Turn your "Fear Factor" into your "X Factor"

"Hard work spotlights the character of people: some turn up their sleeves, some turn up their noses and some don't turn up at all.

Sam Ewing (1920-2001)American writer & humorist

Sometimes you suddenly get the thought that the experts have it upside down. That’s me at the moment. Every motivational book and article stresses the “be positive” attitude. Then I start thinking that some of my best business happened at times of sheer desperation, when my bank/ sales manager was demanding action or else, when my back was to the wall, and there was very little left to lose.

Story One: My Real Estate “career”

I once "enjoyed” a brief career as an Estate Agent…...hey, everyone is allowed one bad career move…....It only lasted five months. I couldn’t give houses away....…I was hopeless. I sold two houses during the first four months, and embarrassed myself and my company by being found fast asleep in a show house in Navan one viewing day. In the last month the gun was put to my head....…”Sell five houses, or else!”. Fair enough. The target was ridiculous but would give the manager leverage to exit Maitiu left.

Funny thing. No future in prospect, no job to go to, no idea what I wanted to do….I was very young, and I don’t talk about it…..but I did sell four houses in the last three weeks!

The boss still suggested I’d be better suited to another career avenue, and thus I missed out on the boom in the housing market of the last few years….another fine mess I got me into….

The point is, that in terror of the “sack” I sold all round me!. I focussed my thinking, I pushed for action and decisions, and generally behaved like a rotweiler on speed…. And it worked….Fear was the factor.

Story Two: The Seminar

Coming out of “Death Valley Curve” after about three years in the training industry, my finances were dodgy , to be charitable about it. Office equipment, salaries, promotion, rents, insurances etc…you know the story. Serious pressure form the bank to start making an upward move in finances.

An idiot cockney barrow boy, by the name of John Fenton, had presented a hugely successful large audience seminar in Dublin , the previous year……over 1700 attended. Colourful, clownish, ( if you were there do you remember The Skull?..”This is Yorick from Warwick”)..Nobody ever remembers a word of the “show”..he wouldn’t describe it as a seminar., but everyone present remembers the skull. A crisp €50.00 note to you if you can remind me of the context in which the skull was used by Fenton…I DO remember the Skull message, BTW.

A friend of mine suggested that if I looked at something similar, but more to Irish tastes, culture, and mores.
Nothing to lose, I designed a five hour large audience seminar, and reckoned it would have a shelf life of three performances maximum……Dublin, Cork, Galway. Taking everything into account wee needed an attendance of 500 to break even, and then we were into profit. A possible extra payoff- sales staff and their bosses from many companies would get a taste of me and my style.

We were very stimulated by the concept. It was something different to our normal activity. I was driven by panic. I was investing a fortune in promotion with no guarantees attached. “S**t or Bust”.
We generated 1100 paying customers in the three venues…Profit!

More interestingly, I presented that seminar 17 times in the following three years both at home and abroad… I was invited to speak at over 30 company sales conferences directly as a result of the prospects attending that seminar. I presented it in the UK, Amsterdam, Zurich and (3 times) in Nairobi. And always the training spin-off after the conference presentations.

And that was the last time we bottomed out on finances.

A happy accident – yes….a bit like discovering Viagra whilst researching a cancer drug.
These days, I realise I am driven by my insecurity as many sellers are. I recently watched Ireland playing for a play off place in the World Cup, and it occurred to me that if they had brought the energy and activity of the last 15 minutes of the game to the previous 75 minutes, they would have beaten the Swiss and Ireland would be on the move again.

Fear is a big driver. Think it through in your own situation and you will see that when fear was your factor, you developed the “X Factor” and gained the result.

Now where’s that guru who says “You have to be positive!” I want to let him in on the secret.

I continue to recommend “The Brain Audit”. A tour- de –force to wake up your sales thinking.
Check it out here

Keep Selling with Integrity!

Health & Blessings until next time.

Maitiu

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