The road between Sioux Falls and Omaha meanders across cornfields, rivers and farmhouses. A perfect place to think through the previous weeks successes while driving to make a plane back home. 15 years ago I had begun thinking about what I wanted to do in my life that mattered and I realized that if I took my skills at selling and managing sales people, adjusted it a little bit, I could fundamentally change the way sales is done globally.
The proof of that concept showed up last week and I think Mother Nature wanted to let me know she was paying attention. I work with a company that has 2 major divisions of sales people and their summer sales conferences were both this week. I was the leader of both, one in Flagstaff, Arizona, one in North Western Iowa.
The day before going up to Flagstaff to organize the conference, I received a call letting me know that there was a fire outside the hotel, Little America, and it had been evacuated. The conference was on hold pending arrangements. Fortunately the fire turned away from the hotel and we were allowed in on Sunday though all the way up the hill during the drive, clouds of smoke billowed over the city from now two fires in town. The 30 some attendee's at the conference demonstrated an amazing shift also.
For over a year, we have made a huge effort to get this team to move from presenting the solution to diagnosing the problem first. At this conference they presented again. This time though, they presented their capacity to change. Like a battleship turning slowly, we could see the team shifting into a diagnostic mode and learning the skills to do so. They left reporting the single best conference the company had invited them to attend. I think they left with the comfort and confidence to try new skills out in the field. Turns out we just had to light a little fire under them...
Off to Iowa, to repeat the process with the second division. Flying in at midnight to the center of the College World Series required finding lodging a little ways up the road from Omaha. Missouri Valley is really only about 15 minutes up the road and I had reservations there. Tornadoes got there first.
GPS told me I was in the right place. Utter darkness told me I was no place. Apparently a tornado took out all the electricity for miles around and I couldn't see it cuz it was you know, dark. Found a place another 40 miles up the road and made it to the conference in time.
This team, a staid, conservative, and older team of sales people got it too. Some of them with as much time in selling as I have in living. This team went through the same program after a year of working with them and demonstrated an excellent capacity to twist their thinking to a much stronger skill set of questioning and listening. Their funnels are improving and there are less clouds on their horizon. As a sales team of Christian Curriculum, what was fantastic about this is, this team recognized a powerful way of selling with dignity and integrity, how to build bonds simply by listening and asking good questions.
Now I am riding in the car with my buddy Arturo Fuente and he is glowing, along with me about the joys of lighting up sales people to red hot effectiveness. Looks like we are going to have a hot sales year.
Respectfully submitted,
Michael D Goodman
PS, Thanks for allowing me to wander around in my own happiness for a day. Thanks for joining in the celebration of success this week represents of the last 15 years worth of work to fundamentally change the way sales is done. MDG
Tomorrow - The Secular Value of Spirituality for Sales People.
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