matter what anyhow, so that’s the nature of politics or the word we live in for that matter. Strangely enough it’s almost when things get too polarized nothing happens. It’s only when there’s kind of a middle of the road and people can negotiate that things actually start to move forward, but somebody’s got to hold a vision of what forward looks like and that’s where you and I come in and somebody has to be willing to listen to that and follow along with that.

So, focusing on outcomes, what are we trying to accomplish? What’s the purpose of this division or department? So, if we could just build outcome thinking into our day to day lives or our sales process or our next action thinking. Look, what are the purposes? How do we allocate resources to fulfill that purpose?

So, thinking about outcomes like “Why are we doing what we’re doing?” I think that’s actually started to take place a good bit to getting more done, being more efficient and more effective. But I’d approach it like anything. Soon as I had the job it was like great out of all the things I need to be considering, where’s this whole ship going, you know, and how do we allocate resources to get there. It’s just the common sense way to think about how do you manage things. But I would just bring that common sense to whatever I was dealing with.

There can be no assumptions. This “for what purpose” stuff is not trying to get anybody to believe anything.  Look, if you want to get from here to there and with the least amount of effort you must stay focused. So each of us can be irrational and have fun about it. The problem is if you’re irrational and not managing the rest of your life, pretty soon you won’t have the freedom to be irrational anymore, they’ll put you away or you won’t be able to afford anything. So at some point you want to be able to have enough structure to give you the freedom you want to do.

Do you see yourself as a salesperson? Well, I wind up selling people on the idea or our services simply because I’m enthused about it, have a passion for what I do and they can, you know, pretty much they kind of believe it because I talk from a very real experiential base about what we do in transportation. In a way, I suppose those are the best salespeople, who actually believe, really aren’t trying to sell you but telling you a story – what about you do you have a story to tell? 

Go out and have a Great Selling Day and make a difference in at least on person’s life today.