What Do Bernie Madoff and Mark Sanford Have In Common?

Last week a tearful Mark Sanford stood before a television audience and admitted to lying to his wife, his staff and his constituents in an effort to hide an illicit affair. Yesterday, Bernie Madoff, the perpetrator of the biggest Ponzi scheme the world has ever seen, was sentenced to 150 years in prison. It is estimated that he ripped off and screwed investors and friends who trusted him out of more than $50 billion. As tragic as this is it pales in comparison to the damage he did to people’s psyche around the world. Like Sanford, he intentionally lied to, mislead and violated the trust of people who put their faith and entrusted their fortunes with him.

In this climate of uncertainty, fear and distrust Madoff and Sanford, and the media coverage surrounding their deeds, inflicted great psychological pain, suffering and uncertainty on the public. While their deeds are despicable, they are not alone when it comes to misleading and abusing the faith and trust that people have given them.

There are numerous individuals, organizations and institutions that have collectively been responsible for the loss of trust in our country and our society. The list of politicians that have lied and continue to lie would exhaust the length of this article. Suffice it to say that like the mythical Diogenes of Sinope, who wandered through the streets during the day carrying a lamp in an attempt to find an honest man, finding an honest politician from either side of the aisle would be difficult.

Our religious leaders and institutions also bear a responsibility for the current climate of mistrust, cynicism and betrayal. Religious leaders like Jim Baker, Jimmy Swaggart, Catholic priests, and phony evangelists have all contributed to our current mental anguish.

Businesses such as Enron, AIG, Bear Stearns and the recent bankruptcy of General Motors along with the lack of leadership and the raping and pillaging of these companies by their executives just adds fuel to fire and creates more distrust in the marketplace.

It is in this paranoid economic climate that you, the professional salesperson, has to contend. Do not underestimate the enormous difficulty of your task. You are operating in the most difficult selling environment that the world has ever seen. And unfortunately, it will probably get worse. Do not believe for one minute that prospects and buyers believe anything that you tell them, or anything that your advertising and marketing claims, or any sales copy you write. We are working in an environment of betrayal, disbelief, fear, pain - all things that buyers and prospects wish to avoid.

Your most important job as a professional salesperson in this environment is to neutralize the buyers fear and distrust of you, your company, your product, and your profession. If you fail to realize how important this is and don’t devote the time and effort to develop effective strategies and processes that reduce buyers fears and anxiety you will fail miserably. You must realize that buyers don’t care or believe anything about your product, service, or price until they first have trust in you.

As Dennis Waitely, former Blues Angles pilot and psychologist for the US Olympic team says’ “people don’t buy products and services, they buy the person bringing them in.”

While it is true that mastery of basic reading, writing, and computation skills are necessary to function in a highly competitive global environment our society -most notable academics and educators whose ranks I used to belong - mistakenly believe that the more education one acquires the more successful they will become. Not true. Education does not necessarily and automatically equal success. This myth can be disproved by looking at the number of educated individuals in the workplace who are mediocre and who often routinely under perform.

When you pull up the skirt and look under the academic table you will find many self-serving motivations behind the perpetuation of this myth - most notably the motivation of self preservation and self justification by the educators themselves.

For the record I have two college degrees. A BS and a Master’s in the field of education. I have also taught at the university level, so my observations come from someone who has been an insider.

If knowledge is not the key then what is?

The key is behavior not knowledge and not attitude - although attitude and behavior often mirror each other. When it is all said and done, it is what you do not know or how you feel or think that produces results. Behavior dictates attitude not vice versa. Behavior changes body chemistry in such as way as to produce chemical compounds that enhance one’s feeling. A perfect example of this is exercise. Regardless of how one feels, if you engage in exercise of sufficient intensity and duration there is a pleasurable “natural high” that is obtained through the release of endorphins.

If you want a formula for success here is what I suggest. An adequate knowledge base of the subject material plus years of dedicated bust-ass hard work coupled by a positive expectancy of results. In this culture of instant gratification, “give me a shortcut “and “I want it now” this is not a formula that will be accepted by the weak, lazy and soft mass of mediocrity. I urge you to embrace this truth - even if unattractive - and go to work immediately to make your dreams come true. If you do you will find that you have no competition.

There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.

Have you been to a restaurant or mall lately? If you have you know that it is hard to find a parking space. Twice recently, my wife and I have gone to upscale local restaurants and have had to stand in line to get a table.

Just this past weekend the new movie release of Angels and Demons grossed over $48,000,000 in ticket sales and Star Trek followed closely behind with $43,000,000. All total the top ten movies across the US grossed over $128,000,000 dollars in ticket sales in just three days. That doesn’t include money spent at restaurants and bars before and after the movies or the money spent on high priced concessions. When you consider that all of these expenditures are discretionary spending the so called recession takes on a whole different meaning.

While it is true that certain industries like automotive, retail and housing are in the toilet other segments of the economy, like the entertainment industry, money is flowing freely.

While consumers are not spending as freely as they were a year ago, it is important to realize that they are still spending huge sums of money. In fact, by some accounts, spending is only off 5% - 7% year over year. That means consumers are still spending 93% - 95% of what they spent a year ago. They may be more discriminating and cautious, but they are still spending trillions of dollars on everything they were spending money on a year ago.

If you want to get your share of the money being spent you should do your homework and determine who is spending the money and what are they spending it on. Once you do this you can tailor your product or service offering to that niche and provide them what they want. That may mean selling to a different group of people than you are accustomed to selling to or selling a different way than you are used to or even selling a different product offering than you have sold before. Yes you will have to change because buyer’s habits have changed. They have not stopped buying they are just buying differently.

What is your most valuable resource? If you said anything other than time you would be wrong. Time is the only non-renewable resource you will ever have. You can acquire more of almost everything except time. More friends, more money, more possessions, more wealth can all be acquired but you can’t acquire more time.

As a sales professional you are paid in direct proportion to how well you use your time. There are 1,440 minutes in a day. How many of those minutes are you productive? How many of those minutes do you waste?

By most accounts people are productive less than ten percent of those 1,440 minutes each day. Lee Iacocca, one of the most well respected CEOs of our time, admitted that he was productive only about forty-five minutes each day. Various studies have shown that salespeople are productive at most about 90 minutes each day.

If you think you are more productive I challenge you to do this time productivity activity. Take a legal pad and in the left hand margin write out, in fifteen increments, the hours of the day. Each 15 minutes track and write down what you did. Do this as you go through the day not at the end of the day when your memory will fail you. Do this for three weeks and then analyze how much of your time is spent doing non-productive activities. If you keep an accurate record you will be astounded.

Once you come to the honest realization that you are wasting at least 80% of your working day, you may want to employ some of the following techniques to help you become more productive:

• 1. Turn off the cell phone and quit answering in-bound phone calls unless you are the receptionist. Telephone usage is out of control. People are addicted to the ringing of the phone the way Pavlov’s dogs were addicted to the ringing of the bell. As a result they are constantly interrupted and suffer from poor productivity.

• 2. Minimize meetings. Most business meetings are a waste of time. They are attended by participants that erroneously think attendance constitutes productivity. They are punctuated by long discussions that seldom solve anything or result in decisions being made. If you must have a meeting, have one with no chairs in the room and no food or drink served. This will encourage people to get the business done so they can return to the comfort of their cubicle where they can prop their feet up on their desk and check their email or surf the web.

• 3. Be on time. One of my mentors, Dan Kennedy says that the single greatest characteristic of successful people is their punctuality. Being punctual is an integrity issue that illustrates whether or not one can be trusted. Personally, I will not buy from a salesperson that is late for their appointment.

• 4. Make and use written lists. Every successful salesperson I know makes and uses written lists. Daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly and annual lists. Lists engage the subconscious and help keep us focused on what needs to be done. Highly successful sales people have far too much going on to try and keep all the things they must do in their head.

• 5. Schedule your time in chunks. When planning your day schedule your time by blocking out important things first on your calendar. After the important chucks are blocked out go back and plug in the less important items. Be sure to plug in time for returning phone calls and planning.

• 6. Make use of idle time. Turn off the radio and turn your vehicle into a Rolling University by listening to audio programs during commute time and driving to and from sales appointments. Carry reading material with you at all times and make use of the minutes that you now waste when you have to wait.

• 7. Minimize unplanned time. Learn to discipline yourself by living by a routine and schedule. Leave little to chance and schedule everything including leisure time. Doing this eliminates stress, makes you more focused and productive and most of all gives you peace of mind.

Ben Franklin said it best when he said, “Do not squander time - it is the stuff life is made of.” The day of accounting will come and you will look back on your life and either be glad you managed your time well or you will regret that you did not.

There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is fair, whatever is pure, whatever is acceptable, whatever is commendable, if there is anything of excellence and if there is anything praiseworthy-keep thinking about these things. Philippians 4:8

Is your glass half full or is it half empty. Are you optimistic and hopeful about the future or are you fearful and full or doom and gloom?

If you believe the news media the world is going to hell in a hand basket. Not true.  Yes things are difficult but we have been here before. In the late 70’s and early 80’s there was double digit interest rates, unemployment and runaway inflation but personal income, as adjusted for inflation is up 20% since the 1960s.

Why All the Pessimism

In order to understand what is going on you have to take a really hard look at who the purveyors of negativity are and then drill down to understand their agenda. Without a doubt the purveyors of negativity are the media - both electronic and print. The volume of their message and the size of their audience make it easy for them to influence, persuade and downright “brainwash” the uneducated, intellectually lazy mass of humanity.

When one drills down on the stories that appear on the nightly news and the front pages of morning newspapers there is an unmistakable trend and it is all negative. Why the negative you might ask.

Good question

The simple answer is that negative news sells newspapers and network airtime. And newspapers and networks make their money from advertising. The more viewers or readers the more the cost of the advertising space. The media knows all too well that the best way to drawn a crowd is to promote negativity by showing natural disasters of epic proportion, gruesome murders, rapes, kidnappings, celebrity misfortunes, etc.

Politicians of all stripes know, just as well, that when people are stirred up and fearful they are more easily manipulated and controlled. For an example of this, I refer you to the hysteria surrounding TARP 1 and the ensuing rush to action by Congress. Paulson and Bush succeeded in hoodwinking Congress that 700 billion dollars needed to be given to the banks immediately even though there was no plan or accountability in place about how they would spend it. The politicians got out politicked.

Promoting fear allows politicians to capitalize by promoting themselves as some sort of hero with a magic solution to a multitude of societal ills - can you say Obama. It is the oldest psychological trick in the book and yet people still fall for it. All of this is very carefully controlled and orchestrated. If you think otherwise you are indeed naïve.

You can choose fear or you can choose hope.

Warren Buffett chooses hope.

“Fear is very contagious. You can get fearful in 5 minutes, but you don’t get confident in 5 minutes.” - Warren Buffett said on CNBC, Monday, March 9, 2009

CNBC: “We’ve been getting thousands and thousands of emails from our viewers. Warren, we’d like to start with one that echoes a theme we heard again and again. This one comes from Terry in San Antonio, Texas, who asks, ‘Will everything be all right?’”

BUFFETT: “Everything will be all right. We do have the greatest economic machine that man has ever created. We started with 4 million people back in 1790 and look where we’ve come. And it wasn’t because we were smarter than other people. It wasn’t because our land was more fertile or we had more minerals or our climate was more favorable. We had a system that worked. It unleashed the human potential. It didn’t work every year. We had 6 ‘panics’ in the 19th century. In the 20th century we had the Great Depression, World Wars, all kinds of things. But we have a system - largely free market, rule of law, equality of opportunity - all of those things that cause the potential of humans to get unleashed. And we’re far from done. Your kids will live better than mine. Your grandchildren will live better than your kids. There’s no question about that. But the machine gets gummed up from time to time. If you take the bulk of those centuries, probably 15 years were bad years. But we go forward.”

Buffett spoke with Becky Quick of CNBC for 3-hours. Instead of focusing on the affirming, positive statements (such as the one above) the editors and directors of CNBC choose to go with, “Warren Buffett Says ‘The Economy Fell Off a Cliff.”

Why?

There is an old saying in the newspaper business that says, “If it bleeds it leads”. Now you know why.

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is fair, whatever is pure, whatever is acceptable, whatever is commendable, if there is anything of excellence and if there is anything praiseworthy-keep thinking about these things. Philippians 4:8

Is your glass half full or is it half empty. Are you optimistic and hopeful about the future or are you fearful and full or doom and gloom?

If you believe the news media the world is going to hell in a hand basket. Not true.  Yes things are difficult but we have been here before. In the late 70’s and early 80’s there was double digit interest rates, unemployment and runaway inflation but personal income, as adjusted for inflation is up 20% since the 1960s.

Why All the Pessimism

In order to understand what is going on you have to take a really hard look at who the purveyors of negativity are and then drill down to understand their agenda. Without a doubt the purveyors of negativity are the media - both electronic and print. The volume of their message and the size of their audience make it easy for them to influence, persuade and downright “brainwash” the uneducated, intellectually lazy mass of humanity.

When one drills down on the stories that appear on the nightly news and the front pages of morning newspapers there is an unmistakable trend and it is all negative. Why the negative you might ask.

Good question

The simple answer is that negative news sells newspapers and network airtime. And newspapers and networks make their money from advertising. The more viewers or readers the more the cost of the advertising space. The media knows all too well that the best way to drawn a crowd is to promote negativity by showing natural disasters of epic proportion, gruesome murders, rapes, kidnappings, celebrity misfortunes, etc.

Politicians of all stripes know, just as well, that when people are stirred up and fearful they are more easily manipulated and controlled. For an example of this, I refer you to the hysteria surrounding TARP 1 and the ensuing rush to action by Congress. Paulson and Bush succeeded in hoodwinking Congress that 700 billion dollars needed to be given to the banks immediately even though there was no plan or accountability in place about how they would spend it. The politicians got out politicked.

Promoting fear allows politicians to capitalize by promoting themselves as some sort of hero with a magic solution to a multitude of societal ills - can you say Obama. It is the oldest psychological trick in the book and yet people still fall for it. All of this is very carefully controlled and orchestrated. If you think otherwise you are indeed naïve.

You can choose fear or you can choose hope.

Warren Buffett chooses hope.

“Fear is very contagious. You can get fearful in 5 minutes, but you don’t get confident in 5 minutes.” - Warren Buffett said on CNBC, Monday, March 9, 2009

CNBC: “We’ve been getting thousands and thousands of emails from our viewers. Warren, we’d like to start with one that echoes a theme we heard again and again. This one comes from Terry in San Antonio, Texas, who asks, ‘Will everything be all right?’”

BUFFETT: “Everything will be all right. We do have the greatest economic machine that man has ever created. We started with 4 million people back in 1790 and look where we’ve come. And it wasn’t because we were smarter than other people. It wasn’t because our land was more fertile or we had more minerals or our climate was more favorable. We had a system that worked. It unleashed the human potential. It didn’t work every year. We had 6 ‘panics’ in the 19th century. In the 20th century we had the Great Depression, World Wars, all kinds of things. But we have a system - largely free market, rule of law, equality of opportunity - all of those things that cause the potential of humans to get unleashed. And we’re far from done. Your kids will live better than mine. Your grandchildren will live better than your kids. There’s no question about that. But the machine gets gummed up from time to time. If you take the bulk of those centuries, probably 15 years were bad years. But we go forward.”

Buffett spoke with Becky Quick of CNBC for 3-hours. Instead of focusing on the affirming, positive statements (such as the one above) the editors and directors of CNBC choose to go with, “Warren Buffett Says ‘The Economy Fell Off a Cliff.”

Why?

There is an old saying in the newspaper business that says, “If it bleeds it leads”. Now you know why.

The cost of obtaining a new client is 5 -7 times more expensive, time consuming and energy sucking than the cost of maintaining the same client.

In light of this why do sellers spend most of their time flitting around and consuming enormous sums of time and energy in search of the next client or customer? Could it be that sellers don’t understand the lifetime value of an existing customer or they don’t have a client retention strategy or is it because those who manage them don’t teach them how important client retention really is? Maybe it’s a combination of all three of these.

Regardless of why it is critical in today’s New Economy that sellers go the extra mile and put forth the effort to keep valuable clients and customers because client acquition is only going to become more difficult, more costly and more time consuming.

Assuming you buy into the importance of client retention here are some thoughts that will help you increase the lifetime value of clients by keeping them in your corral longer.

Nothing beats a face to face, press the flesh strategy. If you are to increase client retention you must spend more time in the presence of your customers and clients. No amount of emails, advertising, no quantity of printed matter, or new technology or media regardless of how sophisticated it is will be as effective as an in person visit. That never changes regardless of the economy. This is a lesson that most sellers have either forgotten or never learned. Five face to face minutes trumps five years of stuff sent over airwaves, through web sites and through the mail. Every seller should think long and hard about this. Yes, it is nice to do business long distance with technology, but your bond with even your best customers is weak and fragile if this is all you do. If you insist on doing this your weakness will be exposed at some point and your business will suffer – most likely when there is a downturn in the economy such as we are seeing now.

You and I and everyone else are in the relationship business. Contrary to what you may think you are not in the business of selling products and services. You are to quote Theodore Levitt of Harvard, “in the business of acquiring and keeping customers.” And the way you do that is by connecting with people at the human level.

Quite frankly, products and services are simply commodities. Regardless of what propaganda your company’s marketing department may put out there is not a nickel’s worth of difference between what you sell and what your competitors sell. Even if you have an exclusive whiz bang thing-a-ma-gig someone will figure out a way to knock it off within a short period of time and chances are they will offer it to the marketplace cheaper than you.

The one thing that cannot be duplicated or knocked off is your relationship with your customers. Focus your time and energy developing quality relationships with your most valuable customers. I promise you that you will be glad you did.

I am writing to you from beautiful Edisto Beach, SC where my wife and I are enjoying a week long winter vacation. We have rented a 7 bedroom house directly on the beach. Later in the week we will be joined by five other couples that I went to high school with in Columbia. This promises to be our own version of the Big Chill weekend circa 2009. I will post pictures for all to see on Facebook. If you are not my Facebook friend you can become one going to Facebook and searching for me using my email address sclark@newschoolselling.com. You can also follow me on Twitter and LinkedIn.

I just returned from Harrisburg, PA where I conducted a day long “Selling to the Affluent” seminar hosted by Clear Channel. If you have the ability to draw a crowd and would like me to do the same seminar in your market I have some limited availability to do so. The best part is that there is no cost to you other than my travel expenses. That’s right - I am willing to do a limited number of these and waive my daily fee of $9400.00. If you have any interest be quick like a bunny and contact me before these dates are gone.

Check out these comments from attendees:

Steve,

Just wanted to thank you again for all the good info you shared last Friday in Harrisburg

on marketing. I now know more about marketing than I thought I did.

I look forward to the wealth of knowledge you have to share and incorporating it into my

daily business. Once again a thousand thank you’s. Look forward to hearing from you

and have a fantastic vacation.

Tim McKenna

Aspen Home Improvements

*****************************

Steve,

It was an honor to have spent the day learning from you last Friday (2/20) in Harrisburg. Today is the first business day of my new, revitalized path to sales success! Thank you!

Good selling,

Darren Reighard

Benefit Connections, Inc.

This morning I attended a breakfast with Dr. David E. Altig, Senior Vice President and Director of Research at the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta. This is one of many meetings the Fed is calling a “Case for Confidence” where various members of the Fed are traveling around the country in an effort to explain the role of the Fed and to instill confidence in business owners.

Dr. Altig was candid and transparent about the economy and the role of the Fed in the current economic climate.

Here are some of his comments:

• This recession will be the worst since World War II
• Home prices will continue to fall with no real end in sight
• We are in the midst of an economic change that will result in a new financial and banking system
• This recession will pass but no one knows how long it will last - it has already lasted 14 months which is the 3^rd longest recession since WW II
• There is hope but there is no guarantee that all the Fed intervention and stimulus will revive the economy
• If the government doesn’t get it right we could be in for the longest and worse recession in history

My take on all of this is that we should proceed with deliberation and carefully thought out strategies and plans for how to conduct our businesses.