Passion

“Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.” –Helen Keller

“Carpe diem. Seize the day, boys! Make your life extraordinary.”

–Tom Schulman, Dead Poets Society

“You are the storyteller of your own life, and you can create your own legend or not.”

–Isabel Allende, novelist

Socrates said, “The unexamined life is not worth living.” Lately I’ve been reflecting on my own life. I can say there are times in the busyness of my life that life can go on unexamined. Can you relate? We are always moving fast, driving hard and we can get used to being busy and not finding meaning.

How do you find meaning? It’s likely to be found in the difficulties of life rather than when life is calm. The difficulties of life will allow you to notice certain things that you never paid attention to before. Why? Because they didn’t apply at the time. For example:

• I think of a friend of mine who lost a teenage son. He has a certain compassion for people that he otherwise wouldn’t have without having experienced such a tragedy.
• I think about Peter Barton, who was diagnosed with cancer and said, “I began thinking less about what cancer was doing to me and more about what it was doing for me. And I realized something wonderful. Cancer was giving me the opportunity to live more attentively, more wholly in the moment. It was letting me be as free and as focused on the present.”
• I think of a a friend who has chronic migraines. He finds it easy to be patient with people and doesn’t have an arrogance about his health.

Each one has found meaning through examining their life in the midst of pain and tragedy. Unfortunately finding and living in our passion always comes with a price.

Take a day and just get alone with yourself. Are you caught in the busy trap? Ready to quit chasing some magic success pill? You won’t find it. Examine your life. Find what really matters and live it. That’s passion. Live what you really believe. Watch your business and life grow.

Is Your Message Interesting?

“A lie can get halfway around the world before the truth can even get its boots on.”

– Mark Twain

Doesn’t his observation ring true? The wildest stories and theories seem to have an enduring life all on their own. Meanwhile, as business people we have a difficult time getting our message in front of our customer, much less getting the customer to say, “Yes.”

So how do you communicate your message effectively? How do you get your ideas noticed? It’s hard, but it’s doable. The customer today is bombared by email, billboards, web, print media, television, elevator messages, radio, etc. That alone makes it likely that your message will not be heard. The customer simply can’t process all the information. Think about it — do you?

So the idea here is to think — how do you nurture your message so that it is interesting? How do you design your message so that it sticks in the mind of the customer?

One of those principles (adapted from Chip and Dan Heath, authors of Made to Stick) is in order to get our audience to pay attention to our message, use the element of surprise. Keep in mind surprise doesn’t last; for our message to endure, we must generate interest and curiosity. Over time we can engage our customers’ curiosity by systematically “opening gaps” in their knowledge —- and then quickly filling those gaps.

Finding the Core

 There are two steps to making your ideas sticky — according to Chip and Dan Heath, authors of Made to Stick.

The first step is to find the core. Finding the core is about discarding a lot of great insights in order to let the most important insight shine. For example, Heb Kelleher, the longest-serving CEO of Southwest Airlines once told someone, “I can teach you the secret to running this airline in thirty seconds. This is it: We are THE low-fare airline. Once you understand that fact, you can make any decision about this company’s future as well as I can.”

He continued, with this example. “Tracy from marketing comes into your office. She says her surveys indicate that the passengers might enjoy a light entree’ on the Houston to Las Vegas flight. All we offer is peanuts, and she thinks a nice chicken Ceasar salad would be popular. What do you say?”

The person stammered for a moment, so Kelleher responded: “You say, ‘Tracy, will adding that chicken Caesar salad make us THE low-fare airline from Houston to Las Vegas? Because if it doesn’t help us become the unchallenged low-fare airline, we’re not serving any damn chicken salad.’ “

This simple idea of finding the core (the intent) has guided the ACTIONS of Southwest’s employees for more than 30 years. It is a well-thought-out simple idea that can be powerful in shaping behavior and actions of the intent of the company and its leaders.

“THE low-fare airline” — simple, memorable, prioritization. Not the words that make the statement — it’s the intent.

Translating the Core

 Many of us struggle with how to communicate ideas effectively, how to get our ideas to make a difference. Good ideas often have a difficult time succeeding in an overcrowded marketplace.

Chip and Dan Heath, two brothers, and authors of Made to Stick share two steps to making your ideas sticky. By “sticky,” we mean that your ideas are understood and remembered, and have an ongoing impact.

The first step is to find the core. Last week I wrote about finding the core. Finding the core is about discarding a lot of great insights in order to let the most important insight shine. The example I used was, Herb Kelleher, the longest-serving CEO of Southwest Airlines. He once told someone, “I can teach you the secret to running this airline in thirty seconds. This is it: We are THE low-fare airline. Once you understand that fact, you can make any decision about this company’s future as well as I can.”

Today we will look at the second step to making your ideas sticky. Step 1 again is about the core. Step 2 according to Chip and Dan Heath is to translate the core using the following checklist which are six principles of sticky ideas:

Principle 1: Simple - “To strip an idea down to its core, we must be masters of exclusion. We must relentlessly prioritize.” Saying something short is not the mission. We must create ideas that are both simple and profound.

Principle 2: Unexpectedness - How do we get our audience to pay attention to our ideas? “We need to violate people’s expectations.” You can do this by “opening gaps” in peoples knowledge — and then filling those gaps.

Principle 3: Concreteness - We need to make our ideas clear. “Mission statements, synergies, strategies, visions — they are often ambiguous to the point of being meaningless. Naturally sticky ideas are full of concrete images because our brains are wired to remember concrete data.”

Principle 4: Credibility - Sticky ideas have to carry their own credentials. We need ways to help people test our ideas for themselves — a “try before you buy” philosophy.

Principle 5: Emotions - How do you get people to care about your ideas? You make them FEEL something.

Principle 6: Stories - How do you get people to act on your ideas? You tell stories and by doing so as the stories are swapped they multiply the experience.

Those are the six principles of successful ideas. To remember, think of the word SUCCESs, a clever acronym to cause it to stick. I also highly recommend reading the book, Made to Stick. The book will delve into all six principles and help think on how to make your ideas sticky.

You Are What You Publish

Stop for a moment and think about one thing — Starbucks. What do you think about their product? Is it a great product? If you were given the opportunity to market Starbucks, would your focus be on the coffee itself? It is their product, correct? But is that what people are really buying at Starbucks?

I don’t think so. I think Starbucks is selling a unique place to meet people. I think it’s a place from my own observation for people to conduct interviews. It’s a place to relax and read a book or watch other people. The reality is that Starbucks appeals to a lot of different buyer personas, and it sells a ton of coffee.

Now put aside your own products and services and think about the BUYER of those products.

Instead of products and services, what about the BUYER? What does the buyer want? When you fully understand the buyer then and only then can you begin to create compelling content to reach them. This takes focus on the right measures of success and a lot of hard work.

The Heart of Selling

 I remember hearing these words several years ago by my mentor, Todd Duncan, who said:

“The heart of selling cannot be seen, it can only be felt.”

You may remember Don Henley (The Eagles) who wrote a popular song years ago that had these words in it — “I’ve been trying to get down to the heart of the matter.”

If you get to the heart of selling, then you will realize it is not about the money. It’s not about success, or ego, awards, products, or price; it’s not about service, or gaining victory. The heart of selling is about fulfillment. It’s about significance, adding value, making a difference, changing lives, and it’s about joy.

The heart of selling is never about YOU.

There are two ways to look at selling:

First: Life is what you do with the time you have left over after you’re finished selling.

or

Second: Selling is what you do with the time you have left over after you have done life.

Which scenario describes you?

If you see the first scenario as your conclusion, then your career occupies the greatest amount of your time. The problem here is if you wait until you are done selling, you may not have the time to do life like you want.

If the second scenario is your reality, then life occupies the greatest amount of your time. Here you will have to clearly decide what you want your life to look like and you will have to SELL WELL to get it.

Most salespeople DO NOT sell well. What is selling well?

• Selling well is a focus on mastering the sales process. Doing business with you is a world-class affair. Most salespeople are consumed with working for the next sale rather than creating an experience to remember for their current customers. Think about it — why do people not remember you?

• Selling well is being efficient and effective. It is not being a slave to inefficiencies. I see it all the time. Most salespeople are playing three to four roles in their business, two to three of which they play mediocre at best. The result — no meaningful productivity.

• Selling well is saying YES to the right things and NO to the wrong things. Most people work hard but not smart and do not know the top three priorities they should be focusing on.

The heart of selling is about your heart. Most salespeople want more life but find themselves frustrated by the cold, stark reality that getting “to the top” requires long hours and less life. This is a lie. You can make a good living and build a good life. You can live and sell in such a way that your dreams on and off the job come true.

Cluttered Minds

I was speaking with a client recently who was dismayed at the erosion of etiquette in business. He remembered when people returned voicemails and were more approachable. Today is a different time. Our ability to create information so much faster changed the rules. We have to change with those rules or we become irrelevant. How fast are you at your work? Get faster or go extinct.

Because a person does not work on their mental mechanics - reading, typing, comprehension, decision making - they will limit their value. How does it play out? Here are a few symptoms:

1. Your customers are disappointed in you because you are slow
2. You lose opportunities
3. You do not see opportunities because of your backlog
4. You react rather than create
5. You drift rather than live

If there were a video camera on you today and how you worked, what grade would you get compared to a high performer? Keep focused on getting better. There is a consequence to neglecting this.