This is a crazy one. The importance cannot be overstated. You are what you project. As a salesman, attitude and demeanor are everything. From the time you get up in the morning, until at least when you are finally home with the family at night, your attitude is critical to your well-being and eventual success. The good news is that the attitude part is under your control. You can decide if the cut from shaving that morning, or being out of toothpaste, or remembering a bill you can’t pay, or that escrow which is in big trouble, is going to cause you to have a bad attitude or not. It is so hard to face those days with a smile and the feeling that today is the first day of the rest of your life.
In the case of a salesman you simply have to choose to be positive… regardless of circumstances. No one wants to deal with a sourpuss. No one wants to hear how bad things are for you. How some potential sale has crashed and burned. How the house you just sold has not appraised and needs to be tented for termites. Both of these things can turn that smile into a frown. Come on, don’t let these things get you down. A good attitude must prevail. In the face of disaster you need to remind yourself of your blessings. Your beautiful wife that is always there to support you. Your kids who love you even when you tell them that you don’t care when they say they are starving… and give them the “42 day speech”.
Let us not forget the dog who always loves you – no matter what, or the fact that you have a vehicle, with gas in it, and you are not preoccupied with where your next meal is coming from. Every one of us has things to be thankful for. I know that someone has it worse than me, and that helps me get through the tough times. I always tried to go beyond counting my blessings. I tried to make it real in terms of things that were happening in my business. Not everything in my business was bad. Focus on the things that are good. The opportunities that are there everyday. There has to be something that you can feel good about. When I would meet a client or a customer for example, and they would ask how things were going, the only answer they would ever get from me was that life is good, and business is good. I would also try to share something positive that I had been involved in where the outcome was good. Your customers and clients do not want to work with someone who has a negative attitude.
I remember early in my working life when I was working for Pizza Hut. One of the guys that I worked with was Pete Carney. He was the younger brother of Dan and Frank Carney the founders of Pizza Hut. I would come to work and unload on Pete. Telling him how bad everything was and how things just weren’t going well. Pete told me on several occasions to not bring my problems to work. When you come to work the last thing I want to hear is how bad things are in your life. Get over it, focus on the job, be someone that I want to spend the next 8 hours with. It pissed me off. At that time I felt that it was my right to be negative, and sharing all that stuff came with the territory. Boy was I wrong. Pete’s words turned out to be extremely important to me. He even threatened to send me home a few times if I kept complaining about things. His words rang true and I changed my attitude. I became a different person and all of the petty complaining went away. Thinking positive thoughts and acting on them really changed me for the better and served me well for the rest of my working life. There is no magic pill but as a thinking, passionate human being, driven by the fear of failure, you too can be that person who always has a healthy and positive attitude. I promise you it will change your life.
