Pursuit of Excellence

For the sake of consistency, posts will start in the month of February, and be bi-weekly.

Items in italics are direct quotes from the articles below

https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/307049

Whether you’re in the steel industry, fashion or IT, selling is integral to your company’s success. A good sales team, though, does more than just sell product. Sales roles are customer-facing and interact with prospective customers, too. They’re responsible for bringing in and keeping a steady stream of business. It’s a good idea to keep in mind that your salespeople have the potential for greatness — potential you can use strategically to your advantage. At our company, the value of a good sales team has come into sharper focus with every passing year. In an increasingly competitive marketplace, there’s an urgency like never before. Businesses must stand out with a unique and clear value proposition. Having a great product is one way to rise above the crowd, but it’s far from the only way — or even the best. Here are five things your sales team is selling besides product, whether they realize it or not. And if they don’t already, it’s important they begin to ASAP. Those five things are: Your story, your culture, your team, your processes and services, and the truth. For me the order is important, so it’s worth noting that the author stated that the first of the five things is your story. As the first people who speak with potential customers, your salespeople are front-line brand ambassadors for your company. They’re selling your reputation. Even more important, they’re telling the story behind who and what you are, how you got there and where you’re going. It’s important for the sales team to be able to be story tellers. The story of the company should be deeply ingrained into the person’s mind. If the person is passionate about where he works, then he will easily share the company to others both on and off the clock. Even if the person is new to sales then the team should take it upon themselves to educate the person and help the person become comfortable about telling the story of the company. Personally, when I went to interview for a job I wanted, I researched the company and was able to tell the hiring manager everything about the company itself. Last — but certainly not least — it’s vital that sales teams are honest. Too many teams use fabrications and hyperbole to bring in sales. Their people don’t consider the consequences of these tactics until after the fact. Think about it: If you sell someone a lie, especially in today’s digital age, it will come back to haunt your company. It could be in the form of a bad online review or even a lawsuit. This year I’m re-building my life around the Principle of Honesty. It’s not that I was dishonest before, but I will say when you live out this principle, it gives you a level of energy you didn’t realize you had before. Whatever is in the darkness will eventually come to light. Don’t be a slave to the numbers but be true to yourself and your own integrity.

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/02/apple-co-founder-steve-wozniaks-simple-formula-for-happiness.html

When Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak was young, he defined a successful life for himself — one that, despite its radical simplicity, has worked for almost 50 years. “I thought out my philosophies when I was about 20 years old … How do you do in life? … How do you become a good person?” explains Wozniak, speaking at the at the Nordic Business Forum in Stockholm on January 24. He continues, “It if I died and had all this wealth and yachts and all this stuff, would I be as happy as when I laugh? And I thought about pranks I played and jokes I had told and music I would hear that would make me smile, and I came up with my formula that life is about happiness.” Yes, a formula. Always the engineer.
His simple formula is Happiness equals smiles minus frowns or H = S – F. Woz describes the best way to decrease the number of frowns by decreasing how much you care you are going to frown. When bad situations happen, let the situation go. In these situations, complaining or blaming others is just going to make things worse, says Wozniak. So will judging other people. “And don’t argue. Don’t argue! You don’t win an argument, you just walk away unhappy,” says Wozniak. “You only have to convince one person in life, and that is yourself. I think that he consistently forgives or releases others in a way that allows him to smile more. It’s this attitude that drew him into computers. It wasn’t the money. “I was never into money in any way — finance — to this day I have never used Apple stock app, I don’t buy and sell stock,” Wozniak says. In fact, Wozniak sold virtually all his bitcoin holdings when the price shot up so he wouldn’t be compelled to watch the price yo-yo. “I don’t want that kind of care in my life. Part of my happiness is not to have worries.” Of course, Wozniak is worth millions, by one account as much as $100 million, so perhaps that’s easy to say. But there is one thing that makes him mad, he says: illogical, counter-intuitive machine user experience. Your core values and principles will drive your personal and professional life. I recommend using these values completely. Let who you are in private be who you are in public. Let there be no division, so you can truly experience happiness.

This week, I’ve included Most Powerful Speech Ever Given! – TD JAKES Motivational Speech [MOTIVATION 2018] from the Motivation Archive YouTube channel.

“If you think you know it all, you’re a fool for sure; real survivors learn wisdom from others.”

Proverbs 28:26 MSG