How Business Ate My Brain

Listen to any politician or public policy wonk and you hear strong, unbroken business first rhetoric.  In fact if you think Citizens United is strange for essentially elevating corporations to citizen status, listen to politicians.  One would be forgiven to think that government represents business first, people second.

Has it always been this way?

In Minnesota some people want to slow down and take a look at sand mining operations developing primarily in the state’s southeastern counties.  Sand is used in frac mining — another business-first juggernaut that might need scrutiny — and there is a lot of sand miners need in Minnesota and Wisconsin.

Some people living in those areas want development to slow down, primarily to study impact on the environment and the local economy.

But you will hear politicians push back.  They don’t want the business to go elsewhere.

Frac Sand Mine near LaCrosse, WI.

Well, what if it might be preferable for that business to go elsewhere?  Suppose the frac sand mining operations cause long-term harm that outweighs short-term gain, for example?

Well, maybe, but the Business Zombies don’t give those possibilities much of a chance.  As quickly as a pragmatic argument like that emerges, it is chomped down by the Business Zombies.

This is just one example.  We could consider many others, like frac mining itself.  From the mad sweep to deregulate industry to dismantling pro-(domestic) business trade policy to enthusiastic tax giveaways, it is all done in the name of business.

On the other end we no longer find the political will to fund important social contracts that serve people, programs like Medicare and Social Security; we compromise our environmental protection laws; we cut funding for schools; we support unbalanced tax policies that hurt families; and the list goes on.

Why?  Because the Business Zombies have taken over.  Government of business, by business, for business…especially if you’re a multinational, tax-evading, increasingly foreign-owned business.  Domestic business?  Well, you have had your chance.  Quietly go away.

I understand the importance of business and jobs, but business and jobs don’t preclude some thoughtful commonsense.  The fear of being marked as anti-business in this country leads to too many things happening too recklessly.  Everything is put into a context that business means everything.  It doesn’t.  If a business destroys the land, ruins the local economy, and shifts long-term priorities away from people, that’s a bad thing.  The costs are too high.

Where is the harm in asking whether something good for business is bad for people?

Related articles

• Please Sign Moratorium Petition (wisair.wordpress.com)
• Red Wing mayor hired for frac sand lobbying (lacrossetribune.com)
• Schmit calls for statewide survey on frac sand mining (minnesota.publicradio.org)
• Frac sand mining awakens activism in southeastern Minnesota (startribune.com)

Anything is Possible Week: Day Two

Aspire!

When I declared this “Anything is Possible Week,” I guess I thought I might be setting the week up for something special.  Maybe it’s the word “anything” that tripped me up.  Put “anything” with “possible” and you start to think “different” and maybe even expect “exceptional.”

So far, I hate to say, “anything” has meant neither anything different or exceptional.

Nevertheless, I will say that Day Two shows improvement over Day One however.  We actually got a thing or two accomplished.  (Imagine that.)  And I enjoyed driving around town.  Plenty of time to think.

And that got me wondering…Do my clients think?

I deal with a lot of small business owners and…well…while I love them, I worry.  (Boy, do I worry.)  I have my theories explaining why I think many people get into business for themself, but they are not very flattering theories.  (Unable to work with others, maybe?  I won’t say.)  Nevertheless, for a group of people you would expect to be smart planners and polished professionals, the  best advice I have is don’t set expectations too high.

If fact I started writing about dealing with these clients and lost my enthusiasm for it almost from the moment the idea popped into my head  I plodded on anyway and that only made things worse.  If I was getting bored writing about it, I can imagine how painful it would be if — and that’s a big if – you read it.

Hollow Suffering (Photo credit: Cayusa)

So, I don’t know…A day doesn’t go by when I don’t scratch my head trying to sort it out.  (The worrisome “what the fuck am I doing” moments.)  These really aren’t Willy Loman experiences, but frustrating nonetheless.

When I look across the table in a meeting, often I see…well, I see nothing.  Staying awake is the goal.  Simple concepts like return on investment mean nothing.  Figuring margins is impossible.  Keeping a budget…forget about it.  But the most frustrating thing I experience dealing with small business owners is the inability to make a decision.

I start looking for an out, unless something interesting is going on in the office.  That doesn’t happen often, but it happens.  Offices with animals offer the most promise for this when things fall apart.  Making faces at cats and dogs when the business owner isn’t looking, for example, relieves a lot of impatient anxiety.  The dogs and cats seem to like it, too.  At least the dogs do.  And so do I.

Plus it is amazing what you can learn from meeting a wide variety of people every day.  It is amazing, too, to see how much social stamina you can build over time in those less-than-stimulating experiences, as in “I am going to stay for ten more minutes and not kill anyone.”  It is like practicing holding your breath.  Over time, endurance increases.

And like breaking the surface after holding your breath underwater, escaping a suffocating office can feel as exhilarating as a jail break, without the hassle of deputies chasing you, of course.  When I eventually break away, I count my good fortune — “Thank god I don’t work there!”– and move on.

It’s a lot of fun, actually.

Have you found your nut today?

Every so often making a sale is a good idea, however, and today I turned a few clients toward the light and got signatures, long overdue signatures.  In this way, I proved once again that every so often even a blind squirrel finds a nut and it really is true, anything is possible.

And, please, please, tolerate me…there are many very smart, polished and enjoyable business owners out there with whom I get to work with every day — and you know who you are, don’t you, superstar! — but if the world were all superstardom, being great would merely be being average.  Isn’t that right?  We strive for more than average, dear reader!  I need the flops for context and it takes a special breed (me) to deal with them.

Such is Day Two.

Related articles

• Featured Business Owner – Jamie Calvetti of Calvetti Meats (learnedatscore.wordpress.com)
• The Customer is Always Right (parishgov.wordpress.com)
• 7 Habits of a Highly Successful Small Business Owner (business2community.com)
• James S. Cassel: Thinking of selling your business? Better get started (miamiherald.com)
• Lean ‘Sales’ (thetrimpact.wordpress.com)
• Essential Tips for Being Your Own Wedding Planner (weddings.answers.com)

Shut Down Simple-Minded Tax Cut for Job Creators Rhetoric

The simple-minded arguments promoting tax cuts for so-called job creators are misleading, incorrect, and frankly very stale.   For the most part, they do not fit the current economic environment and reflect a level fiscal irresponsibility that is in large part a cause of our national budget mess.  Smart tax policy has been absent for too long and it is time for that to change.

No smart business owner is going to hire people simply because he has more money.  If you manufacture widgets and you have a warehouse full of unsold widgets, what incentive do you have to hire more people to make more widgets?  You don’t have any incentive to do so.  What will you do with the additional widgets and the added costs needed to produce them?

The anti-tax movement argues that we need to ensure that “job creators” have the resources – i.e., money – to hire workers.  This argument has justified decades of increasingly unbalanced tax policy which favors the so-called job creators.  It is the “trickle down” or supply-side model that is not working, especially in our current depressed economy.

If the trickle down model did indeed work, we should be awash in jobs now.  The wealthiest among us are doing well.  They have money to invest.  Why are they not investing those resources here to create jobs here?  Because there is no demand for the goods and services in which they might invest.  Corporations likewise are sitting on record cash reserves.  Again, they are not investing here because it is not justified by demand.

If we want to stimulate growth, we need policy that puts more money in consumer bank accounts.  Often by sheer necessity, they spend the cash they have which then pushes up the demand we need.  Misleading rhetoric about “makers” and “takers” is unfair and incorrect.  One can make the argument – especially in the current market environment – that the middle and working class are the job creators.  Without growth their spending stimulates, we will be locked in stagnate economic growth.

Of course there is some investment underway.  However when businesses do invest, it is increasingly likely that they are investing in cheaper labor markets in the global economy.  We have a systematic labor and demand problem in the United States.  Maintaining tax cuts, subsidies, and other financial incentives behind the argument that it will spur growth has been proven a failed policy in the status quo and does not address the decline of our comparative advantages in the world economy.  We are poorer, less educated, and most importantly lagging behind other countries in our infrastructure and research investments.

Our remaining global stronghold is our financial sector – and to some extend our nation’s monetary system and reserve, although Republicans are determined to undercut that – but this sector serves a very small number of Americans.  Even American workers investing in 401(k)s see less from the financial sector as they have less income to invest and suffer most from the current era’s boon and bust market cycles.

We cannot expect to compete in old manufacturing sectors where we can no longer compete on the labor market, unless we want to undercut the middle class prosperity that has been a part of the American way of life for generations (which in fact is happening now).  We should instead be investing in future economic opportunities, maintaining a secure and educated workforce, and investing in smart infrastructure to sustain future growth.  But we are not doing this.  We are giving tax cuts instead and expecting something magical to happen.

Unfortunately, nothing magical is happening.  That’s obvious to anyone paying attention to our country’s economic trends over the past couple decades.

My two cents.

Related articles

• We Do Not HAVE to Cut Entitlements (alittletourinyellow.wordpress.com)
• Taxes Aren’t Theft, Tax Cuts For The Wealthy Are Theft (seeingtheforest.com)
• Boehner Says Taxes Are Theft, Here Is An Answer (ourfuture.org)

 

Why Wage Stagnation Matters

When I read about wage stagnation, I can’t help but think that it should be a concern, even for those largely untouched by the matter.

In an article Sunday’s New York Times, MIT economist Erik Brynjolfsson correctly points out “There is no economic law that says that technological progress has to benefit everyone or even most people.”  And of course it is more than just a matter of technological progress that affects economic growth.  But overall as the economy has grown in recent decades, the benefits of that growth have not been shared as equally as in the past.  Again, there is not hard fast economic law that says it should.

There is, however, another reason why stagnation should matter.  It has to do with the intangibles that support an economy.  For decades the United States has been draw for people — and their wealth of energy, ideas, and capital — to come to this country for all that it offered that was not found in other parts of the world.  Along with the benefits of strong social services and security, perhaps the most attractive draw has been opportunity.

If we let our social services and infrastructure crumble around us, that’s one story; but if we start to neglect the conditions of shared growth and opportunity, then that is something else altogether.  We shouldn’t take it for granted that the world’s talent will continue to flock to American shores and contribute to a better future.

Right now it might seem absurd to think that American culture and society should lose out to a foreign competitor, but that kind of hubris is bad for American citizens today and a threat for the future.   Look at the global changes that have occurred in just the last 30 years.  The modernization of the world and its economy is happening at an incredible pace.  If we neglect our working and middle classes, why shouldn’t we expect other economies to benefit.

Yes, we have democracy and enormous economic size that will sustain American competitiveness, but why compromise our competitive advantages?  Government economic policy that caters to those gaining the most from our growth has not benefited the majority of working Americans equally and yet those benefiting most likely would not have the level of economic growth they have enjoyed without the benefit of working Americans.

So why shouldn’t those who benefit the most invest more for their gains?  In the long run, I believe you can make the argument that it would be a good investment in a strong American future.

Related articles

• Growing social and wealth inequality in America (presstv.com)
• Robots and Robber Barons (nytimes.com)
• Inequality is rising. Should we blame robots or the government? Or both? (washingtonpost.com)
• The Unequal State of America (reuters.com)

The Cost of Obamacare and the Cost of Pizza

John Schnatter, CEO of Papa John’s, complained a while back that Obamacare would result in a rise in the price of Papa John’s pizzas by as much as 11 cents, maybe even 14 cents!

(Wasn’t John Schnatter in favor of universal health care at one time?)

I don’t mean to pick on Papa John’s or question John Schnatter’s assessment.  Let’s just say it is true and think out loud.

If the kind of burden consumers — whoops, I mean corporations and job creators — will bear to ensure that we implement the Affordable Care Act amounts to things like 14 cents a pizza, is that really too high a price to pay for an important service like health care?

Shoot, the price of tomato sauce likely fluctuates more than 14 cents a pizza from month-to-month or from location-to-location.  How do businesses survive?  How do consumers budget?  Why hasn’t the free market fallen to pieces?

These complaints are silly.  At worst the increase in labor costs initially might slow hiring until employers “recover” from the shock of these costs.  As I mentioned, other costs of business change and fluctuate, but business goes on.  Supply and demand work it out.

And to complain that such surcharges are a drag on GDP is a matter that washes out when the costs of uninsured decrease with a better health care system.  And it is hard to be overly sympathetic at any rate when corporate profits are at record levels as a share of GDP.

If anything, one should be more suspicious of business motives when they raise prices behind a policy change such as Obamacare.  San Francisco is a case study we can check.  In that city a health care mandate was passed and it turned out that about half of the employers who set up surcharges spent about 10 per cent of that money on health care.  The rest stayed with the business.

Who is going to pay this 14 cent increase?  John Schnatter or the people who buy is pizzas, is one question.  Where that money would go is a better one.

Related articles

• Papa John’s pizza cuts employees’ hours supposedly due to Obamacare (americablog.com)
• Breaking Down Centi-Millionaire ‘Papa’ John Schnatter’s Obamacare Math (forbes.com)
• Papa John’s Owner Slammed by Liberals for Stating He’ll Bypass ObamaCare Costs (newsbusters.org)

Advertising, Small Business, and Sales People

Withhold your thoughts about whether you like direct mail, door hangers, or that sort of thing.  I want to share an experience I had meeting a new business that should give a business owner a reason to think twice before pushing a salesman out the door.

 

Not long ago we had space to fill on a neighborhood direct mail product I offer.  It was available  for a nominal fee, mostly to cover part of the production cost.  Even at a bargain price, I understand that it would not fit all business needs, but a business would reach 10,000 homes in the surrounding neighborhoods for less than two cents a delivery.

 

I usually do not stop at businesses in my neighborhood — in large part because people become irrational about sales and I don’t want to risk that interfering in my relationships with neighbors — but I walked past what like a new optical goods shop in my neighborhood and I thought a perfect fit.  So I decided stop in, introduce myself, and see if they wanted some information about our offer and set an appointment to meet.

 

The woman running the shop cut me off and explained that she had been open for months. word-of-mouth was working great for her.  She let me know her husband works in advertising and has everything handled.  I asked what he did and she told me he was very creative, he knew all about designing and creating ads, and had been doing that for years.  Again, everything is covered.

 

I am not so sure.

 

Her husband might very well be a capable advertising man, but if she were sincere, she’s lost all credibility with me.  Writing a good tagline or laying out an effective display ad is worlds apart from advertising and marketing it.  But there’s a good chance I was just getting the brush off and she didn’t want to talk to me.

 

Not Me.

Here’s what you need to know.

 

I live yards away from the store.  Every Sunday I buy a cinnamon roll in a shop next door.  My insurance agent is adjacent to the shop, too.  Probably not a day goes by when I don’t pass that store  at least once.  And guess what…it had been open for months and I didn’t know it existed.

 

I also wear eye glasses and tend to invest in better eye wear.  If I had known about an optical store opening in my neighborhood, I likely would have at least enough interest to check it out.

 

It is also late in the year.  I have a large balance remaining in my health savings account.  I tend to apply any balance I have at the end of the year to purchasing eye glasses.

 

So I am a strong prospective new lead for this business.  I live in the neighborhood, wear glasses, and have money to spend.   If I live almost on top of the place and don’t know they are there, how likely are people blocks or a mile away to know about the store?

 

Finally, when you open a business — crazy as it seems — people will call or stop in to ask about doing business with you.  When they do, treat them as you would a customer because they might be a customer or become one.

 

A credible sales person will have done his homework and have a good reason for contacting you.  It doesn’t hurt to give him a minute to hear what he has to say.  You can quickly sort out the valuable calls from the rest.  But when you say no before knowing what you’re turning down…well, does that make sense?

 

For my part, I will shop at one of my two shops in Uptown again this year.  And I did mention that large available balance in my health savings account right?

 

Related articles

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• Has Direct Mail Been Replaced by Newer Tech Savvy Forms of Advertising? (prweb.com)
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• The Ripple Effect: Marketing 101 for New Business (tvamanda.com)

Simple Work Made Complicated

FAX (Photo credit: Independent Curators International)

Someone is going to get hurt.  And it isn’t going to be me.

I know we are all special in our special way.  We are all God’s children, even Republicans.  But I don’t think there is a gentle explanation for the frustration caused by people who can unnecessarily complicated even the simplest task.

Consider the fax machine.

What is so difficult about sending paperwork from Point A to Point B for approval and then asking for that fax to be returned from Point B back to Point A?  We’re on not our second attempt here and not on our third, but we are now attempting to send a fax from Point A to Point B and get it returned for the FOURTH GODDAMN TIME!

Look, this is something your 5 year-old kid could do…and probably does do.  (Did you really order that Let’s Rock Elmo song book?)  Apparently faxing is…I don’t know…passe?  We are losing our competitive edge, people.

I had the fax sent with careful instructions, which included the line “Return all four pages of the agreement to me at …”   Guess what I got.  I got one page and it wasn’t even one of the pages of the agreement!

So I had the fax sent again with big Xs and “Sign Here” marked boldly on the agreement.  Guess what I got.  One page.  They lost pages 3 through 4.

Sent again.  This is attempt three.  I had our assistant call when we faxed.  Do you have the fax?  Yes.  Good.  Can you sign the fax now and send it back?  Yes.  Good.

Guess what happened.   Ten minutes pass.  Fifteen.  Half an hour.  So I ask the assistant to call again.  ”Oh, we’re sorry.  Got distracted.  Just a minute.  I’ll send it now.”  Ten minutes pass.  Fifteen.  Half an hour.

Ok, what is complicated about this?  Right now — with you patiently waiting – I will go through the motions of signing a simple contract, dial a number on a fax machine, place the document in the fax machine, and hit send.  I am going to time it.  I am even going to sip coffee between each step to more accurately reflect real life.  Ready?  Here I go.

La de da de da…La de da de da…La de da de da…La de da de da…La de da de da…La de da de da…

Done!

I took my time and I still completed the task in 34 seconds.

Hours have passed since this all began and I’m twitching just a bit.  I am not thinking good thoughts.  The whole point of this was saving time.  I could have crawled to this office and had better results.  So I asked my office to send the paper work ONE MORE TIME and I this time I got on the phone.  Do you have the fax?  Yes.  Good.  Can you sign each page now?  Yes.  Can you send the fax now?  Yes.  Thank you.

Guess who just called…Literally, called just now…it was my office.  Guess what they just received.  ONE FUCKING PAGE OF THE GODDAMN AGREEMENT!

Honestly, I am going to quit.

Related articles

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When a Sales Call Goes Bad

I am going to talk a little about identifying a call that is failing and what you might do when that happens.

I found myself on the losing end of a failing call tonight.  The prospect was no where near where I thought he was.  He seemed unable to grasp even the most basic parts of our recommendation.  This can be a very disconcerting feeling, especially when you are not prepared for it.  But there’s the rub, you should always be prepared for it.  Don’t presume the sale.  Ever.

There are things to learn from this.  First on the part of the business owner I can share some advice that might help us all.  People who are slow to make decisions tend to be among my least successful clients.  I am not entirely sure why this is true, but it is true.  People who suffer from paralysis by analysis often suffer from compromised decisions.  Time is wasted and often the meek make weak decisions.

Our prospect tonight went overboard on what he thought might go wrong.  Certainly, make an informed decision, but make a balanced decision, too.  Even worse for this business owner, meeting him tonight felt like meeting someone who was not a part of any of our meetings.  Maybe he wasn’t.  Being in a meeting is one thing.  Participating and using a meeting is another.

This business owner was ready to make decision, but a bad one.  Tonight, in fact, I refused to take the requested order.  This is a business that wants to advertise in the New York DMA on a Grover’s Corner budget.  Literally.  He shed 90% off of his budget and dumbed-down his goals so much that the program would fail.  Someone else can sell him the underpowered waste of money he’s looking for.  I won’t.

I asked him instead — as politely as I could – to call me when he was ready to advertise in New York.

There is more important advice for salesmen that I can share from my position.  As a salesman you need to push value at every opportunity.  You need to stay engaged with your prospect and never take a sale for granted.  If you can justify it, you can sell it.  Make sure you can justify your proposal…and make double-sure your client is following.  Presumptions derail the best plans.

But sometimes a client simply doesn’t get it.  You can justify your sale perfectly, but they cannot see it.  Or perhaps they will not see it.

Perhaps they don’t have the resources or understanding…maybe they don’t see the need…possibly they are intimidated.  A variety of hidden issues can prevent the sale.  Rarely is it the stated objection.  And you can bet your last dollar if the client is trying to out-think you, you don’t have agreement.  He’s looking for holes, he’s looking for an out.

When you get to this point, you have lost control of your sales call.  It happens to the best of us, but in the end it is how you recover that matters.

Sometimes a dud is a dud and you’re not going to make a sale.  In cases like this look at how you failed to pre-qualify your lead and set the agenda.  “Will you be ready to do business with me if what we talk about makes sense to your business?”  Then make sure you’re presenting features and benefits of your product to answer that question in the affirmative.

But again…sometimes you just don’t make the sale.  Sometimes you don’t have what the prospect wants or needs.  Sometimes someone outsells you.  These are facts.  Wasting time, however, is something you can learn to control.

If you start to lose your prospect, as I did, and he wastes your time, you have to act to cut your losses.  Determine if you need to stay in the game.  Sometimes it is simply a matter of being frank.   Tonight my lead imploded before my eyes.  I recognized that, but chose to hang on and play along instead of regaining control.

Legitimate concerns and questions…yes, of course, you answer those, they reinforce your sale.  Those are good.  Overcoming objections is a salesman’s job and it shouldn’t be a game.  It is straight forward.  Let experience and your own understanding tell you when you’re in an incoherent loop.

Many times you have bring the client back to why you met in the first place.  “Can you still see how this can help your business?”  Or maybe call the question:  “I don’t think you understand.  Do you mind if I ask if there is something you haven’t told me that is raising these questions now?”

I generally believe if you’re still talking, you’re still selling, meaning dialogue is good.  If you’re client is asking and answering questions, you’re still in the hunt.  But if you are simply chasing scattered “yeah buts”, that isn’t a very meaningful hunt.  Stop wasting your time.

As far as this sales call is concerned, I will call this client again.  I won’t expect him to call me.  I will ask if he’s thought more about the proposal.  Yes?  No?  Can I answer any questions?  If he refuses, I will send a short letter thanking him for his time, hit on a key benefit of our proposal, and ask him to give us an opportunity to work together.   He will be in my future follow up file.

There are many, many other leads out there.

Why Republicans Need Not Worry About a Strong Economy in 2012

Bush and Obama. Change wasn't as bad as the right feared.

Looking at my clock it is just a few minutes past 9:00 in the morning and already two small business owners have told me they need to rethink a contract with me.  Why? 

One business owner tells me he’s not sure what next year will be like.  Ok, fine, that’s fair.  I’m not sure I know what next year will be like either.  He says things are better, but it might be “just a blip.”  There’s too much uncertainty, he says.

The other business owner said he has to assess how much it costs for him to operate his trucks.  “Have you seen the price of gas?  I need to cut costs somewhere.”  He told me with all the trouble in the Middle East and Obama in charge, there’s too much uncertainty.

Uncertainty?  I hardly think so.  There is a very carefully controlled message that is far from uncertain.  The buzzword for this election cycle is — at this point anyway – uncertainty.  Anyone who needs a reason to be skeptical about the future has his reason, again courtesy of the naysaying can’t-do political right:  The GOP. 

I work with business owners every day.  Two years ago the word “uncertainty” didn’t pass the lips of one of them.  So why is everyone talking in the trumped up lingo of Wall Street investors today?  Because this idea of uncertainty is one the key talking points on the right.  It also shows the skillful manipulation of public discourse that the right is so much more capable of compared with Democrats and the left.

When was business success ever a certainty?  The myth of the self-made man in America is all about tackling unknowns and succeeding, about taking calculated risks and overcoming the odds.  Am I right?  If there is a profitable margin, someone will move to take advantage of it.  That’s what innovation and competition are all about.  That’s enterprising American capitalism at work.

As the economy recovers, conservatives are in a tough spot.  How do they win the blame game if there is less to whine about?  Of course current legislation proposed by conservatives is at best misguided and insincere, but even passing those backward efforts might not succeed in derailing the economy to favor petulant Republicans and their destructive agenda.  So the idea of uncertainty is a way to hedge against success.  If the economy recovers, we can be certain that it will not be enough.

Conservatives have their lock-step followers who will march right off the edge of a cliff for the sake of toeing the party line.  They don’t actually need to destroy the economy further to gain more power in 2012.  They just need to continue with the Big Lie strategy that has served them so well in recent decades.  And that is the very, very unsettling thing about politics and our future in the United States.

Related Articles

• Are Republicans screwing the job creators? (thegreengeeks.wordpress.com)
• “The Boehner Uncertainty Principle” (volokh.com)

Hang in There…Time for a Post.

Closely Resembles My Second Accident.

Nothing upbeat here.  Just hanging on.  This is December:  Started just over two weeks ago with the car accident mentioned in a post on December 11.  (Accident #1)

Six days later  while driving the rental car provided by the insurance company to cover my while my car was being repaired, I slide through a stop sign into traffic and get hit.  (Accident #2) 

A couple days later I get my car back and take it out in the field, happy to be back in my truck.  The happiness wasn’t to last long.  Halfway through the day I could not start my car and had to get it towed to the garage.  It turns out that a corroded A/C pump is keeping my car from turning over.  (Let’s call that an incident.  Incident #3)

No problem.  Get it fixed.  Drive a loaner from the garage.  While driving down 35E in St. Paul an aluminum shower surround flies out of the back of a pick up truck and hits my loaner.  I’m fine, but the car suffers dents on the hood and roof.  (Accident?  Incident?  What is that?  It is #4)

Frankly…it is difficult enough to close deals this time of the year.  It is much more difficult when you’re spending time waiting for tow trucks and car repairs.  Being in front of people is key to sales success.  A good attitude also serves a salesman well.  My attitude this month?  Well, did I mention that I have had the flu and now seem to be suffering some drippy relapse?  Let’s just say every day makes my attitude just a touch worse.  I am a grumpy, impatient SOB…but I put a good face on it.  In fact I think it might help me even a score or two.  I’ve found myself snapping back at knuckleheads a bit more easily recently.  It feels good.

Here’s the score.  I have three days to close about two weeks worth of sales.  Can I do it?  I don’t know.  But tune in here.  I will keep you posted.

WWWLD?

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