December 2013 – Rezults Group

CLICK HERE – Play this while you read the message , … turn up your speakers and open your heart …

“Say Something … I’m giving up on you” a powerful song by ~ A Great Big World and sung with Christina Aguilera transcends emotions (past and present) and soars into our futures. Many of us will recall a love of our past; others will live in the moment and succor ourselves when faced with the greatest pain, the pain of indifference and hopefully we’ll all discover a brighter future.

One of the sweeter comments found in the posts I perused of this song was a woman named Selena who connected her thoughts to religion, and specifically God. She, like many of us, felt abandoned, her prayers unanswered, unrequited love, despair … she ultimately walked away from God , closing her post with, “I’m too religious.”

I don’t agree with her conclusion, not only does God “not give up on us” he allows us to explore our circumstances to their fullest. We’ve heard since childhood, God answers prayers in his time frame, not ours. My experience is his time frame can be very long, and sometimes there might not be an answer, indicating “it’s ours to decide,” not that God doesn’t care, he gives us what can be called agency, the ability to decide for ourselves. This can be very scary, wouldn’t we all like to be absolved from responsibility, but alas, the world operates under different rules. We are responsible for ourselves, our decisions (and no decision is a decision) and we have the opportunity to learn from these experiences.

As I reflect on the lyrics, the hauntingly simple melody, the minor key with all its power, it allows me to drift into the deep recesses of my mind and face those moments when I found myself face to face with personally significant decisions … I’ve failed in many of them; the pain, then and now is real and almost unbearable. Stripped of pride, arrogance, anger and control I can see now a different lyric is in order “Say something … I’m giving up on you,” isn’t using the proper pronoun … “I’m giving up on me” would be more accurate. It was my pride, my stubbornness that separated me from them and I tried to protect me from me and place the burden on them.

In the quiet space we are all capable of getting to – honest, open and receptive a song like this, can open our hearts and allow the love to suffuse our entire being. In these ephemeral moments we truly see the hand of God in our lives, we feel his boundless love, we forgive ourselves and like the final lyric in the song we can indeed … “say something” …

My love for all of you who take the time to read this post is like the peeling of an onion, it’s an amazing journey … the aroma is palpable and the tears cleansing.

Merry Christmas

Belly-to-Belly Face-to-Face

Before we get to the suggestions to improve productivity, let’s make sure you’re not confusing activity with productivity. Many individuals track their activity, and conclude that because they’ve been in meetings, written proposals, driven all over town, returned dozens of calls, set 1^st time appointments, attended Chamber of Commerce events, etc, that they are and have been productive. Not necessarily so.

One of my mentor’s years ago used a rather folksy tale to explain his version of “productivity.” He began by explaining how our wives, partners, significant others, etc., view our days productivity. His presentation was to a group of us, all commission salesmen, and it applies to business owners, entrepreneurs, and salespeople of all strips. Here’s his edited story,

“ Here’s what counts in your lives, ‘money in mama’s checkbook.’ She doesn’t care about ANYTHING else (meetings, pending applications, trips, trainings, new products, contests, whatever … ALL that matters is money in her checkbook! The only way money will ever get into her checkbook is when you spend time, ‘face-to-face’ ‘belly-to-belly’ with a real prospect. A real prospect is one who you can state factually is:

Able him/her self to make a decision and say yes or no
Understands completely what you are talking about and why you’re there with them
Has money, i.e., a budget, a checkbook or a credit card

Once you’ve completed the presentation, answered any objections, written the order, collected the money and mailed it to the home office you’re half way there. Follow up with the home office and when and only when the money is mailed, ACH’d, direct deposited, etc into your families Joint checking account and it shows up in your online banking statement as “available funds” do you have ‘money in mama’s bank account’ and you can brag about it to her … that’s all that matters … everything else is noise!”

That’s productivity. You need not discuss this with your boss, sales manager, etc … they too understand the process and that’s all they are looking for, in their mind everything else is an excuse.

So how do you improve your businesses productivity:

1. Re-define activity (you might as well eliminate it and replace it with productivity)

2. Stop kidding yourself (I didn’t want to hurt your feelings by using the word lying to yourself)

3. Only count “money in mama’s checkbook”

Make 2014 a breakout year … “face-to-face” “belly-to-belly” is all that will get you there, and your productivity will increase I guarantee it!

Month: December 2013

My Christmas gift to you – “say something”

Three (3) ways to improve your businesses productivity?

Rezults Group Inc.

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