Sell Me This Pen

The Wolf of Wall Street, with Leonardo DiCaprio as Jordan Belfort

Reading a recent article praising the merits of this question at interview, I confess disappointment at the 'best way to answer it' which was offered. It rambled on about features, emphasis, metaphysics and offered a cheesy closing technique in a 4-step model as an interviewee's best way to prove their selling ability. 

I believe it missed the point entirely. 

A sale happens when the concept of ownership is transferred. A protracted sales model to get to this point is not always necessary, as I will now demonstrate.

What follows is how I handled the question at interview ...

"Sell me this pen"

Me: "Just before we start can I confirm one thing?"

"Sure"

Me: (Holding up the pen) ... "Is this your pen?"

"Yes"

Me: (Handing it back) ... "Sold!"

Selling doesn't start when someone says it does; there's no ready, steady, go, or starter-pistol fired to let you know it's technique time. The well-trodden sales path, taught in a classroom setting as the only way, is in fact imaginary.  If you engage imagination you can succeed where others fear to tread.

Unlike many other sales stories shared this actually happened, and it was me that 'sold' the pen. If you're thinking of working with someone to improve your selling, make sure the stories they tell you are their own. 

Did I get the job offer ... What do you think?

There's Trouble in Techniques

When techniques become artifice, artifice becomes recognisable. 

Trust is destroyed in the exact moment someone realises they’re being manipulated with techniques. In that moment you’ve created a chasm that cannot be bridged.

In an expanding drive for integrity and authenticity it will not serve you well to explore the realm of technique to find your own. In fact it will set you up for the exact opposite, every technique based attempt to shape your perception in their eyes, and match buzzwords you have decided must be attained, is a step in the wrong direction.

You’re going the wrong way!

Deploying techniques for influence suggests you've decided persuasion is a game you can win, and assumed by deduction the customer is susceptible to your artifice. Cunning it may be, canny it isn’t.

"Honesty is an expensive gift, don’t expect it from cheap people”

Unless you reside under a rock you will have seen this phrase. If you’ve chosen to stroll past and ignore the message, don’t imagine others will have done the same.

No-one enjoys being fooled, unless you’re a magician and entertaining them when it’s not just acceptable, it could even be described as a contracted expectation. If you believe the skills of a magician are seamlessly transferrable to your business, and you’re not a magician, I think you’re in trouble.

Artifice, sleight of hand and deception aren’t key constituents in an authentic business, despite their widespread adoption. It is time to distance yourself from the hoard of others who are busily practicing techniques and appear to be benefitting. Daring to be different and arriving at your destination with your integrity intact is an essential quest; you must accept the challenge.

It’s a long game and you may have to surrender some short-game wins to get there. Is it worth it? That simply depends upon your honest response to one question:

How long do you think you can get away with it? 

Inspired by Scroungers

Inspired by my personal experience of non-contributors who have inflated self-esteem to a point where their sense of entitlement needs to be challenged.

They don’t seem to care how the money that meets their needs is collected, or where, or who it comes from; they are too busy ranting at the unfairness of the world to think about it.

Rather than be angry at them, as they seem to be with the world, I chose to write a poem. I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Sat comfortably at the dining table today

Safe in the knowledge there’s no bill to pay

Hoards of fine diners eat to their fill

Inviting some others to join them at will

Come, come they say, you’ll love it here

Sit down and eat, you’ve nothing to fear

Endless amounts of good food and wine

A safe place to sleep, a home I call mine

A key to the door and bills are inclusive

No need to make this great deal so exclusive

Join me and we’ll eat together today

No need to ask ‘where’s the people that pay?’

I’m entitled to this, come, sit with me

It’s great dining here. It’s great and it’s free

Who cares how all of this came about?

Deny me my dinner and I‘ll start to shout

~~~

Mine, mine, mine, mine it could be yours too

Sit with me now as there’s food here to chew

~~~

Outside a shadowy figure stands still

If you look at him closely he does look quite ill

The diners continue to enjoy their meal

Not worried who he is, no thought to the bill.

From outside he sees what his payments provided

He sees all the diners but isn’t invited

They seem quite happy, warm and well fed

But they wouldn’t care if he dropped down dead.

Inside the talk turns to wider concerns

Of who are the worthy, as each take their turn

Seconds? They’re asked and quickly confirm

Yes please I’m worth it without any return.

They sit and scorn at the world and its workers

Sod those who toil, power to the shirkers

We’re special you see, yes, we need someone to pay

But you should be grateful we’re here every day.

You're Missing the Point, not the Piece

Avoid the traps of training courses that fail to deliver.

The Pointless Search for the Missing Piece

The Myth of the Missing Piece is a principle used by the professional peddlers of personal progression programmes to persuade you that a piece, yes one elusive piece, is all that’s missing for you to feel complete. If they can initially get you believing that not only is there a missing piece, but they have the piece, perfectly proportioned and shaped for instant installation in you, they have a good chance of a sale. If you buy into the concept, you’re consigned to a path that will ultimately lead nowhere.

You’ll find yourself attending a course, where you’ll be spending time on top of your money, or someone else’s if they’ve sponsored you, in the quest to obtain the piece, safe in the knowledge that once it’s finished … a moment usually marked by the awarding of another meaningless certificate to occupy a space on an already overcrowded wall of achievement, accompanied by the fervent applause of your fellow seekers … not only will the course be complete, so will you.

If only. The problem with their model is overt but rarely seen, you aren’t really missing anything before you go. There is no piece.

They don’t have it, because it doesn’t exist, so turning up to collect it is a quest doomed to failure. What’s worse is it will be your fault when the course fails to deliver. How so? Let me share what happens (spoiler alert!)

It all gets set up in the first exchanges. A sale occurs when you are suckered into their schtick. When you arrive at the end of the course you still have an emptiness inside together with an increased feeling of incompleteness. It’s hard to revisit your earlier decision and see the error when this happens. To do so would only open a regret reaction and you’d lose confidence, so it follows that it’s better to accept a near miss than a complete waste of time and money, and start to look for the next course to rectify the ongoing emptiness as soon as possible. They know that and it’s what they prey upon. They are ready for you whether you’re newly entered into the quest, or rebounding from the latest failure to find it.

On and on it goes, training and accreditation credits mounting in your personal development plan, your bank account shrinking with no prospect of earning the fees you paid to get it from the new knowledge and skills the certificate suggests you’ve absorbed. You will have been consistently reminded of the importance of self-responsibility through their teachings, it’s a transfer of responsibility and well-practiced by them, because it slams the door shut to you asking how come it, and they, made no difference when it’s over. You’ve already been force-fed the answer; it’s you, and only you at fault.

Reflecting on the very reason you paid and played: you thought you had an issue, an error or an absence of an essential, and they agreed. We come full circle and you’re back at deep feelings of frustration and discontent, possibly with a smattering of puzzlement. It’s unlikely this will feel particularly strange to you as you’ve most likely been here before. These moments form a perfect time for a new course suggestion, a newly identified missing piece to get you out of the mess you’re in. They know that. Luckily for them our ability to engage cognitive dissonance alleviates pain or angst at these times, replacing it with ambition, and your soon to be repeated error is hidden by a process which feels like sensible logic.

Don’t mistake this article as a plea to avoid a training course that will help you, since there are many that can. Under no circumstances should you stop learning, as the acquisition of skills, knowledge and experience are all rewarding in themselves, in addition to raising your market value.

Instead recognise its intention to reset your ambition when buying into a course and the promoted change it will make, avoid believing your singular missing piece will be somehow be found, and beware of the accreditation attraction as many accolades aren’t as recognised and revered as the folks who flog them would have you believe.

Every other driver you meet on the road has at one time been tested and deemed competent.

If this example doesn’t convince you that assessment and accreditation aren’t a guarantee that others will recognise your talent, what will?

Tasks all delegated, but ...

We can get someone else to do all sorts of stuff for us, from making our morning coffee and washing our car to completing our tax return and managing our diet with carefully selected and pre-packaged meals. Not like our ancestors, ancient and recent, they didn't have that choice.

After delegating these important but time-consuming tasks we are a generation with more time to involve ourselves in significant matters like the true meaning of life, personal progression, leisure, learning, love and connection. 

Or at least we should be...

Status Report:

All excuses for not living a full life eliminated; empty feelings continue. Help is needed.

And the cycle continues ... Until we realise obstacles aren't the block.

Shut Down by the System

You may already be there.

You may be on your way.

It will get you if you let it. 

It could be any day. 

Look around if you're out and about, amongst others. If home alone recount the last time you were in the midst of people going about their everyday stuff.

Do you see it? They operate like robots, avoiding eye contact with us and others they defer to any form of authority to connect: technology, signs, instructions, show your id, stand in line, pay here, wait there.

Despite anthropological evidence showing homo sapiens thrived because we learned to co-operate, modern life is competitive. Beyond the competition to win a new job when many apply, to daily efforts to grab a parking space or get served at the deli counter.

Take a number.

We celebrate the announcement 'you are number 3 in the queue' as it feels like progress.

Given your number.

You are not important, the system is important and it has a place for you. Step in line.

You are a number. 

Forget the warnings of a dystopian future in books and movies, we are already here.

Self Esteem: seemed like a good idea!

Alongside the leotards and step classes, the 1980's saw the self-esteem movement leap into the social conscience, and flood bookshops, to address an issue ... 

People needed to be set free from limiting beliefs and low expectations. 

How did that go? If you really want to know just get out there and take a look.

I'll give you a clue, it did not go well.

We've now got all the attitude and entitlement with no reason and no responsibility. It's all about them, they're special, they're talented, they're attractive, they're amazing, at least in their own mind. They bought into the delusion and haven't found a way out.

Sadly for the rest of us they are lazy, stupid, uncaring, useless, pointless, self-absorbed and moronic. Thanks largely to all the books by the pop-psychologists who saw a gap and filled it with their drivel. Not forgetting the videos and courses and workshops and one-to-one coaching to amend the residual self-image, even though at best it only hides it for a while (that's why it's residual - there's a clue in the words).

It didn't work.

Some courses even awarded ribbons, badges, accreditations and certificates to reinforce the new you.

Instead of realising the pointlessness of it all and abandoning it in favour of something better, most of what we can find in the current personal development sphere is dusted-off old stuff or rewritten old-stuff with a new label, supported by a coloured logo or model title. Those who embarked on the journey to greatness are strangely still on it and haven't moved very far, even though they are able to describe their limitations with a label and have identified the next step they now need to take.

The next course will be the 'One'

... Is the predominant thought as the credit-card is handed over to the latest snake-oil sales specialist. It won't. They said that last time, but the great thing about cognitive dissonance is its ability to help us forget important lessons as we head face-first into the next one.

In the meantime, just on the other side of the table, is the provider. There are a few who are deliberate manipulators, but there are also many who are stuck in their own journey without a destination. They don't just sit with you as a fellow traveller, they sell tickets. At least for them their passage is paid.