Empowering the Sales Force - What do Large Organizations, Time Travel, and Bacon have in Common?

Most organizations have all the resources in the world but fail to use them to aid their sales force. They treat their organization as if it is a small business and everyone knows what is going on. However, this is a fallacy as the following analogy elaborates on the situation.

The Nomad Story:

Imagine this scenario. A few thousand years ago, a nomad is stranded in the desert without food or water. An intelligent human from the future has created a vitamin that can provide the nomad with enough energy to stay alive for one week in the desert without food or water. This intelligent human has transported the vitamin back in time along with another individual from the future, deemed the adviser.

The adviser’s job is to convince the nomad to eat the vitamin so that the nomad can stay alive. Because the vitamin does not look or smell appetizing, the nomad will not eat it without outside influence. First, the vitamin creator has to convince the adviser why the nomad should eat the vitamin. Does the vitamin creator say “this piece of matter contains the proper amino acids to decompose within an indigestion system to sustain proper nucleus nourishment?” No, the vitamin creator tells the adviser, “This pill will keep that man alive for the next week.”

The problem arises from the fact that the adviser and the nomad do not speak the same language. What does the adviser do to ensure that the nomad consumes the vitamin?

The Analogy:

In this story, the nomad is the client, the adviser is the sales team, the vitamin is a company product, and the vitamin creator is a large organization with vast resources. 

How Large Organizations Fall Short of Empowering their Sales Force:

The first step in the process is for large company (vitamin creator) to convince the sales team (adviser) to sell their product (the vitamin). Most large organizations take the first approach in this story by telling their sales team abstract and vague descriptions, such as 

"our product is smart, brilliant, and sophisticated, which will allow it to increase revenue and market share while decreasing costs." 

When in reality, the large corporation should really be telling the sales team a more concrete story, such as

"our product helps clients with large amounts of activity during peak occasions, such as an increase in online traffic for a retailer during Christmas.” 

Its real, its direct, and it includes an example.

Large organizations dress up their products when speaking internally as if their employees are clients. Their message needs to be short, sweet, and directly to the point. The sales team is responsible for dressing up the products when speaking with clients. Going back to the story, the answer to the solution is that the adviser wraps the vitamin in bacon and hands it to the nomad.

Once the sales team understands the true nature of the products they sell, then they can wrap them up in bacon and sell them. However, they can’t do this unless they truly understand the product itself. 

One Step to Get the Most Out of Your Life

We all want the most out of our lives. However, when we pursue any activity with our own desires in mind, we fail. I am here today to tell you the one single mindset that will yield you the greatest returns - regardless of what area of your life you focus on.

The simple answer is to set your own personal gain aside and concentrate on your team's overall success. This is simple. This is hard to practice. If you care more about your team's results rather than what you did, you will win in the end. You may not always be the one on top, but as long as your team succeed, then so did you. Corruptness emerges from individuals carrying more about themselves than the greater good of everyone else. Selfishness is a terrible motivator, especially in business (i.e. personal bonuses).

Its not about how many points scored, how much work you put into a project, how much effort you put into cleaning the house or anything else. Its about your team winning the volleyball game, your project achieving success, and the fact that the house is actually clean. These three simple steps will help you achieve what you want in life by helping others succeed.

1. The team's results are more important than your own. As long as you contributed to the team in a positive way, you will be happy and more satisfied.

2. Focus less on the I part and more on the we part. Your company will not fail if you don't get ALL the credit that you deserve. If your team wins, you get to play another game. If they lose, your season is done and it doesn't matter if you scored 40 points in the basketball game.

3. You have a team that you are on everyday of your life. It may just not be a formal team. Your team consists of your spouse, your friends that you haven't spoke to in a while, and even the stranger sitting across from you at the coffee shop. If you make them better and happy, you will find yourself becoming better and happy. 

If you follow this simple rule, you will find yourself on the winning side every time. These messages are counter intuitive, but this is the definition of karma. So, go out there and treat every person as they are your teammate with the goal of helping them succeed in life.

Which One Creates the Best Life: Your Past Self or Your Present Self?

There are two types of happiness that appeal to the human psyche. The first one is content happiness, which is experienced in the present moment, and hence I will call this type Present Happiness. This type of happiness emerges from enjoying yourself at your current task, such as eating food or participating in a hobby that you enjoy.

The second type of happiness is meaningful happiness, which can only be experienced by reflecting on your own memories, which I will call Past Happiness. Typically, in order to fill your brain with meaningful happiness, you must have encountered a tough journey towards achieving a goal. For instance, raising kids is a great example of meaningful happiness. Kids rarely bring any happiness to you in the moment (Present Happiness), but when they are grown up and you are old, you get to enjoy your memories and enter into a state of Past Happiness.

So, which one is better? In the end, Present Happiness is temporary while Past Happiness is permanent. Past Happiness is where we truly get satisfaction out of our lives. However, the trick is that a life composed of 100% Past Happiness and 0% Present Happiness is not ideal. This life would consist of committing only selfless acts for every waking moment of your life. Not a single person has the capacity to live this type of life.

However, if you still want to achieve Past Happiness, the correct way to do so is to sprinkle sporadic moments of Present Happiness into your life. For example, if you volunteer for an entire day of community service (which will contribute to your Past Happiness), you should indulge afterwards with a beer or a Chocolate Molten Cake. In this way, you will create memories of Past Happiness, but you will not be completely miserable through the process of creating these memories. Who truly enjoys the present moment of community service? It is the memories that we create which are the root cause of true Past Happiness. But, a dessert here or there helps create enough Present Happiness to get you through the adversity of the present in order to create the everlasting Past Happiness Memories.

In the end, Past Happiness is what has the greatest impact on us. A year from now, you probably won't remember your Chocolate Molten Cake. But there is a greater chance that you will remember your community service efforts. My recommendation is to try to be as selfless as possible, which will create memories of Past Happiness. But, whenever you are feeling overwhelmed, stressed, or drained of energy, take some time off, eat a dessert, go play basketball, or anything else that your present self would enjoy.

I am going to leave you with one final thought. Socially eating dinner or grabbing a drink together with friends is the a great combination of Present and Past Happiness. You create memories with your friends, establishing Past Happiness, but at the same time, you enjoy yourself and establish Present Happiness at the same time.

Please feel free to comment or reach out to me if you want to carry on a further conversation.