For the past 5 years, I have been traveling the nation for work. I have seen a ton of great things from the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic Ocean and everything in between. Below is a picture of the places I have been in the last five years and believe me I did not mark them all.
Ok, now that I have shown off a little I want to get to the going in cold point of this blog. Every place I have gone on this map I have faced the same fears and the same concerns. The night before each customer meeting, I would stress about what issue the customer was going to hit me with and how I would articulate myself as to how we are going to fix the issue brought to my attention. Catastrophizing over and over and over again to exhaustion. The majority of the meetings I would go into with about 3 to 4 hours of sleep because I was tossing and turning all night mowing over all the scenarios.
Then I got a new Team Leader that showed me a few things that changed my work life forever. When I first met this Team leader we went to one of my customer's facilities. Before we got out of the rental car he stopped me and said: "before you exit this car sit for a minute and watch the employee's entering into this office". After about 3 minutes of watching the employees enter the building, he asked me: "what do you see"? I told him that it seems like no one is happy. He said correct but there is a cause to the unhappiness. He said look at the manager in the suit notice, pay attention as to how he is fixing his hair a making sure his suit cote is on just perfect? That is what I call an empty suit! He proceeded to tell me" if become an empty suit I will fire you". He also said " I can tell you a worried and you need to stop worrying and practice going into your customers cold".
1. Worry about your team, not the way you look to the leadership team!
- This is the symptom and cause scenario. Looking good to your leadership is a symptom of being a good leader that has a great team. So fix the cause and the symptom will come. Focus on building a great team and leadership will see you. Dr's make this mistake all the time. They treat symptoms, not causes.
2. GO IN COLD!!!!
- Save your mental energy for the interaction with the customer. You will never be able to see the future and know exactly how the meeting will go. So prepare by making sure you know the detail of where the customer is but don't anticipate how the meeting will go. Going in cold gives you the ability to have a clear mind for the interaction that is ahead.
- Habit 5 of 7 habits of highly effective people is Seek First to Understand Then Be Understood. Steven R. Covey Said that understanding to the soul is what air is to the body. So go in cold and let the customer talk, let them be understood. Once you understand them you can build with them a clear objective to move forward on.
In summary:
Don't be an empty suit!
Og Mandino said love is my weapon, and muscle can split a shield and even destroy life but only the unseen power of love can soften the hardest heart like the sun's ray can soften the coldest clay! Worry not how you look, worry about the team you have stewardship over and how they look instead. Seek to understand your team their strengths and weaknesses and give them the tools to succeed. When they look good you look good!
Go in cold!
Imagine for a second that all the air in the room you are in right now had all the air sucked out of it. Imagine what you would do without air. Would you worry about your family? NO! Would you worry about what is for dinner tonight? NO! The only thing that would be important is the ability to breathe. Understanding to the soul is like air to the body. So if that is the case go into all human interaction COLD and seek to understand.
Experiment to Try:
Easy drop next time you are somewhere that you can overhear a conversation. Ask yourself are they really listening to each other? You will find that very seldom will you find a listener.
I need to work on this for sure!!!!!
I need to work on this for sure!!!!!
