Not Quite True

If you’ve read any of my articles you’ll know my focus generally tends to lean toward the emotional and spiritual aspects of selling.

Selling is quite simple. The mechanics of it have never really changed through the years; and let’s face it, most of us know what to do and how to do it, but it is within the actual ‘doing’ of it that many of us come unglued.

If you’ve been underperforming in your sales job, you may need to recognize that perhaps you’re not dealing with a mechanical issue of the sales function, maybe there’s a lack of something within your company, or perhaps more likely, you’re ignoring a spiritual or emotional problem within yourself.

It’s extremely difficult for any of us to accept our own failings (just ask me), so difficult in fact many of us never achieve any form of real self-acceptance about what it is we do and why we do it – and not wanting to sound too cute we end up living a life of self-except-ance. “Its everyone and everything else’s fault except mine.”

Taking ownership and full responsibility for all that has happened to us in our own lives (right down to this week’s sales results) is a big ‘ask’ and no mean feat. Some of us faced with this enormity will even publicly deny (trying desperately to convince ourselves) that we are not the cause of our own misery, faults and plight, unchanging until the day we die.

Yet think about it.

No. Feel it.

Who is responsible for you?

You know the truth, the real truth.

In the selling of advertising it’s become terribly easy these days not to take responsibility for the results we turn in, and in truth I think many around us even encourage this lack of ownership. The words and catch phrases we’ve used over the years to sell things have changed, but the fact is humans haven’t change that much at all. I believe we spend far too much time searching for easy answers to our challenges, and even researching and formulating excuses as to why we aren’t responsible even before disaster happens. After all it is everyone else’s fault, isn’t it?

Even the highest authorities in the advertising industry often publicly claim, “Media is changing!”, “Gen Y is so hard to hit!” or “the economy is to blame” all excuses aimed at justifying our lack of performance. How many fingers can you see pointing towards the internet, the digital and mobile explosion, smart phones and connected car dashboards? Who or what will be responsible for your mediocrity next quarter – another looming recession? An election? The coupon companies?

Most selling terms these days are mere psychobabble, they’re facades that allow us not to deal with the real truth of our own failings. We tend to psychobabble our way in and out of owning the responsibility of anything these days. For me – if I hear one more person tell me their woes in life are caused by “inner-child” issues; or their lack of identity in a relationship; the government; an ex marriage partner or a parent; even “I can’t sell these ads because the format’s all wrong” – I’ll gag, because it’s simply not true.

Am I being too strong?

Sure, some people are stronger than others. Absolutely everyone has problems (some more than others), and sure not all dreams come true. In fact the more people I meet, the more I have come to learn everyone has a story of hardship and tragedy in their lives, but is it tragedy that they choose to lay under and be smothered by, or something they choose to overcome.

Of course it’s up to you.

We’re all frightened. We all feel completely alone from time to time, we all feel uncertain, underappreciated, and unintelligent, and every-now-and-then completely and utterly lost to it all.

The truth of the matter is if you are honestly happy, clear and resolute about what it is you are doing with and in your life, then everything will be okay, it already is. But if you’re unhappy, confused and undecided then something has to change, but the change can only come from you. The fears, the loneliness, the tragedies and the uncertainties will never entirely fall away, that’s life. It’s how you deal with it all in the end that truly matters.

It won’t matter to your friends, your family, your lover, your boss, or me, it will only matter to you, but it will matter.

It was once said to me if God doesn’t exist then “absolutely nothing matters”, but if God does exist, “absolutely everything matters”. I’m ever so slowly learning I can’t have my cake and eat it too. Everything, absolutely everything has its price and it’s a price that must be paid.

If for you today, in your life in general, within your job, and through your relationships are finding that things aren’t quite right (for you) then you need to do some work. Right?

Personally I have learned through pain and restless nights if something’s not quite true, then it is completely false. There are no half-truths, no grey areas, only truths and untruths. If something isn’t quite right then it is wrong.

Feel what I’m saying, don’t think about it.

The truth may be different for each of us yet it is the truth isn’t it?

Don’t use intellect to justify the truth within yourself use your internal measures, your quiet inner-voice, your gifts and your spirit. Use you to seek out the truth of you. Personally I have searched for answers through relationships, jobs, religion and study; by having a child, moving countries, building a business, and through too many things to list and all this to find that truth is basically simple.

Whatever torment it may cost, the question(s) I must continually ask myself is “Am I willing to pay the price to know the truth?” “To live with and accept my truth?”

Am I willing to know the complete truth; to see the worst of it; to embrace the very best of it; and am I able to sit with it and simply let it be? No more and no less, the truth is enough.

What’s the truth about the way you sell today?

What’s the truth about you?

Sell without regret.

Michael Tate

Sales Director | NRS Media

 

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