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1. "Buy our product!"
2. "We have so many great features!"
3. "OH YEAH!"

But then get this when Superstar Saleswoman Sally SeeSee goes up to pitch:

1. She focuses on Client X's problems.
2. She helps solve Client X's problems in whatever capacity she can (e.g., submitting articles, giving her own tips, etc.).
3. Then when she spots her product can help Client X's problems, she pitches it.

That way:

• She establishes credibility with her customer.
• She provides a value-first approach -- increasing the reciprocity effect.
• She builds a long-term consultative approach to Client X, which produces repeat sales in the future.

Notice how 9879658796 sales reps pitching to your company focus on persuading you to buy their products without really understanding what you really want accomplished.

People like to do business with people they like. People like to do even more business with people they trust.

Be their resource.

Those gurus scream:

1. "Work smarter!"
2. "Not longer!"
3. "Yay! Hooray!"

And so, you start thinking:

• "Hey, if I can do my work in 20 minutes, I will complete so much stuff!"
• "Yay! Hooray!"

And what happens?

1. You barely get anything done.
2. You continue Googling for more "shortcut" tricks.
3. Your workload meanwhile piles.

Peep this sha-ding.

The More Hours You Put Into X...

...the better X gets.

• "OH WHAT IN THE MOTHER !@$!@%?!"

That's right: the more hours you put into a project, the better it gets.

• The more hours you play golf, the better you get.
• The more hours you shoot a basketball, the better you get.
• The more hours you solve calculus homework problems, the better you get.

Likewise, the more hours you put into Client Project X, the better Project X gets.

Why?

• We initially come up with one way to accomplish X.
• An hour passes: "I can improve on the idea!"
• An day passes: "I can improve on the idea again!"

And on, and on, and on, and on, and on.

The difference between chessmasters and amateurs has only one distinguishing variable according to Florida's expert on experts (Ericsson): the amount of time devoted to playing chess.

Yes, it's important to work smart; if you're not working smart, you're (1) destroying the potential for the project and (2) draining freakishprecious time.

But:

• Working smart for 20 minutes...
• ...pales in comparison to working smart for 20 minutes X 2 sets
• ...which pales in comparison to working smart for 20 minutes X 4 sets

If you follow the superstars -- the captains of your industry, you'll notice something:

• They devote ridiculous amount of hours working on their crafts.

Being good at what you do takes hard work; there's no Management 2.0 tricks to get around that.

Try this.

Take out a stopwatch:

• Your stopwatch serves as your timecard.
• Clock-in when you work.
• Clock-out when you're not working (e.g., taking breaks, reading websites, etc.).

Get your record time-worked for the day. Then tomorrow, break it. Then break it again on Day 3.

When you're just sitting there and devoting yourself to work while you're on the clock, you start consciously finding tasks to demolish:

• "I've completed Task A."
• "I want to stay on the clock! What else can I complete? Task B!"
• "Done. Task C!"
• "Task D!"

And on, and on, and on, and on, and on.

You then start noticing something:

• The more hours you devote to work, the more things you get done.

IT'S A FREAKING CRAZY RIDICULOUS NOTION NOBODY COULD'VE PREDICTED BUT DANG!

No shortcuts.

Work.

1. You're bombarded with 9760943860943 customer service issues.
2. Every minute thing Customer X wants to change destroys your work productivity.
3. You get no business-building-rocking stuff done.

You're short-on-staff.

The economy has sucked away your good service reps.

What do you do?

Tell Customer X that because you're getting nothing done:

1. "We handle customer service issues on Wednesdays and Fridays between 1-5 p.m."
2. "Make sure you get all of your requests in by that time if you need something done."
3. "And if you need something urgent, we charge $200 for each 1-hour request."

Give him a 10-day lead time (or something similar).

What to anticipate?

• More thought-out customer requests.
• Less customer service distractions.
• Freed-up time to devote to building your business.

And, when you get to resolving those service issues, you'll complete them exponentially quicker as you're demolishing one-by-one in bulk:

• Think: Starting up takes the most effort.
• Momentum: Once you resolve an issue, the second one gets easier.
• Newton's Law: The third gets so ^^%@ easy, and the foruth even easier.

BAM.

• You've saved precious amounts of time.
• You've rocked your customer service requests with ease.
• You've devoted freakish time to build more profitable parts to your business.

WIN.

Set blocks.

Say you come back from a meeting, where the customer asked you for a proposal.

What do you do when you get back to your office?

1. Should you send a follow-up email summarizing what the customer wanted?
2. Or, should you just prepare the proposal without any follow-up emails?

According to the world's greatest psychologist, Robert Cialdini, doing the former helps your customer become more confident in you -- without wondering whether you'll follow through with your promise.

In other words, You = Dependable.

The result: You boost your success ratios.

Repeat what they wanted.

1. You're running around pitching your product at a certain price.
2. No one's buying.
3. "We don't have the $$$ in this economy," they say.

What do you do?

1. Offer what the customer can pay for X. (what you can't control that)
2. Focus on reducing X's costs. (what you can control)
3. Boost net profits.

That's Toyota's wisdom:

1. 'We can't control what our customers pay for XYZ.'
2. 'But, we can control costs associated from producing XYZ.'

For instance, say you're selling print services to businesses in the Midwest.

You can't sell over Y price, and right now with the economy tanking, you're taking a freakish loss.

1. You have to sell at a certain price -- otherwise, the bulk of your customers and prospects won't buy.
2. So, start looking to cut %$^@% costs.

Examples?

1. Create detailed training manuals on how to print stuff, how to sell stuff, and how to service stuff -- such that high-schoolers can read the mofofloko and do what's necessary. Hire/manage/direct employees accordingly.
2. Move out of your high-rent buildings to lower-cost rent.
3. Sell your high-maintenance printers for lower-maintenance printers.
4. Negotiate with your team to take pay cuts -- where your executives take the biggest hits.
5. Eliminate unnecessary work/steps/processes.

The moral:

1. Charge what a bulk of your target customers are willing to pay for X.
2. Viciously beat down X's costs like it just slapped your children.

%^@% costs.

1. You're seeking Company X's success in three years.
2. You're starting from scratch.

What do you do?

Dump strategies/business-plans.

1. Go to Company X's folks (i.e., the folks most responsible for its success), or anyone having the very same capabilities/skills/experience.
2. Recruit them.

Done.

What Superstar Companies Do

• Microsoft hired from IBM.
• Google hired from Microsoft.
• Facebook is currently poaching top folks from Google.
• Soon, you'll see another thriving start-up recruiting folks from Facebook.

The magic:

1. New superstar comes in.
2. Superstar adopts crazy-ridiculous-value-freakish-driven-knowledge/skills/experience from their previous employer for their current employer.
3. Company radically improves its game -- driving its success forward to the freak.

WIN.

Why Cheap Companies Stagnate

A company stingy with their personnel dollars thinks:

1. We want to keep all of our money.
2. So, we will hire people and train them to do what we think they should do.
3. Then, we will make billions!

The facts:

• It takes years/decades to master Skill X (e.g., public relations, HR, enterprise sales, marketing, etc.).
• Top folks in their positions have accumulated years/decades of knowledge through freakish training and experience.

Unless you're prepared for a long-drawn-out period of learning (i.e., probably a decade) before the new Schmoes become masters of their positions -- that is, if they stick to it for that long, your best bet to be as successful as a company you admire is to seek folks capable of producing that company's success.

Before you know it, you'll have the capacity of Company X.

We can't afford it!

Hire in increments. For instance:

• Hire someone capable of helping your company make it over the $1MM threshold.
• Once you reach that milestone, hire someone capable of taking you over the $5MM line.
• Then, another for $20MM.
• Then, another for $100MM.
• etc.

BAM.

Hire forward.

Say you commit a mistake.

Should you:

• a) make an excuse?
• b) blame yourself?

Sure, you might think:

• "If I make an excuse, I'll look better!"
• "If I admit a mistake, I'll look bad!"

But if play the blame game, your customer will secretly think:

• "This guy's a %^@ moron."
• "He's representing himself really badly right now."
• "He keeps whining."

So what do you do when you commit a mistake?

• Blame yourself. Blame no one else.
• Take sole responsibility; it's your complete fault, and be sincere about it.
• The harder you come down on yourself, the more the person will sympathize with you.

Let's repeat that last statement because it's $^@% important;

• The harder you come down on yourself, the more the person will sympathize with you.
• The harder you come down on yourself, the more the person will sympathize with you.
• The harder you come down on yourself, the more the person will sympathize with you.

Why? We humans look out for each other.

• When someone's in pain, we help out.
• When our neighbor needs to borrow a few tools, we gladly lend 'em.
• When we need directions, folks will show us the way.

Essentially, we want to pick up someone who's down; when you admit your faults, others will reach out to pick you back up.

The more you admit your clumsiness, the more the person will open up more to you.

Try the experiment.

1. Pick a mistake.
2. Confront the person.
3. Start coming down hard on yourself for your clumsiness. (Be sincere.)
4. Then, tell 'em what you're doing to resolve the situation so that it never happens again.
   

See how much the person will sympathize with you, and open up more to you.

Think this is theory? KABAM. A study University of Michgan Researcher Fiona Lee shed light on the phenomenon.

The next time you make a mistake:

• No more excuses.
• Blame yourself like a $^@%^@ in a $^@%!@.

Not only will you start patching up your relationships, but you'll strengthen them like a mofoloko as well.

Blame You.

To peeps in their everyday lives:

1. They have one gigantic concern.
2. They fill our lives with many smaller concerns.

Everything else takes a backseat -- meaning:

• If needing an e-procurement system is a small concern to CEO X, that means you're at the initial stages of CEO X's buying cycle (tip: nurture the relationship until it becomes a gigantic concern.)

If your product/solution/service/offering can remedy the prospect's gigantic concern, you're knocking on the @^^@^ door.

How do you figure out gigantic concerns?

Try asking this question:

• "What keeps you up at night?"

Next steps:

1. See if whatever you're selling/offering can remedy the situation.
2. If it can't: Provide external (read: handy) tips and resources to help them rectify their gigantic concerns; in that sense, you're nurturing a relationship, helping them resolve their gigantic-concerns-after-gigantic-concerns until a gigantic concern pops up that can be mended with your solution.

BAM.

You're in business.

"What keeps you up at night?"

(for those who want to build sustainable companies)

Say you're about to hire Chuck as the CEO of your company.

You start thinking:

• "This dude will become boss of everything."
• "We will rest on his laurels."
• "He will dictate the direction of our company."

The next thing you know:

1. He comes in with grand ideas.
2. He starts messing with your culture.
3. He starts revamping things that have taken years to build.

In short, he gradually destroys your business with his incompetence.

Why Do Dictatorships Destroy Countries?

• They're accountable to no one.
• They can do as they please.
• They're given supreme power to do what they believe is needed.

When that happens, you get a recipe for disaster.

Think of the Merrill Lynch CEO dude who decked out his office using millions of shareholder $$$, probably thinking:

• "I should give myself $X,XXX,XXX compensation."
• "That will make me happy and super comfortable."
• "Therefore, I will perform better for the business."

Given enough power, person X will rationalize their profitably-effed-up decisions for what they believe will make a better business; their biases corrode their decision-making, and ultimately hurt a company in the long-run.

BOO.

The Greatest Country in the World

You know has made America sustainably the strong mother ^@$@^% for the last few centuries?

• a separation of powers (legislative, judicial, executive)
• no one $^@^ can mess up the country
• you don't rely on person X's competence, since the other two -- equal in power --  can override X's incompetent decision

That means if Johnny can't perform X -- but thinks he can perform X, but two others with equal power say: "Nuh uh. You think you know X, but you have no idea about X", that means Johnny's incompetent ideas are disqualified before they can destroy the organization.

Checks-and-balances to the ^^@!.

A separation of powers consistently drives the best ideas to the top of the pack; sure you might have hiccups, but you ensure that the best ones rise freakishly-freshtastic much more than the bad ones.

It's why Google, probably the most well-run organization in the world, has a triumvirate (Larry Page, Sergey Brin, Eric Schmidt) that decides the direction of its company.

• If Larry thinks Q is best, but Sergey and Eric think T is best -- then T wins
• No one person has supreme power
• The best ideas/decisions/stuff rise to the top

Consider. Triumvirate.

If you have a company with just one person in charge, consider forming a triumvirate:

• one person that's elected by your employees (ding! ding! power to the front-line!)
• one person that's elected by your senior execs
• one person that's elected by your: _________

Then do this:

• Give each an integral responsibility (e.g., CEO of products, CEO of strategy, etc.).
• Ensure each can check-and-balance the other, so that power is equally distributed across the board.

Accountability, sustainability, freakish-fantastic results.

Separate powers.

1. You need to bring in clients.
2. "I'll have to pitch more prospects," you tell yourself.

Secretly, you're afraid of rejection -- but you block those feeeeeelings out, and hope for the best.

"If I can just get these clients, my life = great!" you tell yourself.

What do you do?

• You pitch to 10 prospects.
• They all reject you -- except for one who gives you a "Call me in a month" shebang.

What happens?

• You feel S.U.C.K.
• You want to jump off a cliff.
• You want to quit business, forever.

BOO

Here's How to Embrace Rejection

Our human happiness is relative to X.

• If we expect a great result, but get a good result = We sad.
• If we expect a terrible result, but get a bad result = We happy.

So, if you want to embrace rejection, before you give your pitches, just think of the frugliest rejection you could get:

• "This next dude is going to cuss me the @^^^@ out. He will laugh in my face, then talk about my mom and her bucktooth."

Why?

1. You set yourself up for something freakish-bad.
2. Most likely, you'll get a more positive outcome than you had expected.
3. You feel happy.

Win.

Expect the $^@% worst.