What is your personal mission statement? What is your personal vision statement? Let’s start with vision. Vision may be steeped in idealism, but for it to become reality, one must believe in the possibility of its achievement. You must not only believe to your core in its realization, but you must take those actions that are consistent with your mission. Your mission must extend beyond the material. Mission that is the progeny of purpose becomes a noble obligation. Obligation extends beyond monetary compensation – the reward will be in the “doing”. Get ready for those weird looks. People fear change and uncertainty. They prefer the comfort of the known. People seek association with the friendly and familiar.
I think people look within themselves to gain comfort and certainty, they often will export their reasons as yours; they will seek to “pour and form” you into the mold that expands or contracts to the limits of their understanding and comfort. It is the disrupter that changes the game by re-writing the rules. The disrupter is on the cutting-edge, which is one slip, misstep or proverbial nick away from the bleeding-edge. You’ll gain attention, you’ll win the hearts of the brave, but you’ll find difficulty enrolling those who live to play it safe. You are either a participant in the game of life or you are an observer on the sidelines, away from the risk of contact. Get on the field! Put yourself in play! Go for it! Contact is where the reward is generated from the risk.
Awareness creates choice. Be aware that our nature is to seek association with the friendly and familiar. Once you understand this, you can find the strength to expand your conformation bias, prejudice or rote model of thinking. You can then countenance the possibility, that “different” may be the best alternative, source or path.
Build a platform of trust, one engagement at a time. Personal connection may begin in the firm clasp of a handshake as you look directly into that person’s eyes. It becomes strengthened when you are fully immersed in the communication and connection of conversation; conversation that isn’t diluted and redirected by distraction. What are distractions? Cell phones and other interruptions that exhibit more care for an electronic gadget than the person next to, or across the table from you. You want to lose a deal without even knowing you’ve lost it? Keep checking your cell phone. It will send a direct signal to another’s subconscious that you’re going to treat them as a secondary consideration in the future because, after all, that’s what you’re doing in the present.
Build trust by executing each request in a timely fashion. You will begin to meet or exceed expectations as you build a baseline of performance. Baselines are foundations for trust, poured and formed from consistency; meet or exceed the expectations of another in each and every interaction and you will continue to raise the baseline. You become separate and distinct from your competitors when you continue to raise the baseline of performance expectation. In a sales organization, and every organization is a sales organization, if price is equal, realized performance is the deciding vote. This is termed “putting the customer first”, and you put the customer first by providing a standard of care that customer realizes as an exceptional experience. If you would like to know how they reinforce their experience, follow the money. They either stay with you, or they find a way to leave if you don’t provide for an exceptional experience.
You will gain distinction by executing the fundamentals. Know that many confuse expedient with effective. Choose to be effective, professional, courteous and empathetic. You will open the gates to trust when your word becomes your bond and your actions deliver the commitment behind the promise of the prose.
Know this: the initial meeting with someone is a subconscious minefield (or “mind-field”) littered with Four “F”s – fight, flight or freeze, the fourth, I will leave open to the interpretation of the dirty minded… When we first meet someone, we asses each other as friend or foe, adversary or ally. This isn’t a cognitive decision, it’s the call of self-preservation, otherwise known as instinct. Instinct is going to guard the gates to trust. Don’t show up and immediately throw up a bunch of concepts/ideas. If consistent behavior is recognized as having value by another, emotion may begin to lower the drawbridge. Once the drawbridge is lowered, logic can enter the “castle” of the cognitive, validating or invalidating emotional trust.
Think and feel. But feel first and then think. Feel what it is that drives you forward. Take money out of the equation, take family out of the equation, they will be earned and fed commensurate with the power of your purpose, the vibrancy of your passion, the sum of your skill and the tenacity of your will.
