Author: francis

Reflecting on What’s Right

You may be surprised at what starts to happen when you reflect on what is right in your world.

I meet people all the time and they immediately begin to tell me everything that’s wrong with their world. They talk about this and that and how somebody put that in front of them or their steak wasn’t cooked perfect, and they really start angsting about what’s not right in the world. And the same people that are angsting about all of this trivial stuff, live in beautiful homes, have healthy kids and lots of great things going on in their lives. It’s very easy for all of us to focus on what’s wrong but when you begin to always talk about the negative, you can fall into the trap of always having negative thoughts.

Imagine what would happen if instead, we all took the time to reflect on what is right in the world and look at our opportunities.

I’ve been blessed recently to meet a number of people in non-profits that are giving of themselves, like Tim Marks in Tampa who runs Metropolitan Ministries, an amazing organization that is using innovative means to change people’s lives and Nancy Laing, a young lady who is working with our veterans to teach them to transition into the private sector work world.

There is just so much going on that is right. My challenge to everyone who reads this is to reflect on what’s right in your world. When people ask me how I’ve achieved what I’ve achieved and been so successful, one of the main things I can think of that has helped me on my path is always reflecting on what’s right in the world.  We all have challenges – my father committed suicide years ago, my brother died of AIDS back in the eighty’s – there are all kinds of things that happen in our lives that are tragedies that we all have to deal with. But if, at the end of the day, you reflect back on what’s right with your life, it tends to create an aura around you and more right things begin to happen.

I work with a lot of different companies through Adjunct CEO and once we help companies get out of the way of their success and stop bogging that success down with their own self talk, we ask them to talk about and reflect on out what’s right with their business and how they can make it better with an attitude of smiling and focusing on what’s right in the world.  If they go to the next step and begin to consider what they can do to make the world right for everybody they touch, it makes a huge difference.

When you run into positive people, it can make your whole day better.

This past week I was in line at the grocery store buying groceries and this woman who was in her 80s or 90s got in line behind me. She had the biggest smile on her face and we started talking about what a beautiful day it was. I noticed she only had a newspaper and I asked her if she would you like to go in front of me and she said, “no I am way ok, right now I’m having such a great day I’ll just wait my turn and I’ll buy my newspaper,” and I stood there and I thought, “wow, how cool is this person who’s probably had a lot of chapters in her life that we can relate to, that we would angst about but she just had this beautiful outlook.” So, when I was checking out, I asked the cashier if I could pay for her paper. I quietly did so and left the store.  As I’m pushing my cart out, this lady comes up behind me fairly rapidly and she stops me, and she says, “you didn’t need to buy my paper today,” and I said, “you know what, you made my day so cool with what was right in your world. I really appreciate how your perspective on life is what’s right with your world. It was an honour and a privilege to buy your paper today.”

I try to reflect back about what’s right in my world every day. I have five sons and three stepsons and they’re all awesome young men. My number two step son is in the Air Force out protecting our country and I’m so proud of him for enlisting and taking that direction.

And all my other sons are following their passion and when I get to talk to them, I just smile about all the things that have gone right in my life. In my first marriage, my first wife raised our sons to be the men they are with my help but mainly her direction and she’s one of the things that is right with the world. My wife today – I cherish her to death – and she’s out helping her brothers and different people in her community and bringing smiles to them.

Take time today to look in the mirror and ask yourself what’s right in your world, my bet is that the list is pretty long, my bet is when you get up in the morning and you head into work or do whatever you’re going to do tomorrow reflect on what’s right with your life, what’s right with your world and it will put a smile on your face. Then reflect on what’s right in your family, reflect on what’s right in your community, reflect on what’s right with our country, because there’s so much right with our country. And be proud of everything that you come in contact with and go out there and be ambassadors of what’s right in your world, carry that attitude and make somebody else’s day special, so that they’ll be able to reflect on what’s right in their world. You’ll be glad you did, and you’ll be amazed at what starts to happen in your world.

If you have any questions or need some help just email help@adjunctCEO.com.

Talking can lead to three of the biggest mistakes that business owners and sales people can make.

1. Self-Talk or more specifically, letting yourself drown in it.
2. Talking too much instead of listening.
3. Believing Your Excuses.

But there are 3 tools that have been proven effective to stop this bad talk, so your business can succeed, and your sales can skyrocket.

The $5 Solution: Business owners talk about competition and strategies to beat them while giving a lot of reasons and excuses why something’s not working. Talk to any business owner and you’ll hear all the self-talk about their challenges: pricing, we can’t do this, we know we’ve got to do this, we need more, our software isn’t as good, our equipment doesn’t work like this, we can’t sell this and on and on.

Thirty-five years ago, I was working with a CPA firm to help them. They talked about their employees and asked, “how do we get business?” while bemoaning the fact that the marketplace was so competitive.

They were flabbergasted when I told them that I could solve all their problems for five dollars. I said give me a five-dollar bill, they did and I had all the partners write their signatures on it and I said, “I’ll see you next week when I come back”. The following week I came back and I walked in with a frame and mirror that cost $5. I told them everything everyone in their organization was sharing with me was fraught in self talk and that if instead we focused on what they could do, how they could grow their business with facts and numbers, they would grow their business.

Don’t Puke on Your Customers: The number one thing that makes most sales people fail is puking on their customers. I give my sales people a customer presentation clothes protector to remind them that if they start puking, they can give this to the customer to protect their clothes. Another tool I use is a recorder pen. I have my sales people
stick these in their pockets and record their presentations. At the end of the day, they stick it in the USB, e-mail the file and we transpose it. One hundred percent of the time we see the train wreck before it ever got to the crash site, and it never crashed for the reason the person thought it did. What we see by listening back is usually that the sales person is absolutely puking on the customers, not engaging them.

If you want to be successful in sales, learn to ask questions: open ended questions, engaging questions, relationship questions. Find the source of the customer’s pain. What you do is not relevant until you know what they need and can provide an alternative to help them out. If you’re calling on someone you should already know if they are the kind of customer who can use your service so just make sure you’re asking open ended questions and you’re not puking on your customers.

Banish Excuses to the Box: There is a brown box on the conference table in my office that we’ve been using for twenty-five years to help get rid of self-talk and all the nonsense that goes on in our company. It’s an excuse box. Our team has written their five favourite excuses on cards and put them in the box. So, if they start giving an excuse for why they didn’t make a return phone call, they didn’t get a report in or wherever, we say, ‘the excuse you’re about to give is as good as the one that’s in here, so just go ahead and draw one out, what does it say? “my mom had to go to the dentist,” well, we tell them, that’s just as good as the one you’re about to give.’ Your team needs to understand that nobody gets paid for excuses.

The $5 solution, the customer presentation clothes protector and the excuse box – all of these tools are to help remind you that your destination, your success, your future, all of the things that you think that are happening that are against you or that are not right for you, 99% of the time they are controllable by you.

Free Solutions: If you would like any of these tools for free – the $5 solution, customer presentation clothes protector or the excuse box,
send your name and address to help@adjunctceo.com.