Jetson, you're fired!!

I have been fired from a few corporate sales jobs. Never for insubordination, always because the numbers weren't where they needed to be.

The numbers weren't there and I was invariably told that I needed to get the numbers where they needed to be and how to do it.

Let me state, unequivocally, in all instances I deserved to be let go. I deserved to be let go because I accepted the job offer knowing very well what I was getting into.

Stuff happens...it's true, I know this because I read it on a bumper sticker.

On the flip side, I've spent almost half of my working life either working for myself or working for loosely affilaited businesspeople and even collective business interests. The businesspeople I worked for, usually as a contractor, were ALL entrepreneurs. Not people who work for a corporation but INSIST on calling themselves "entrepreneurs". These are and were people who had been completely on their own for many years. A handful had lost EVERYTHING in various business ventures..a couple more than once. By the time our paths had crossed, things were typically on the upside and humming along.

All of these entrepreneurs lived by a certain creed. They all agreed that the anxiety and uneasiness of financial unpredictability or even instability was MUCH LESS PAINFUL than the misery caused by either submitting themselves to the will and whim of others and/or selling themselves to do something that was anathema to everything they believed was right.

Sound familiar?

I have more than a few friends who are successful in their roles as good corporate citizens and, presumably, effective employees. They are respectful,intelligent people who are responsible and have always been consistent income earners and providers. And EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM, aware of my utter lack of consistency in similar environments have said to me "..hey, you gotta know when and how to play the game..". And they were honest enough to say they didn't necessarily enjoy that part of the job either but, hey, got kids to educate and bills to pay.

People write 500 page books on how to sell. Why? Look back a mere 100-150 years when the trader/merchant model ruled the day and had for centuries. Things haven't changed AT ALL at the most elemental level. People do commerce and engage in transactions where value is exchanged for value. Skilled marketing people can, at times, accelerate this and even create a perception of value.

Run this by your sales manager, who has framed quotes from General Patton and Vince Lombardi hanging on his walls, as he tells you how to "close those SOB's!!". And bring a box with you.

Organized Business Networking Events

Networking events are, unquestionably, the finest way on earth to meet water filtration system salespeople. If that's not what you're there for, rest assured, you will be assaulted by a dozen or so Multi-Level Marketing (MLM) salespeople who have some "amazing" or "incredible" opportunities they would love to tell you about, preferably this very moment! (Can I finish my doubled-fried chicken part, there, Bob?...yeeeks).

I, personally, reserve usage of the adjectives amazing and/or incredible for the very rare instance in which it is apropos. I've yet to trip over a skin cream or multivitamin product that was anything more than "relentless" or "suffocating"- as opposed to, say, a "once in a lifetime opportunity".

Back to business networking. Maybe there was a time when these scheduled events included largely people looking to meet new people and extend their business network. My experience of recent years tells me those days have been Betamaxed....and this is coming from a guy who sells stuff for a living. (Note to Self: the expression Betamaxed has been Betamaxed).

I know there are people who still effectively use such events to network and possibly even meet potential clients. These folks network effectively because they know how to listen, they're not there to see how many business cards they can collect and they genuinely care about other people. And they have sufficient body armor to fend off the swarming MLM'ers From the Depths of Hades.

Ellis Redding

Morgan Freeman's "Red" from Shawshank was worried.

He was, after all, a man you went to see when you needed things. He knew life outside the prison walls was very, very different. Paraphrasing, he mentioned "people can just open the Yellow Pages and get anything they need".

If you're an entrepreneur or in a pure new business development role, it's hard not to feel like Ellis "Red" Redding sometimes. Even compared to 10 years ago, buyers can make a few phone calls and- by the time they get back from the restroom- have a dozen vendors doing synchronized cartwheels in the lobby.

Your job as the entrepreneur or salesperson becomes to either create unmanifested demand or consistently find that needle in the haystack. And if your on someone's payroll and fail to do either quickly, you'll be off their payroll soon.

I've lived it for 20 years with all the requisite bumps and bruises.

People want results and they want them now.

Turnover in Sales dwarfs any other line of work I'm aware of. Sales happens to be the default career for many. That said, there are many bad salespeople out there and they, rightfully, are typically jettisoned quickly. There are also very talented marketing/sales people out there, with the singular ability to turn NOTHING into SOMETHING who would be much better served answering only to themselves.

Virtually every great entrepreneurial story speaks of the man or woman who were repeatability told by others that they- and everything they believed was right- didn't fit the formula or system.

That would include lots of money

All these years later, I still hold out a sliver of idealism that sours on the perceived corrupting power of money. But many ideals, like this one, can be like a child covering their own eyes, believing nobody can see them.

One thing is certain. Rich or poor, happy or miserable, your life will have its share of heartbreak and disappointment. There's not a person on the planet who is exempt....not even Justin Timberlake (I think).

And when these hiccups come cascading in, not having any money is like chewing on a Dorito with an abscessed tooth. You don't get a mulligan on your financial obligations when your dog dies, your teenage son accidentally drives your car into somebody's living room and your wife thinks the UPS Driver is not only adorable but a great listener.

People would probably like to care more about your problems but they are too busy with a mountain of their own.

You can get much further with a kind word and a gun than you can with just a kind word said, uber mobster Al Capone. Replace "gun" with "money" and you may not be Socrates you'll have fewer wrinkles on your forehead.

This comes from a guy who, when I win Powerball some time later this month, will not swim in luxury. I don't get a charge from it.

I've had enough money and grew up with close friends who shared their opulent surroundings and possessions with me. The only thing thrills and exotic adventures ensures is a metaphorical hangover and a need for more. You say you're shocked when you hear the rich and/or famous either take their own lives or drink and drug themselves to death?

I am envious of those few who LOVE what they do and never have to think about money.

I will encourage my own son to follow his proverbial bliss. But I will not tell him that money is the root of all evil but an elixir that can sometimes help when you need help real bad or allow you to indulge in whatever it is that blows your hair back and requires payment.

Leads, not Brand

If the name of the company you run happens to be Pepsi or IBM, possibly even Mercedes Benz or The Mayo Clinic, get your checkbook out because you're about to cut another one to make sure your brand is at least as good as it was yesterday.

If you're running a company that won't be discussed this evening on CNBC and you're spending money on marketing, that money better be coming back with some friends. I like to call these "friends" leads.

I have a tough time with the billions spent on branding though I can't deny every study shows when the Big Boys slash cash on branding, their sales goes down. Possibly I'm jaded for when I ran my spots for my multi-national/basement headquarters during Super Bowl 39, the only result I witnessed was a call from a guy named "Vance" in Fresno, telling me he might like to "maybe, ya know, talk and stuff...later in the year when things settle down..".

Seriously...

If your marketing doesn't generate leads that can be measured and managed, spend the money somewhere else. Spend it on the people who produce for your company, whether in their making your product, servicing your product or consistently selling your product.

Selling to Strangers

This anecdote has a happy ending, so sit tight for a moment.

If cold calling strangers in the middle of the work day is what you do or ARE TOLD TO DO to "generate leads", you better pack a good-sized lunch.

I have made thousands and thousands of these types of calls through the years because I was told if I didn't, I would be escorted out the door. Good grief.

For the record, my voice projects very well, I speak clearly, am very effective with cadence, intonation and can make the guards at Buckingham Palace laugh. That said, if you set up a contest between myself and, say, a reasonably intelligent cocker spaniel that speaks English, and asked us to make 5,000 essentially random cold calls to sell widgets, I would win the contest...but BARELY.

We would each, by pure luck, get about the same number of live decision-makers on the phone who happen to need widgets that day or very soon(Grand Total:not many). I would win, however, because in that 2 second window after they say "hello", I would fare much better. My opponent would likely be engaging in some unsavory personal hygiene at all the wrong times so I'd take home the steak knives.

Bottom line: I lose, the dog loses and the business loses because it is a terrible way to sell products or services. It also completely destroys the morale of even the good people you may hire because EVERYBODY has a finite amount of arrows they can take in the face. People have their breaking points, robots do not. (Speaking of robots, the guy who played "The Robot" in Lost in Space, Bob May, died three days ago. That one hurts. It was like the day we lost Brando AND Don Corleone.)

So, as a business, what do you do? I am in complete agreement that we must connect with a significant amount of buyers to sell anything...and that includes using the telephone...alot.

(An aside:I am a HUGE proponent of clever guerrilla marketing. On short money, I have made it work more than once. You ask how? See above re: Buckingham Palace.)

So, if I'm on your payroll, we need to be reaching out to prospective customers who don't know me or our company in relatively large numbers, ideally in concert with a cost-effective guerrilla marketing program that is demonstratively working.

Here's the good stuff: I will be connecting with prospective buyers every day who don't know me BUT THEY THINK THEY DO (and there is not an iota of deception at work here). That's what I do; that's what I teach.

How's that work?

I get paid not only for results but what I know. I could put the whole program in print, right here, and know that people would read it, think "hey..that's a good idea" and then NEVER DO IT. They'd go right back to doing what they do...and that's just fine, if it works.

If the phone is not ringing (and I know for many, it's not), somebody better figure it out.

Like Sand Through The Hourglass...

These are the days/daze of my life.. (My knowledge of daytime soap operas start and stop with that tagline. I swear.)

In fifth grade, I acquired my first library card. I recall seeing the expiration date: it read "1978". I thought "Why even bother put a date that is so far away?". It was 1975 and, to me, 1978 might has well been a date in which the world became a 24/7 scene from the film Blade Runner. It was just so flippin' far away.

Tomorrow will be 2009 and I've pretty much resigned myself to the fact that, by mid-week next week, the year will be 2033.

Of all the Mark Twain-isms, Youth is Wasted on the Young might be his most profound. I can say that now I've reached the age where I have hair sprouting out of places that I didn't even know I had body parts.

What a great gig he had, by the way. Writing stories, wearing strange hats, growing and grooming his shag-carpet mustache and rattling off aphorisms so memorable that they still regularly appear in blogs read by millions. Or, in this case, blogs written by me and read by a guy named "Ernie" who lives in Pigsknuckle, Maine.

Back to the passage of time.

Today would be an excellent day for me to stop and smell the proverbial roses. Unfortunately, I live in New Hampshire where a rose garden lives about as long as a fruit fly. For those of you unfamiliar with the lifespan of a fruitfly, their existence is about as long as a sneezing fit.

Maybe I'll go smell one of the estimated 1,298 scented Yankee Candles my wife bought in 2008. I think we have one that's called "Fresh Linen" that, according to Internet scuttlebutt, smells eerily similar to the freshly-washed white linen suits that Mark Twain used to wear while thinking up clever homilies about linen or the film Blade Runner, which he wrote the original screenplay.