Dave Brubeck...
When I was 16, my friend and I hitchiked to Newport one summer heading to the NewPort Jazz Festival attending the free workshops during the day and sneaking into the concerts at night to listen to the true legends of jazz crossing the spectrums from Basie, Coltrane, Gillespie, and Monk to Dave Brubeck, whom I had never heard before. Five summers ago, I had the opportunity to be part of an intimate 90 minute session, where Brubeck, looking deceptively frail, once again took absolute command of the keyboard as he started the set with that same mystical lilt heard right at the beginning of "Take Five". I vividly remember Brubeck both back in the early 60's in Newport and also in a small art center a couple of years ago in Vermont and was saddened to hear about the death of this true legend last week.
Zig Ziglar...
Maybe it's just me, but noteworthy passings seem to happen more toward the end of the year than at other times, so it was also with saddness that I noted the death of the legendary, Zig Ziglar at the end of November.
Similar to my experience with Brubeck, I very well remember the morning that I decided to take time off from work and drove to the Lowell Auditorium about 20 years ago to see "The Man" in person. For years, I had read his books, and often quoted the wisdom of this Zen Master...
"You can have everything in life you want, if you will just help other people get what they want."
...but I had never actually seen "The Greatest Sales Guy" in person. I had carved out just a few hours for that morning in Lowell, and ended up staying through most of the day, buying more books than I could read in a year and a case of cassette tapes that I still occasionally listen to just to once again confirm the basics. And it's that phrase, "the basics" that typified the wisdom of Ziglar. He never looked at Sales as that complicated. He applied basic ideas, basic processes and basic words of wisdom not only about the world of Sales but everything that surrounds true sales success-how one handles their life, their relationships and their commitment to helping others.
"It is character that gets us out of bed, commitment that moves us into action, and discipline that enables us to follow through."
"You were born to win, but to be a winner, you must plan to win, prepare to win, and expect to win."
"People don't buy for logical reasons. They buy for emotional reasons."
I've found over the years, especially in crunch situations like closing business within the framework of your current opportunity pipeline when you're up against the end-of-the-year wall of the next 11-13 days, it often makes sense to take a time out, pop on some soft jazz from Brubeck and read through some of the basics of sales from Ziglar, The True Legend of Sales.
...Refreshed, readjusted and recalibrated, it makes the rest of my day a whole lot easier, as I pick up my headset and get back on the phone once again but with a more positive attitude and always much more highly focused than I was before the time out when I "took five".
As always, I'd love to hear your own comments about Ziglar and any other legends in your own life. Perhaps next time, I'll share with you one more legend of mine that I'll be hopefully be visiting later this week.
In the meantime, Good Selling !!!
Jack,
Head Coach
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