Everything is an opportunity

The most successful people have a thirst for learning, developing and maintain a high level of skills. My daily mantra is: “I will learn from every interaction.” I think selling is a matter of constant and continuous error correction and learning. The best salespersons I know have confidence and are humble enough to accept that there is more that they don’t know than what they do know. Everything is an opportunity, every won deal, every lost deal, every interaction, every presentation is an opportunity to evaluate and learn then adjust and do it better next time.

“Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.”

— Seneca

Sales has this weird paradox, for example, when you are in front of customers, they want you to be confident. When you are not in front of customers, you are pulling apart your interactions and generally behaving in an insecure way so that you can see the things that you should be seeing. This combination of confidence and confident vulnerability is the sweet spot where curiosity meet anxiety and is where you will fine tune your sales performance.

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Wisdom on Wednesday

Nowadays we have very few guidelines and an awful lot of options, and all these options are giving us quite a bit of uncertainty and self-doubt. We need leaders that can create big promises to customers, and help their organisations deliver on those promises. Leaders who master both strategy and execution start by building a bold but executable strategy. Next, they ensure that the company is investing behind the change. And last, they make sure the entire organisation is motivated to go the journey.

There are 4 parts of emotional intelligence (EQ):

1.         Self-awareness
2.         Self-management
3.         Empathising
4.         Social skills

Within each and every one of these domains are there specific learned and learnable abilities that will make sales executives outstanding performers. Within the self-management cluster there’s not only better managing of negative emotions, there’s also adaptability. Maintaining a positive outlook, no matter what happens in your life, keeping an eye on that long-term goal despite setbacks, obstacles, and distractions. Mindfulness doesn’t help you directly with any of these but if you want to look at all the EQ attributes and competencies then I’ll be willing to guide you through the process of additional learning. Contact me via e-mail for 1-on-1 executive coaching.

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Learnings from 2020

Last weekend, my son had his Confirmation (coming of age celebration - an affirmation of faith in God and it is also seen as the transition ritual from a child to adult). During the reception one of his friends asked me a question - What is the biggest lesson you have learned in 2020?

I was quite impressed that a 15-year-old was thinking on such a deep level.
My answer was that I’ve learned that during times of crisis, you can either be a giver or you can be a taker and you choose who you want to be. When this pandemic is over and I look back or you look back, the question we will ask ourselves – “What were you, were you someone who gave and helped during the pandemic or were you someone who took?” So I learned that we have a role to play and you have a choice.

Hellerup Kirke, 15.08.2020

“If” by Rudyard Kipling is one of my favourite poems, do you know it?

If you can dream and not make dreams your master; 
If you can think and not make thoughts your aim; 
If you can meet with triumph and disaster; 
And treat those two impostors just the same,

If you can fill the unforgiving minute 
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run, 
Yours is the earth and everything that in it, 
And, what is more, you’ll be a man, my son.

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