As usual with these pieces, there are several items I haven’t found the opportunity to include in normal blog posts, so this is where I can provide a number of short discussions about things capturing my interest and which may capture yours.
Charity Water: Every year, I start a campaign for Charity Water in December, it runs through the end of March. This year’s campaign is another record breaker. My goal is to reach $10K in this campaign (making the collective total for campaigns over $50K). I have a stretch goal of $15K. At this writing, we’re at $6,115, I’ve committed to match the first $2,000, so we are really at $8,115. While that beats the previous campaigns, I need your help to reach this year’s goal.
A couple weeks ago, the folks at Charity:Water called me, it turns out, over time, through these efforts, we have been among the top consistent givers. They told me this year’s campaign will fund wells for a complete village. If we hit $15K, we will fund wells for 2 villages.
I really like Charity:Water, 100% of what we raise goes to projects, and clean, potable water is one of the most critical issues the developing world faces these days. As this year’s campaign winds up, I’d like to thank everyone that has contributed already, some have participated for several years. You don’t know how much I appreciate your support!
For those who haven’t, yet, had the opportunity to contribute, please consider giving.
Shiftabilty: My friends, Mitch Little and Hendre Coetzee have written a fascinating book. Shiftability is not your usual sales book. In fact it’s different from any other sales book you’ve read. You won’t learn the latest greatest ways to prospect, qualify, handle objections or close. But those aren’t the critical issues sellers face today. Everything about buying has changed, everything about selling is changing, but there is one critical questions the authors pose, “Have you changed?”
This is the fundamental issue impacting organizations and sales people worldwide, with everything else changing, too many would respond to that question with a resounding “No!”
To be successful today’s rapidly changing world, the authors suggest we have master a quality called “Shiftability.” Shiftability is a no compromise approach–it’s about awareness and action, adapting and changing, continually challenging and learning. It’s about mindset and purposefulness. It’s about acquiring new skills and engaging customers differently.
Shiftability will shift your view of what it takes to be a top performer in today’s complex world. It’s written by one of the top sales executives and one of the top leadership coaches in the world. It’s filled with wisdom that only those who been long term top performers can gain. Mitch and Hendre make the lessons from their wisdom incredibly understandable, accessible, and executable by any person wanting to be a top performer.
Make sure you study this book, annotate it, question it and reread it, then prepare yourself to be Shifted.
As a final note, Mitch and Hendre have started their own Charity:Water campaign. 100% of the profits will be donated to Charity:Water. In speaking with him several weeks, ago, they had already raised several thousand dollars (Which is both great for Charity:Water and tells you people are loving the book!)
Agility Selling: The Power Of Problems: Tim Ohai and Brian Lambert have collaborated in an important book on an important FREE Book. Selling is really about focused problem solving. We find customers with problems we can solve. We help them discover what they can achieve, inciting them to change. We help them learn and discover, facilitating their problem solving and buying process.
Too often, however, we struggle to do this. We struggle to engage customers on the issues most critical to them. We and our customers struggle with defining what they seek to achieve and the problem solving process-largely because we don’t know how to structure the problem and organize to address it. We and our customers get overwhelmed with the complexity of these problems.
Tim and Brian’s book is a short guide to help sales people create more value in solving problems important to them. Make sure you download a copy of Agility Selling: The Power Of Problems.
The No 1 Best Seller, by Lee Bartlett, is a fascinating, almost autobiographical read of Lee’s continued journey to be a top sales performer in each sales job he’s had (and continues to have.) What I loved about the book, is the consistency with which Lee approaches each role in his goal to be the top sales person. The discipline, planning, preparation, research, relentless execution, focus, and perseverance are qualities critical to top sales performance.
Lee didn’t start with all those qualities, but in his quest to be a top performer, learned those were among the things he had to do to succeed.
Lee’s journey to being a top sales performer is interesting in other ways. There are plenty of things Lee talks about, which I have a differing views. But the power of the book is that it made me think about those things. It made me challenge my own beliefs about top sales performance. This reflection is important. Whether you agree with everything he discusses in the book, it’s important for each of us to think about what we are doing, how we grow professionally, what we stand for, and how we perform at the highest levels possible.
Don’t just read The No 1 Best Seller to learn about Lee’s journey to top sales performance. Make sure you use it to challenge your own thinking about top sales performance.
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