"Act Like You've Been There Before"

I believe that this is an old Lou Holtz saying from his coaching years at Notre Dame, but he is not who I learned this truth from, nor do I plan to relate it to football in any form or fashion.  I was first introduced to this powerful group of words in the hay-day of my professional sales career, and now that I'm moving on, figure I could 'pay it forward' in hopes that their power can help some others as well!  

A bit on my background first...  I come out of a long run of Information Technology sales for a national reseller, which like any other sales job, involves aquiring customers, developing customers and retaining customers.  I'm no longer involved in IT sales as it simply wore me out, but what I can tell so far from a lot of the recent direct sales research that I've done, is that the strategy isn't a whole lot different.  Please comment on that notion at will!

I started off my career like any entry-level rep in this vast box-pushing world of ours by pounding the phones, making a hundred calls each day to small and medium sized businesses, and playing the numbers game until I learned what worked; what people wanted to hear if I might.  After a couple years of fine tuning my skill sets in the IT world and experiencing success in that routine, I was promoted up to enterprise-level sales and worked on the aquisition, development and retention of Fortune 500 customers; a whole new ball game.  And after learning a whole new process once again and finding success in the Big Leagues, I simply had all the business I could handle and could barely maintain the referrals that were coming my way on a regular basis. 

At this point, I was running a small team consisting of myself and two inside support reps who my company placed below me to help support my business, and still again, it was more than the three of us could barely handle.  My ISR's were constantly working extra hours while I was on the road, and the business would naturally just keep growing and growing.  After a while, it was almost like a plague without a cure, which had it's good and bad perspectives.  Good because we were all making a ton of money and prospering from our efforts, and Bad because our families barely knew us any more.

Though I didn't spend a whole lot of time in the office, there was a unique event that happened to me one day that made me sit back and think about what I was doing, something I normally didn't take the time to sit and do.  I think I was on auto-pilot for a long while!  I was approached by some of my Executive Staff one day to join a new hire class that was in training and speak to them about what it takes to be successful in the industry we were in.  I agreed without hesitation of course as that's simply the type of person that I am, but was a bit concerned at the same time as I had no idea what I was going to say to these folks.

I mean seriously, there I was at the peak of my career, recognized across the company at the 'person everyone wanted to be like', and yet I had no clue what I was going to share.  The issue wasn't that I was an idiot, there was too much proof that I wasn't.  The issue wasn't that I was lucky, luck doesn't exist.  The issue was that I simply hadn't slowed down enough to think about what I had been doing that was working for so so long, and that I barely knew myself anymore.

After a short period of 'Matt Time', it finally came to me.  I had to back up and think about the turning point in my career that really launched me forward and what changed within me to make that happen.  Thinking back, I had remembered a tip that my boss had given before I was headed off to the airport for one of my biggest opportunies to that day, and it was so simple, yet so life changing for me at the same time. 

With that recollection, I added a few more key, yet basic points to what I planned to tell this new-hire class, and then settled back down for the day and got back to work.  The next day back at the office, I rolled into the new-hire class at the appointed time and layed out the basics for them first.  The importance of being on the phone, believing in your product and your company, doing more than is required of you, etc.  All those things any normal trainer would tell a person, I re-emphasized them from my mouth, someone who had used them and was living proof that they work.  I worked through all of those things, and saved my epiphany for last..

"So what was the biggest key to my success?  Simple!  No matter if on the phone introducing myself and my company for the first time or sitting around a table with executives in a large conference room after making a presentation, I make sure at all times that each person involved can only hear and only see single most important part of the sale at all times, and that one thing was MYSELF!"

The life changing tip my boss gave me that day when leaving for my big opportunity was this...  'Act Like You've Been There Before'.  From the moment I heard that, a thousand light bulbs went off in my head and it literally changed my world forever.  Well, lets not say that it entirely changed my world, but it definitely accelerated it in dramatic fashion.  I realized at that very moment why pretty much every sale before that point had become mine, and what I needed to make sure would happen for each and every sale that I planned to close in the future.  This roots deeply into that old saying of 'People Buy From People' also.

The reality is that we have an innate ability within us to spot a fraud from a mile away.  When a fraud crosses our path, our spirit and tells us to run; and if we don't run, it generally comes back to bite us.  On the flip side of that, we have an innate ability to spot genuity in a person as well.  When REAL people are in our presence, our spirit prompts us to be attentive and want to hear more about what that person has within them that could potentially be of benefit to our own life.

It's funny how it works when we all really sit down and think about it, but seriously, we all know the truth in this.  Each and every one of us was designed from the beginning to be honest and genuine with all of the people around us, it's reality.  And when we're not, we absolutely know we're not, and it tarnishes within us our own image of ourselves.  Then we're stuck walking around with that image and trying to sleep with it at night.  I suppose this really doesn't apply to the Sociopath's, but nobody's really figured them out yet anyways. 

As when we flaw our own image of ourselves when we fail to be who we really are with others, we also succeed in causing others to create a false image of who we really are in a split second, and guess what, that image created in that split second never goes away.  Remember the 'You Only Have One Chance To Make A First Impression' line?  So True!  But keep in mind also, your second impression can ealisy crumble your first if you fail again to allow yourself to be YOU!

This is the message that I did my best to convey to the new hire class that day and hope may be of help to all of you in your pursuit of success as well.  When I left the class after finishing what I had to say, I received a standing ovation, thus assuring myself that I had a made an impact.  Best of all though, the real feeling of satisfaction that I received that day was not from the applause, it came from knowing that I had left that class only after sharing with them the most important gift that I've been blessed and entrusted with, ME! 

BE YOURSELF!  Carry this over into all aspects of your life, and I guarantee you that it will change your life forever and take you places that you've never dreamed of being.  If you're sitting in the waiting room at the doctors office and get the urge to say 'coochie-coochie-coo' to the baby in her mother's arms across the dead silent room, DO IT, and watch what will happen to that entire room after they all look over and see that baby crack a smile back at you.

And before I go, let me say one more thing.  When you wake up tomorrow, take a quick inventory of yourself.  Look at your life and think about all the ways that God blessed you and all of the things that He has blessed you with.  Think about who He's entrusted you to be and take confidence that you haven't barely began to reach the potential that He's created for you.  Think about all these things tomorrow when you wake up, and open the door for yourself into a world you may never have seen before.  It's an awesome ride!

Then, do the same the next day....

May God Bless You and Keep You All!

-Matt