Thoughts about Make Rain by Other Rainmakers
“If you are a Rainmaker, or wish to become one, read this book.”
Jeffrey J. Fox, Author of the international bestseller,
How To Become a Rainmaker.
“This book fills a gap in the crowded library of books on sales. It is
very different from all the other books and in many ways it is also
much better. Make Rain is a collection of short one and a half page
inspirational messages. Each message can stand alone, so the reader
will get value already after the first couple of pages. The value of the
book simply accumulates as you turn each page. No other book in
my library of books on sales can make such a claim! Make Rain is a
great book to have with you everywhere. You can use any break in
the day to consume a message or two, but do yourself a favour and
think carefully about the messages you read. Each of the messages
actually has the potential to change your life – for the better.”
Hans Peter Bech, Author of the Amazon #1 bestseller
Building Successful Partner Channels.
“Brilliant! Make Rain is a must read for sales professionals, sales
managers and entrepreneurs who are looking to challenge themselves
to a new standard. It’s the conversational, easy to read storytelling
with real world examples that keeps you hooked. I certainly was.”
Steve Claydon - Author of the #1 bestseller,
THE DIARY OF A S.U.C.C.E.S.S. DRIVEN KID,
thought leading Sales Trainer, Serial entrepreneur.
“A book like this, jam-packed with precious facts, pragmatic steps
and practical wisdom, does not get written very often.”
Derin Cag, CEO and Founder of Richtopia.
“Engaging! Daily affirmations for those sales people who desire to
really stand out. Ideas, challenges, and inquisitive thought that drives
any burgeoning sales person to keep reading!”
Matt Lane, President, DCIM Division, Geist Global.
“The sales person and indeed the nature of selling is changing,
requiring new ways of thinking and performing. The great thing
about Make Rain is that anyone can read it and put the author’s
thoughts and ideas into practice right away. Is the Rainmaker the
new salesperson? Quite possibly.”
Janice B. Gordon, Visiting Fellow, Cranfield School of
Management and Author of Business Evolution:
Creating Growth in a Rapidly Changing World.
“Many of the insights in Make Rain seem to come at you left field,
challenging the status quo of how you think about selling and sales.
I recommend everyone who wants to achieve results read this book”
Brian Burns, Co-author of Selling in a New Market Space and
Host of The Brutal Truth about Sales & Selling Podcast.
Make Rain, is a wonderful piece of business non-fiction. It is elegantly
yet humbly written. It’s almost like Jonas is having a quiet one-onone conversation with you, challenging you to think before you act!
Jack Mizel, CEO, Institute of Sales Management.
(From the foreword)
MAKE RAIN
MAKE RAIN
180 Powerful Insights into How Rainmakers
Sell Their Way to Financial Success
Jonas Caino
Rainmethods Media & Publishing
Published by Rainmethods Media & Publishing
Sheriffs Orchard,
Coventry, CV1 3PP
Tel: +44 (0) 121 6999001
Website: www.rainmethods.com
Email: publisher@rainmethods.com
First published in Great Britain in 2016
© Jonas Caino 2016
The right of Jonas Caino to be identified as the author of this work
has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs
and Patents Act 1988.
ISBN: 978-0-9954836-0-6 (Paperback)
978-0-9954836-1-3 (Kindle)
978-0-9954836-2-0 (E-PUB)
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in
a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without either the
prior written permission of the publisher or a license permitting restricted
copying in the United Kingdom issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency
Ltd, Saffron House, 6-10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS. This book may
not be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise disposed of by way of trade in any
form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published, without
the prior consent of the publisher.
Printed in Great Britain by Lightning Source (UK) Ltd, Milton Keynes
MK11 3LW.
The publisher’s policy is to use paper manufactured from sustainable
forests.
To the love of my life, my eternal flame, my best friend.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements .................................................................xv
Foreword .................................................................................xvii
Prologue What Have You Achieved Today? ........................xix
Part One
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
The Rainmaker’s Mindset
The Rainmaker........................................................................... 2
Are You Sure This is What you Want to Do? ......................... 4
For Lack of a Better Word… ....................................................6
What Inspires You?...................................................................... 8
Seeking Success or Avoiding Failure .....................................10
Rock Solid ................................................................................ 12
Hunger Struck!.........................................................................14
Who’s in Charge Here? ...............................................................16
The Fake Half of Reality ..........................................................18
Hear the Baseline ....................................................................... 20
View from the Hubble ............................................................ 22
The Habit of a Lifetime ...........................................................24
The Folly of Lamentations ......................................................26
Risky Business ......................................................................... 28
If You Shoot, You Just Might Score ....................................... 30
In Your Prime ........................................................................... 32
The Aggression in Progress ..................................................34
Your Cards ............................................................................... 36
The Self-Con-Artist ................................................................ 38
Continuous Fashion ............................................................... 40
Believe! Not Make-Believe. ....................................................42
Sitting Uncomfortably isn’t a Bad Thing ...............................44
Nerve Endings .........................................................................46
Thales’ Answer .........................................................................48
Hold the Fort ........................................................................... 50
Ahead of the Learning Curve .....................................................52
What’s Your One Move? ......................................................... 54
The United States of You ........................................................57
Tomorrow Tomorrow Tomorrow ..........................................59
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
Where Do You Sign? .............................................................61
Doing the Nearly Impossible Everyday ................................ 63
Team You ................................................................................. 65
Your Very Own Personal Power ............................................67
The Power of Love ...................................................................69
The Parable of the Rainmaker ................................................71
When is the Best Time to Stop? ............................................73
The Metamorphic Individual .................................................75
Brain Gain ................................................................................ 77
Experiencing Time Versus the Experience of Time ............79
Sshhh!! Quiet ........................................................................... 81
A (Physical) Moving, Stirring, Agitation… ..........................84
They’re Not Just for Biting… .................................................86
Diamond Life ..........................................................................88
The Rainmaker’s Guide to… .................................................90
There is No Substitute ............................................................92
Love the High ..........................................................................94
Part Two
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
The Rainmaker’s Practice
So…What Do You Do? ...........................................................98
Selling Vs Selling ...................................................................100
Trait Pick and Mix ................................................................102
Ready? .................................................................................... 104
It’s Like Learning to Ride a Bike… ......................................106
The Salespreneur ...................................................................108
Death of a Salesperson .........................................................110
“Mr Rainmaker, Your Attitude Precedes You” ...................112
The DIY Professional ............................................................114
The Whole Perspective .........................................................116
Fresh Thinking Required ......................................................118
The Oracle .............................................................................. 120
Mr Nice Guy Always Wins…Right? ...................................122
Clever, Very Clever… ...........................................................124
The Queen’s Gambit .............................................................126
The Practice ........................................................................... 128
Elegance Needs No Adornment ..........................................130
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
Amongst Equals ....................................................................132
Newton’s Universal Law .......................................................134
The Sacred Truth ...................................................................136
Time. The Academic Construct ..........................................138
You Are the Product! ............................................................140
Defining Value ......................................................................142
The Value of Co-Creation ....................................................144
Rainmaker is My Name and Disruption is My Game ......146
The Scientific Artist ..............................................................148
ExQ ......................................................................................... 150
Your Most Prized Possession ...............................................152
The Eigth Wonder ................................................................153
The Power of Negative Thinking .........................................155
The Teacher and The Imparter ............................................157
It’s Neither a Metaphor Nor a Simile! ..................................159
Serendipity ............................................................................. 161
Who Finds Who? ..................................................................163
The Benefit of Mathematics .................................................165
The Gold Prospector ............................................................167
Enter the Dragon ..................................................................170
The Things We Think But Do Not Say ...............................172
The Role of Titles ..................................................................174
Baseball .................................................................................. 176
It’s all in the Baking ..............................................................178
The Aggressive Patient .........................................................180
The Lead(er) in You ..............................................................182
It’s Your Voice! .......................................................................184
Chance Encounter of the Only Kind ..................................186
The Real Social Network ......................................................188
The Virtual Social Network .................................................190
Pay It Forward .......................................................................192
The Commodification of YOU! ...........................................194
Don Kingism .........................................................................196
Ebb & Flow ............................................................................ 198
Small Bet Gamblers ..............................................................200
Free Thinking ........................................................................202
The Customerization of the Prospect .................................204
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
Face2Face ............................................................................... 206
Share the Glimpse .................................................................208
Master of the Living Room ..................................................209
The Matrix ............................................................................. 211
It’s all in the Nit-Picking .......................................................213
Two Little Letters ..................................................................215
Your Company’s Most Underrated Asset ...........................217
Project-Managing the Sale ...................................................219
They’re Not Just for Science Projects… ..............................221
When is a Problem Really a Problem? ...............................223
Helping to Solve the Puzzle .................................................225
Myopia and Hypermetropia ................................................227
The Question Book ...............................................................229
Locomotion ........................................................................... 231
…Enough to Make One Cry ................................................233
Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni ..................236
Outlived Uselessness ............................................................238
Attention Seeker ....................................................................240
In Communicado ..................................................................242
The Vernacular of Non-Language .......................................244
The Clarity of Certainty .......................................................246
The Anatomy of a Buying Conversation ............................248
No One is Fluent in Idiot .....................................................250
Shut Up! ................................................................................. 252
Socratica ................................................................................ 254
The Most Powerful Killer Sales Question of all Time .......256
The Benefit System ...............................................................258
New Wavelength Required ..................................................260
The Customer’s Customer Relationship Management .......262
Sales Cycology .......................................................................264
A Circle in a Spiral Gets You Nowhere ..............................266
The Mysterious life of the Proposal ....................................268
What They See is What They Get .......................................270
The Deal in a Parallel Universe ...........................................272
Please, Sir, I Want Some More! ............................................274
The Big Reveal .......................................................................276
What’s the Value of a Life? ....................................................278
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
Rules of Engagement ............................................................280
Money Talks ..........................................................................282
Espionage? Well, Sort of ......................................................284
The Hunter and the Hunted ................................................286
Account = Cluster of Deals ..................................................288
Read More Than Just Books… ............................................290
Margin Call ........................................................................... 292
Intra Deal Competitive Analysis .........................................294
Refracting the Competition .................................................296
Is Goal Hanging Really a Strategy? .....................................298
Collapetition ..........................................................................300
The Win-Lose Paradox ........................................................302
Time to Follow Up ................................................................304
Radio Silence .........................................................................306
Botheration ........................................................................... 308
“I have Only One Concern…or Maybe Two” ...................310
Who’s Teasing Who? .............................................................312
A Priceless Deal .....................................................................314
Negative ................................................................................. 316
ABC ........................................................................................ 318
Phantom of the Opera .........................................................320
Close the Deal Without a Fight ...........................................322
Brünnhilde’s Aria ..................................................................324
Agree to Agree ......................................................................326
The After Party ......................................................................328
Mind Your Own Business ....................................................330
Happiness, Shared ................................................................332
David’s Question ...................................................................334
David’s Question II ...............................................................336
A Basic Survival Tool ...........................................................338
When Death is Welcome .....................................................340
The Bill, Please… ..................................................................342
We Are All In This Together ................................................345
Old Enemies, New Friends ..................................................347
Outbreak ................................................................................ 349
Car Time ................................................................................ 351
Rainmaker + Technology = Extraordinary! .......................353
175
176
177
178
179
180
Bonus
The Currency that Talks .......................................................355
Blog or Die! ............................................................................ 357
Share Your Thoughts .............................................................359
Macrosalesonomics ..............................................................361
Microsalesonomics ...............................................................363
The Silver Bullet ....................................................................365
Insight “There are moments, Jeeves, when one asks oneself,
‘Do trousers matter?’” ...........................................................367
Epilogue Much Ado about Something ...............................369
Acknowledgements
As I write these acknowledgements, the old saying “no one can
sing a symphony” springs to mind. This book would not have
been possible if not for the intellect, patience, focus and sheer
brilliance of some wonderful individuals. Here we go.
To…
All my mentors, past and present, physical and virtual. What
you’ve all shared is real and has shaped the professional I am.
The team at Rainmethods Media & Publishing: the world beckons.
Marek Stuczynski: your attention to detail is actually scary. You
the Man.
James Millington: editor extraordinaire. Cheers Mate.
To Hope: without you, excellence, learning and boldness would
not be my watchwords. Thanks Mum.
To my siblings, Andy, Richard & (Dr) Tina: your support has
been massive.
To my little Rainmakers, Jojo and Benji: a father’s love for his
sons knows no bounds.
To Serina, my love, my rock, my all: thanks for holding on with
love, encouragement and positivity.
Finally, nothing would ever be possible without God. Thank you
Lord.
xv
“I cannot teach anybody anything;
I can only make them think”.
Socrates.
Foreword
Buying and selling have always been and will continue to be the
cornerstones of economic progress. For 30 years, selling has been a
profession and a passion for me. In my opinion, we should all view
the ability to sell solutions, concepts, ideas and indeed yourself as a
critical life skill for anyone and everyone. Deep down I believe that
there are three “pillars” that are foundational to success in selling.
The first is knowledge: knowledge of yourself, your profession, your
goals and how they are executed to arrive at the desired outcome.
The second is presentation: how to develop relationships and
manage yourself and others. Finally, commitment: being able to
gain the commitment for what you want from others, which makes
everything come together.
Imagine, therefore, my surprise when Jonas (who, I might add, has
been a Fellow of our illustrious Institute for a number of years) finally
caught up with me after some persistence, pitched his project and
sent me the Make Rain manuscript. All my thoughts about selling
flowed within those pages. I simply couldn’t put the manuscript
down. I telephoned him and I found that his thoughts on selling
and on transcending rainmaking skills to people from all walks of
life were eerily similar to mine. So when he asked me to write this
foreword, I was delighted to accept.
Make Rain is a wonderful piece of business non-fiction. It is
elegantly yet humbly written. It’s almost like Jonas is having a quiet
one-on-one conversation with you, challenging you to think before
you act! I’m making a bold statement in saying that Make Rain is for
everyone. If you are new to selling, start with this book. If you’re an
“old hat” like me, you can gain new perspectives with this book. If
you are a business owner, absorb this book and if you simply want to
get more out of life and personal relationships then enjoy this book.
And see just how far rainmaking can take you.
Jack Mizel,
CEO, Institute of Sales Management.
xviii
Prologue
What Have You Achieved Today?
I’m a salesman. No really, I am. I’m not a sales guru, a trainer or
a consultant, nor am I someone who paints pretty pictures about
the art and science of selling and hands out prescriptions on how to
sell and influence people. Nope. I’m a regular salesperson just like
you. I have a boss and he has a boss. Like you, I have to deal with
the pain and pleasure of hunting for business, global conference
calls at six in the morning and eleven at night, difficult emails from
irate customers, the sick feeling before you go in to negotiate the
deal of your life, managing the difference between forecasting and
soothsaying, dealing with different personalities and still trying to
remember yours. Oh, yes, I’m a salesman…and I love what I do.
A few years ago, I managed a small team of salespeople. They
were all young, eager and inexperienced. They came from a variety
of backgrounds. My aim with this team was to develop them into
successful sales professionals, into true Rainmakers. I organised
sales training seminars that increased the team’s output for a period
of about two weeks. However they would then go back into their
old ways of the usual habits such as only dealing with prospects and
customers they were comfortable with, vague and sloppy forecasting,
not paying attention to key details, forgetting to follow up on agreed
customer actions in a timely fashion, asking the wrong questions
in the wrong way, just focusing on our offering and not on the
customers’ business…the list would go on.
So I had a thought. Coaching! Maybe, the slow feeding of skills
xix
and practice could change their behaviour over time. Good idea, but
the problem was that both I and my team didn’t have the time for
regular, detailed, one-on-one coaching.
One day, whilst driving and listening to the BBC on the radio, the
Thought for the Day bulletin programme came on air. This is a threeto four-minute daily broadcast about an idea, a thought, a concept,
an insight that is designed to challenge the listener and make them
stop and think. Eureka! A light bulb came on. “Why don’t I provide
my team with a thought for the day to supplement the training and
some one-on-one coaching sessions?” I asked myself. So I embarked
on daily “virtual coaching” sessions.
Every morning at 6 am I would fire up my laptop and spend half
an hour or so writing an “insight” and then email the team. I entitled
the daily email with a challenge: “What Have You Achieved Today?”
I encouraged my team to digest these snippets and put them into
practice in their own way. I did this for nine months without fail.
The impact was immediate and far-reaching. Their pipelines
started to increase dramatically, their revenue followed suit and
so did profit margins. I was doing my job and it showed. Most
importantly though, the team transformed their own lives and bank
balances. The curious thing was that by the time I stopped, over 100
salespeople had somehow found their way onto the email chain and
were demanding more.
Many people have urged me to share these insights with a wider
audience. I was reluctant at first as I felt this whole writing thing
would be a distraction from my job. But someone said something
that made me change my mind. “If you have a message, why deny the
world of it?” So I heeded the advice and lo and behold, here we are.
Make Rain is for professional salespeople. Whether you are new
to selling and need some direction or you’re a “veteran” looking for
a nudge, Make Rain is easy to read and digest, yet packed full of
inspiring ideas. Curiously, entrepreneurs and professionals (lawyers,
accountants and consultants) will also benefit hugely from reading
this book. It’s not written to be prescriptive. It won’t teach you line
by line how to sell and influence people—there are thousands of
sales books that can do that for you. This book is designed to make
xx
you think about what you are doing daily: your thoughts, habits and
behaviour. It challenges you to make the changes necessary to be a
successful Rainmaker. The presupposition here is that you are the
master of your destiny and that you are unique. So it’s up to you to
develop or adapt the habits needed to be successful. This book will
help point you in the right direction.
Abraham Lincoln once stated, “Give me six hours to chop down
a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe”. I believe
before one can excel, one has to prepare to excel. With that in mind,
Make Rain is written in two parts. The first part focuses on the mindset of the Rainmaker. This section challenges as well as encourages
you to focus on your existing attitudes and outlook. The second part
deals with the ideas, techniques and skills Rainmakers use to be
successful.
You can read this book from cover to cover in three hours or so,
read an insight a day, or simply browse through it from time to time
(recommended) until an insight hits you like a lightning bolt and
compels you to act! It’s entirely your choice.
I hope you enjoy reading this book as much as I have enjoyed
writing it and that it will have an impact on your professional life in
some way.
xxi
Part One
The Rainmaker’s Mindset
“The key is not the will to win... everybody has that.
It is the will to prepare to win that is important”.
Bobby Knight
Insight 1
The Rainmaker
The Native American tribes used Rainmakers to protect their harvest.
Rainmakers would perform dances and other rituals to communicate,
influence and negotiate with the gods to make it rain. At the time, this
was seen as the most important job anyone could do. Why? Because
the livelihood and indeed the lives of communities literally depended
on rain, particularly during periods of severe drought. These special
individuals were highly respected and revered in their communities.
They also spent their entire lives developing their craft and honing
their skills in order to produce the results necessary for the survival
of their people. In hindsight, Rainmakers of old were probably just
very good at reading and following meteorological patterns and the
rest may have simply been smoke and mirrors. Nevertheless, pseudoscientific skills were still required to achieve this.
There are strong parallels we can draw from the Rainmaking of
Native Americans and Rainmaking today. Organisations, be they
businesses, charities and government institutions all need customers
and their money to achieve their goals. These goals could include
growth, market share, increased shareholder value, return on
investment or even altruistic goals.
Since the dawn of industrialisation and the beginnings of a
dedicated organisational sales force, there has always been an
individual or a small group of people within the sales force who were
deemed “special”. These people, for some reason, seemed to bring in
2
Insight 1
most of the business for the company they worked for. Over time these
“special ones” became known as Rainmakers. They didn’t necessarily
have to be salespeople, they could be lawyers, entrepreneurs,
accountants or investment bankers who just brought in more clients
to the firm than any other. In the 1980s, interested people like Neil
Rackham, Michael Bosworth, Robert Miller and Stephen Heiman
studied what Rainmakers did differently from others. This research,
by them and many more since, now makes it possible for others to
learn and model the skills and mind-set Rainmakers possess and to
create similar results.
The reality is simple. Anyone can become a Rainmaker and become
fabulously wealthy. You just have to want to be one; I mean really
want to become one. Then you must be committed to being one. And
then you have to go through the gruelling (but ultimately rewarding)
process of learning, studying and modelling to be one with a discipline
and dedication you never knew you could muster. By never giving
up, one day, your bank balance and the state of your life will tell you
that you are a Rainmaker.
Remember: Being a Rainmaker,
like success, is a binary choice—
to become or not to become.
Make Rain
3
Insight 2
Are You Sure This is What you Want to Do?
“The wealthiest places in the world are not gold mines, oil fields,
diamond mines or banks. The wealthiest place is the cemetery. There
lie companies that were never started, masterpieces that were never
painted…In the cemetery there is buried the greatest treasure of
untapped potential. There is a treasure within you that must come
out. Don’t go to the grave with your treasure still within YOU”.
This quotation by the late Dr Myles Munroe, OBE, struck a chord
with me. What is the point of life and in living if you can’t discover
and fulfil your God-given potential?
I believe this is the starting point of becoming a Rainmaker. If you
are striving to become something you were not designed to be, you
will always struggle with internal misalignment.
The good news is that any personality type can become a
Rainmaker. Anyone can excel at selling. However, getting to the top
of your game (any game) and staying there requires vision, focus,
determination, boldness, humility, inner strength and openness. You
cannot attain this if your life’s work is one hard demoralising slog.
For years, my advice to newcomers to the selling game has often
been to search deeply and honestly and resolve in your mind what
you want to do and who you want to become.
I always get the question back: “How do I know what I am destined
to become?” The short answer is that you don’t, well not for sure
anyway. The long answer is that you can get a sense of direction by
4
Insight 2
simply asking yourself, “If I had all the resources I needed, what
would I want to do, who would I become?” The answer to this litmus
question will at least give you a confident direction to begin your
journey towards fulfilment.
Wherever that journey leads you to, be it a painter, a lawyer, a
politician, an accountant, a musician or a salesperson; if you stride
into your destiny confidently and purposefully, you’ll end up being
the Rainmaker in your space.
Remember: Your purpose
in life is to find your life’s
purpose and dedicate your
whole life to it.
Make Rain
5
Insight 3
For Lack of a Better Word…
“Greed is good!” Everyone remembers the words of Gordon Gekko
from Oliver Stone’s 1987 film, Wall Street. Opinions of that phrase
have been polarised to this day. Many people will say that the phrase
epitomises the primitive, excessive attitudes of the few, which creates
a force that is so malignant, so destructive that it threatens our very
way of life, our planet. This may be so when it comes to short-termism
and the use of unethical methods to achieve entirely narrow-minded
and unsustainable goals.
Consider, however, the actual context of Gordon Gekko’s speech:
“The point is, ladies and gentleman, that greed—for lack of a better
word—is good. Greed is right. Greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts
through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed,
in all of its forms—greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge—
has marked the upward surge of mankind”.
Greed, in this context, smacks of aspiration, ambition, the desire
to be better, to push the boundaries of what’s possible, to strive
earnestly for excellence, to create and provide value; long term
sustainable value, and to enjoy all the rewards—be they finances,
personal satisfaction or security—that achievements bring.
Rainmakers know they exist not to be mere observers of progress
but to be creators of profit for organisations. Profit creates jobs, social
mobility and stability. Profit creates economic progress.
You are at the cutting edge of this process: the sharp end. In order
6
Insight 3
to be successful in your endeavour, you have to want it, to really
want it. You have to be greedy for progress, greedy for over-shooting
targets, greedy for providing value to clients, greedy for achievement,
greedy for passion, greedy for success, greedy for life. It’s the lack of
a better word that makes greed good.
Greed is only however the beginning of the achievement process.
With greed comes hard work, dedication, focus, long term planning,
preparation, courage, managing emotions, managing time, managing
others, reciprocity, learning and self-mastery. It starts with greed and
ends with accomplishment.
Remember: You have to
want it—with every fibre in
your being—to achieve it.
Make Rain
7
Insight 4
What Inspires You?
Seriously, what really inspires you? Only inspiration can motivate
you. Only inspiration can keep you focussed over the long term. If
you take the time to look into the lives of Rainmakers in various
industries from all walks of life, every single one of them will say that
what kept them striving towards their goal was something that really
inspired them. They’ll tell you that no matter how long it took or how
hard the going got, inspiration was like an anchor, a rock that kept
them planted and kept their eyes firmly fixed on the prize!
So, I’ll ask again, what inspires you? A role model, an idea, a dream,
an agreement, the past, God?
If nothing inspires you, then how can you have the burning desire
to consistently achieve your goals, your team’s goals, your company’s
goals? How can you have the conviction to see it through amongst
all the competition, political insensitivities and stresses that comes
with achieving?
You MUST be inspired. You have no choice. Look for your
inspiration and when you find it, keep it burning bright and this will
spur you on to achieve greatness in everything you do.
8
Insight 4
Remember: A small
seed of inspiration can
grow to a huge forest of
achievement!
Make Rain
9
Insight 5
Seeking Success or Avoiding Failure
Selling is a lonely job. Yes you might be part of a team, and yes you
might have the support of an organisation behind you, but when all
is said and done, the accounts are your responsibility, the number
is yours to hit and no one else’s. We all know it can get lonely out
there.
Rainmakers however stay motivated. Irrespective of what is
happening around them, they possess a highly developed way of
staying clear on and certain of their goals all day, every day. They
know that motivation is the burning coal that keeps the steam
locomotive engine moving and if the coal stops burning it’s game
over—the party stops.
How do Rainmakers keep motivated? The answer is different
for every Rainmaker out there, but one thing is clear: Rainmakers
do not use gimmicky self-motivation techniques such as chanting
affirmations all day long. Instead they ask themselves deep and
relevant questions about why they do what they do and what
outcomes they desire.
I recently watched a TEDx talk themed Beyond Boundaries by the
Alumni Distinguished Professor at Virginia Tech, E. Scott Geller.
Geller posits that research shows that the key to self-motivation
lies in seeking the answers to three powerful questions. So think
about the desired goal at hand and ask yourself these questions:
10
Insight 5
Can I do it? Do you genuinely believe the goal can be achieved? Are
you capable of doing it?
Will it work? Can you honestly state the goal is attainable if you do
the right things? Do you have evidence that this can be done and has
been done before?
Is it worth it? After all the risk, sweat, tears, late nights, early
mornings, endless trips, disappointments, pain, strain on personal
relationships, mistakes, setbacks, years of your life spent and then
success…will it be worth it? Does the intended outcome align with
expectations?
You will never be truly motivated if you can’t answer these three
questions positively. You will only find yourself in a state of avoiding
failure, which is no foundation for high and consistent motivation.
One must think deeply and honestly about these questions and seek
positive answers to enter a state of seeking success. Do this today.
Remember:
Motivation is all about State.
Develop and stay in a successseeking state and not in one that
simply tries to avoid failure.
Make Rain
11
Insight 6
Rock Solid
A lot is known about Thomas J. Watson as the first president of
IBM. The guy who turned the Computing Tabulating and Recording
Company (CTR) into the global phenomenon we now know as IBM.
Less is known about his days at National Cash Register (NCR). After
going bust as a butcher in Buffalo, New York State and returning his
leased cash register to NCR, Thomas Watson decided that he wanted
to work for NCR as a salesman. The local sales manager at the time,
John J. Range, didn’t take Watson seriously and turned him down.
Watson persisted and continued persisting until on a cold foggy day
in November 1896, Range finally hired him as a sales apprentice.
Initially Watson was a poor salesperson. But with Range’s guidance
and Watson’s rock solid commitment, Watson was soon earning $100
commission a week (that’s almost $3,000 a week in today’s money).
The beginning, middle and end to all success is commitment.
Rock Solid Commitment! The term “The Uncommitted Rainmaker”
is an oxymoron. It doesn’t exist. It’s an impossibility. Without
commitment, failure is assured.
To me, commitment starts with putting a stake in the ground and
saying to yourself: “It starts right here! No going back! Whatever
happens I will achieve this. I must achieve this”. The interesting thing
is that once you are committed, I mean really committed, things start
to work out for you better than expected.
The question arises: What are you really committed to? Money,
12
Insight 6
closing larger deals, smashing your targets, a better life, an amazing
career? These are all worthy goals. But success comes and stays when
one is committed to a higher ideal. Vince Lombardi, the great US
football coach put it best: “The quality of a person’s life is in direct
proportion to their commitment to excellence, regardless of their
chosen field of endeavour”. To achieve all your goals, you must be
committed to excellence. Excellence incorporates a lot of things:
being better, sharper, more focussed, more professional, overcoming
weaknesses, harnessing strengths, being positive, constant learning,
adapting, practising, working well with others, understanding and
appreciating yourself. Without excelling in areas like these you are
wasting the world’s time and your own, and success will always be
on the distant horizon.
Remember: Stick to
the deal you make with
success and success will
surely stick with you.
Make Rain
13
Insight 7
Hunger Struck!
One of the first things most sales managers and directors look for
in a Rainmaker is the hunger for success. They know that without
that overarching innate desire to succeed, all skills are ultimately
rendered useless. One of the first questions I tend to ask at most
sales job-related interviews I conduct is “Do you have a real hunger
for succeeding here and if so, why?”
In Napoleon Hill’s classic 1937 text Think and Grow Rich, Hill cites
desire as the very first fundamental step towards creating wealth.
Without a strong desire, need, passion, craving, urge, thirst, that
deep hunger for success there will be no success. So what happens if
due to pressure, challenges, moving goal posts, setbacks or even the
initial taste of success, your motivation begins to fade? What happens
when you become less hungry, in some cases quite full up or fed up?
You need to get hungry again. If not, your slope gets slipperier by the
month. You need to go on what I call the Rainmaker’s Diet.
Rainmakers know that in order to be and stay successful, they
have to be and stay hungry. Their desire has to be like a laser beam
and if it’s broken by distractions, it will never hit the intended target.
To stay hungry you must simultaneously keep your mind in two
extremes of your imagination. You must consistently go on two
“Ebenezer Scrooge” journeys of the mind.
The first mental journey is pain-related. Take some time out and
imagine that in today’s environment of global and regional economic
14
Insight 7
stagnation, you are no longer in employment and you have little hope
of getting a job. You struggle to provide even the basics for you and
your loved ones. Your mind is forever filled with money problems
and as a result you feel like someone who will never taste even a hint
success in this lifetime. Can you imagine how you would feel, how
you would think, what your day-to-day existence would be like?
The second mental journey is pleasure-related. Again, take the
time to vividly imagine you being at the top of your game. All debts
paid off, with various savings and investments all ensuring that your
mind is void of any money worries. You are living the kind of life
you have always striven to live. You have more free time to do the
things that can only enrich your life and those around you. You feel
empowered, you feel like you are being who you were destined to be.
The power of the Rainmaker’s Diet is the level of detail and
vividness when you imagine these two scenarios. The more you
crystallise every image in detailed colour, every feeling, every smell,
every thought, every voice as real as possible during your two
journeys, the more hungry you will end up becoming.
Remember:
In order to win, you
must first feel like
you’ve lost.
Make Rain
15
Insight 8
Who’s in Charge Here?
The coming of age or rite of passage is a common concept in virtually
all societies across the globe. It could be the Seijin Shiki of the
Japanese or the Bar Mitzvah of Jewish law, or taking a journey on a
Vision Quest as the Native Americans do; it could be as dangerous as
teenage male circumcision performed in certain African cultures or
as simple as just getting married or graduating from university.
Whatever the act, the theme remains the same: before coming of
age, others were responsible for you; after the rites of passage, you are
responsible for you. Setting aside the on-going philosophical debate
over predestination versus free will, which belongs to the realms of
esotericism, the real question is this: If you are not responsible for
your life, your thoughts, your actions, your results, then who is? Life
is about destiny and if someone has to steer the ship of your life, it
might as well be you. Jim Rohn once stated, “You must take personal
responsibility. You cannot change the circumstances, the seasons, or
the wind, but you can change yourself. That is something you have
charge of ”.
Rainmakers know intuitively that they are responsible for their
actions and therefore the corresponding results. If they have setbacks,
they don’t look for others to blame, they swallow the bitter pill and
learn from the experience for the next time. Conversely, with every
win, large or small, personal or corporate, Rainmakers bask in the
glory and enjoy the spoils.
16
Insight 8
Being responsible for your actions, even if someone else was
actually performing them on your behalf, only serves to empower
you. Blaming others only serves to sap you. Be responsible today and
every day and you will personally benefit today and every day, and
the good news is that you don’t have to go through physically painful
rites of passage to actually enjoy the benefits!
Remember:
It’s up to you to do what it
takes to get to where you
need to be.
Make Rain
17
Insight 9
The Fake Half of Reality
In January 2007, American healthy lifestyle magazine Prevention
published an article entitled Go Ahead…Smile! One of the interesting
things the article stated was that in research at Wake Forest University,
North Carolina, scientists asked a group of 50 students to act like
extroverts for 15 minutes in a group discussion, even if they did not
feel like it. The results were that the more assertive and energetic the
students acted, the happier they became. These naturally introverted
students had to act as if they were not introverts for a period.
I remember in the earlier years of my sales career having to go for
an internal promotion interview as a senior sales associate, a job I
felt was somewhat above my capabilities at the time. Nevertheless, I
felt the role was a natural progression for me, but on looking at the
job specification, I wasn’t so sure any more. I discussed this with
my mentor David. He intently examined the job specification sheet,
looked up at me and said, “If you can do everything on this sheet
well, then you are already over-qualified and the job is not for you.
If, however, you can do only half of it, then you are well on your way
to making an enjoyable success of it”.
“What about the other half?” I asked, with a puzzled look on my
face.
My mentor smiled and said, “Ah, yes. The other half…well you’ll
just have to fake it till you make it”.
As a Rainmaker, one can never be content with any level of success.
18
Insight 9
Whatever level you have achieved will always become a comfort
zone. This comfort zone becomes the seed that ultimately causes
the decline in one’s figures and indeed one’s career. The Rainmaker
knows that to break into the next level of success, he or she has to
first understand implicitly what is required to succeed at that level,
access what strengths they already possess to achieve on that level
and act as if they are already successful on that level.
Whatever and wherever you want and need to be, start today to
fake it till you make it, then raise the bar and fake it again and again
and one day you will be flabbergasted as to how far you’ve come.
Remember: Never stop
using the power of
imaginative desire to
become.
Make Rain
19
Insight 10
Hear the Baseline
“Elementary, my dear Watson, elementary”. Ah yes, the famous
misquotation from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes novels.
One can just imagine the pensive look on Holmes’ face as he ponders
over the simply impossible puzzle, only to dazzle Watson with his
ingenious powers of deduction and therefore informing him yet
again that it is all about the basics.
In reality, success is truly about getting the basics right. It is the
deceptively simple process of doing the right things, in the right
order, at the right time. This cuts through the over-complicated
“stuff ” that surrounds us in life and work.
A Rainmaker’s strength is recognising what he needs to be good
at and pouring all his time, effort, energy, commitment, passion
and focus into all the activities that will achieve that goal. The
Rainmaker’s ultimate goal? To sell. They know that it is fundamental
to stick to doing selling very well and not become distracted by other
jobs, ideas, issues, politics and other diversions. These and many
other things take one down alleys where there are no orders, no
commission and far away targets.
Know the basics in selling such as Attention, Interest, Decision,
Action (AIDA). Things like prospecting, qualifying, pre-closing, closing,
adding value, service, building rapport, asking for referrals, knowing
your customers and products inside out and being confident about your
profession. These are some of the things to dwell on. Leave the rest to others.
20
Insight 10
Remember: It’s the
elementary things done
well that will lead you to
Rainmaking success.
Make Rain
21
Insight 11
View from the Hubble
In 1970, sociologist Dr. Edward Banfield of Harvard University
wrote a book titled The Unheavenly City, in which he described
one of the most profound sociological studies on successful versus
unsuccessful people ever conducted.
Banfield’s goal was to find out how and why some people became
financially independent during the course of their working lifetimes
and others didn’t. He started off convinced that the answer would
be found in factors such as their environment, family background,
education, intelligence, influential contacts, or some other concrete
factor. To Banfield’s surprise, what he finally discovered was that the
major reason for success in life was a particular attitude of mind.
This attitude was based around their longer-term goal setting and
activities. Banfield dubbed this “long time perspective”. Dr Banfield
discovered that those individuals who have a longer-term view of
what they want and how they want to achieve it (in every minute
detail) and start straight away to work inch by inch every day without
fail towards that goal, end up being the most successful individuals
in whatever field of endeavour they embark upon regardless of
their background. Rainmakers know that the long time perspective
incorporates two distinct, yet related concepts—vision and goals.
People use the terms vision and goals interchangeably, however,
the two are very different in meaning and function. The two terms
are also interdependent. Real and lasting success is only possible if
22
Insight 11
the two work in tandem.
Are Rainmakers visionaries or goal-setters? Well, the answer to
that question is they have to be both! Most people have a natural
disposition towards either being a visionary or a goal-setter and not
necessarily both. A goal-setter is process and task oriented, focusing
on achieving an aim within a certain timeframe and determining
the steps towards that aim: the goal. On the other hand, a visionary
has a clear picture in mind of how things should be. It’s a picture of
an on-going state of being that has no time span and is not usually
accompanied with a set of pragmatic steps of how to get there.
Rainmakers know that they have to be good at displaying both.
Therefore, they are acutely aware of what they are good at and work
hard on their aptitude for the weaker concept.
What do you want to achieve in the next 5 to 10 years? What
are you willing to do (or to even give up) NOW to enable that to
happen? What type of clients do you want to service? What type of
relationships do you want to have with these clients? What are you
willing to do (or to even give up) NOW to enable that to happen?
How much wealth do you really want to create? What are you willing
to do (or to even give up) NOW to enable that to happen?
Remember:
Always begin with the end in
mind!
Make Rain
23
Insight 12
The Habit of a Lifetime
Developing and maintaining the right habits is critical to success at
work and in life. Personal growth guru, Dr Stephen Covey in his
famous 1989 book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, stressed
the need for acquiring life-changing habits such as always being
proactive, thinking win-win and beginning with the end in mind.
Having these habits is certainly fundamental to one accomplishing
their goals; however, a quotation by Benjamin Franklin comes to
mind: “Your net worth to the world is usually determined by what
remains after your bad habits are subtracted from your good ones”.
You must be aware of your negative thought patterns and their
pathway to you developing bad habits that limit the actualisation
of your goals and debilitate your life. The creation of good habits
without the destruction of bad ones only creates a lack of harmony
in your quest for success.
Think of habits such as procrastination, lack of attention to
detail, counting your chickens before they hatch, being impatient,
not qualifying thoroughly, gossiping, being unprepared, making
sweeping assumptions, lacking self-confidence, fear, underdelegating, over-delegating, indecision, unnecessary work overload,
not thinking creatively or laterally, lack of trust in others etc. These
habits and many others can destroy relationships, limit careers and
keep you from attaining the kind of financial freedom you deserve.
Search your life, regularly write down all your current habits and
24
Insight 12
when examining them ask yourself one question: “Does this habit
serve me?” If your answer is no, develop the 21-day habit of breaking
that habit.
Remember: The
blueprint of
your life is your
character, and this
in turn is the sum
total of your habits.
Make them serve
you.
Make Rain
25
Insight 13
The Folly of Lamentations
Kampfschwimmer. That’s the name of the infamous German naval
commandos. They are amongst the top special operations forces on
the planet. The motto of this elite squad is taken from one of the
old Prussian virtues: Lerne leiden ohne zu klagen, which in English
means, “Learn to Suffer without Complaining”.
It seems that complaining, moaning, griping, grumbling, whining,
lamenting is a favourite pastime of many a salesperson. When I ask
salespeople, “Why are you constantly moaning?” the answer always
appears to be something along the lines of “…it’s political, you won’t
understand…” or “…I need to vent or I’ll go crazy”.
The Rainmaker’s definition of a complaint is the creation of stifling
negativity that leads nowhere.
Nothing positive or progressive occurs when we complain, even
to ourselves. Neuroscience shows us that it leads to a gloomy mind
and a stressful body. The two last things the Rainmaker needs when
pursuing success through excellence. There is an old saying, “If you
don’t have something positive to say then don’t say anything”. In the
same vein, if you can’t think positively then try not to think!
Life in today’s hyper-competitive world can be tough. If one doesn’t
take care, one’s thoughts and words can make one lose sight of the
prize ahead and become derailed. Rainmakers guard their minds like
fortresses. They literally cannot afford to feel bad about anything—
the little things as well as the big ones. They are completely aggressive
26
Insight 13
in shutting down little weeds of negativity and find real solutions to
the big challenges that will always appear along the way to success.
Rainmakers stay clear of habitual complainers, as negativity can be
one of the most infectious diseases in the world. It’s so much easier
to become negative because a colleague displays negativity than to be
inspired by someone positive.
The trick Rainmakers use to become and stay positive is very
simple. They cultivate gratitude. I know it sounds a bit esoteric, but it
works. The more you are grateful for everything—your health, your
life, your family, other people—the more you will find it difficult to
complain. It’s like gratitude and moaning are diametrically opposed.
The Rainmaker’s definition of gratitude is the inverse of the definition
of the complaint, the creation of empowering positivity that can only
lead to success. Don’t just try and stop complaining about things—
practice and master the subtle art of gratitude in everything.
Remember: Ask yourselfWhat do I need to be
grateful for today?
Make Rain
27
Insight 14
Risky Business
The author of the famous book The Road Less Travelled, M. Scott
Peck, once said: “We must be willing to fail and to appreciate the
truth that often life is not a problem to be solved, but a mystery to
be lived”.
The poignant phrase that stands out for me in that quotation is
“willing to fail”. M. Scott Peck could have used a number of adjectives
to qualify failure such as “prepare to fail” or “don’t be afraid to fail”.
But to be willing to fail seems to have so much more punch to it. It’s
like one is actually taunting failure, saying “I’m willing to bring it on
if you are”.
The fear of failure is the single biggest target-killing commissionbuster in our game and though the title of Susan Jeffers’ book is “Feel
the Fear and Do it Anyway”, It’s hard, when simply trying not to be
afraid, to really push the boundaries of what you are capable of as a
sales professional. But to be willing to fail—now that has something
extra, it has the impetus to empower you to grab failure by the neck
and wring success out of it.
Thomas Watson, who I mentioned in the Rock Solid insight, was
not afraid of failure. Watson once said, “If you want to double your
rate of success, double your rate of failure”. Watson literally lived by
his words. In 1892 at the age of 18, Watson travelled from farm to
farm peddling pianos, organs and sewing machines. He earned $10 a
week, only to find out that his boss had duped him as he could have
28
Insight 14
been earning $70 a week if he had been working on commission
instead of salary. Watson then quit and moved to Buffalo and took a
job selling sewing machines for Wheeler & Wilcox with little success
so he began selling shares of the Buffalo Building and Loan Company,
however his partner, C.B. Barron, disappeared with the firm’s money
and Watson’s commissions. Watson then decided to open a butcher
shop in Buffalo but before long that failed too. So he joined National
Cash Register (NCR) and, to be fair, Watson had a lot of success at
NCR ultimately rising to become the second in command of NCR
after NCR’s President, John H. Patterson, but ultimately Watson was
fired from that job. It was only in 1914 at IBM that Watson, now 40,
used all of the experience from his five previous failures to make a
massive and lasting success of his life and the lives of many others.
Thomas Watson had no problem with failing to succeed.
Anything worth achieving involves risk, particularly the risk of
failure. Risk is the single common denominator for capitalism
and enterprise. Without risk, financial freedom and everything
wonderful that comes with it will always be a wish away. However, if
you embrace risk and are willing to do whatever it takes to achieve
(including fail), to be better, to smash targets, to create wealth, then
it will all surely come to pass.
Remember: Your willingness
to fail equates to your
acceptance to succeed.
Make Rain
29
Insight 15
If You Shoot, You Just Might Score
How does a pilot or a shipmaster know where he is going and how he
intends to get there if he hasn’t plotted a course in advance of the journey?
One takes an unnecessary risk jumping into a situation without
thinking and planning the outcome and the process. Taking on a
sales target is no different.
It is one thing to have (be given) a target and quite another to have
a firm goal set in your mind, in your psyche, to achieve that target as
well as formulating a cast-iron strategy, both of which will increase
your probability of reaching that goal.
Here are some things to think about:
30
•
Dream big: Diana Scharf Hunt once wrote: “Goals are dreams
with deadlines”. Your goals have to start with dreams, so dream
BIG. Let your imagination run wild: money, cars, holidays,
charity, family, hobby. Whatever you want…dream it.
•
Write your goals down: A goal in your head stays a dream.
Writing them down crystallises the thought. Something
happens when you write things down in black and white—
it’s like signals move to your subconscious commanding it to
begin marching towards your goals.
•
Read your goals: Preferably aloud. Read them with emotion
and feeling, as if they really mean something to you.
•
Visualise your goals: When you form a mental picture of
Insight 15
what you want to achieve and how overachieving on your
target can get you there, make it clear and vivid in your
mind’s eye. If it’s a holiday, see the beach, smell the sea salt
in the air, hear the waves crashing on the shoreline. Do this
constantly every day.
•
Believe you will achieve: Don’t just develop goals for the sake
of it. Believe they will become a reality within the timescale
you set. Make your belief a conviction so that when things
look bleak, your anchor is your firm belief that you WILL hit
targets and achieve your goals.
•
Rewrite your goals daily: Why would you simply write them
at the beginning of the sales year and forget them? Remember,
writing them down is magical, so rewrite them every day.
•
Formulate a strategy to achieve targets: An example could
be the “numbers game” strategy I’ll outline in “The Benefit of
Mathematics”, or it could be doing a SWOT analysis of your
professional self and making decisions from there.
•
Show flexibility: Constantly review and adjust your strategy
throughout the year. You don’t want to find that at the end
of the year you realise you should have done things a little
differently. Be flexible and honest with yourself.
If you set goals, then truly believe and trust in them,
formulate a strategy to achieve them, and be flexible in your
approach. You will surely over-achieve.
Remember: The goal posts are
wider than you think!
Make Rain
31
Insight 16
In Your Prime
A prime number is a natural number that is only divisible by 1 and
itself. Apart from prime numbers, 1 and 0, any other number is a
composite number. Therefore, if you begin to divide a composite
number, you ultimately arrive at a prime number, 1, or 0.
We know that without goals, one will have no motivation or
direction in life. But there are goals and there are goals. I like to
split goals into prime goals and composite goals. The prime goal is
the foundational, fundamental goal in which all other goals in that
arena naturally fall into place. Say, for example, you had two goals:
to put your children through private school and to be a successful
Rainmaker within a year. Which is the prime goal and which is
the composite goal? Which goal naturally creates which? To be a
successful Rainmaker within a year will only serve to provide you
with more than enough wealth to put your children through private
school. The prime goal requires focus, dedication, willpower and
massive action, whilst the composite goal just requires a decision, as
the means to deliver a composite goal is derived from the prime goal.
When examining your goals, it’s important to thoroughly
understand them so as to decide where to centre your attention. The
great Rainmaker Zig Ziglar once said, “What you get by achieving
your goals is just as important as what you become by achieving
your goals”. This quotation demonstrates where to pour in your
passion: self-actualisation—the realisation of your potential. If there
32
Insight 16
ever were a prime of prime goals, this would be it. Everything else
happens once you become. All your prime goals should be pointing
towards making you a better professional, spouse, parent, friend or
business partner—in fact, a better human being. All other goals will
naturally flow from there. Depleting your precious mental, physical
and subconscious energies in chasing composite goals alone will
only prolong the road less travelled to success.
Remember:
Concentrate on
the prime goals
whilst in your
prime and your
future will stay
bright.
Make Rain
33
Insight 17
The Aggression in Progress
You have goals. You have targets. You have plans and a strategy to
achieve them. You have the resources and the time to do it—and to
do it well. You have the desire, the burning desire to do what it takes
to become the Rainmaker. You know you have to create value, not just
communicate it, so as to sustain long-term profitable relationships
with customers. In short, you know what it takes.
The question then arises, what is the right attitude to have that will
empower you to achieve all of these things and more? The answer is
this: You need to be aggressively progressive.
Aggression as a noun does have negativity about it. But as an
adjective, or in this case, an adverb, it can be defined as assertive,
bold and energetic. Your attitude to your work, your career, your
targets and the sales process, needs to be aggressively progressive.
Rainmakers kick distractive habits with aggression; they focus on
acquiring the right skills to be successful with aggression; they face
their aggressive targets and surpass them through aggression.
Make no mistake about this, I do not in any way mean aggression
in the physical sense of the word, but certainly you need to be
extremely aggressive in the mental sense. This is how you turn your
burning desire to achieve into massive action. Indeed, this is how
you create that burning desire in the first place.
The force needed for a plane lift off and get to cruising altitude in
the sky is immense. The four Rolls Royce engines need to aggressively
34
Insight 17
progress the vessel off the ground. It is no different with Rainmakers.
Use an aggressively progressive mind-set to push yourself forward
to overachievement. Take no prisoners when striving to be the best
you can. Earl Henry Blaik, the famous American football coach,
once said: “Good guys are a dime a dozen, but an aggressive leader is
priceless”. It’s time to bring out the leader in you and make it happen!
Remember:
Your attitude
determines
your altitude!
Make Rain
35
Insight 18
Your Cards
In poker-playing circles, there is an old saying: “It’s not the hand you
are dealt that counts, it’s how you play it”. In these difficult economic
times, it is tempting to play the blame game: it’s the economy, our
products are not good enough, our competitors are cheaper, my
targets are too high, marketing are not listening to me, we never seem
to have any training, this or that department doesn’t co-operate…the
list can go on and on.
Around two thousand years ago, the Greek Stoic philosopher
Epictetus shared the same sentiment as the poker players by saying:
“It’s not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters”.
Some of the most successful business people, professionals and
Rainmakers didn’t have the best advantages in life: they certainly
suffered many difficult setbacks, and conditions surrounding them
were indeed far from ideal. What sets them apart however is that
they all looked within and focused on what they did have to bring
about the change needed to make things happen for themselves.
Your mind is the most powerful gift you have and the best thing
about it is that it’s all yours. Be warned though, fill it with negativity
and distractions and you will go nowhere fast. Be aware of your
mind, develop it and guard it from incapacitating thoughts. If you
think it, you can achieve it. To believe is your choice.
36
Insight 18
Remember:
Winners not
only see the
glass halffull,
they fill it up!
Make Rain
37
Insight 19
The Self-Con-Artist
Self-confidence is an interesting phenomenon. On the one hand
you know it when you see it, on the other hand you can’t accurately
quantify a description when you witness it. One might say “that guy
oozes confidence” while another might say “there is something about
the way she came across” or any number of other observations.
One thing we do know however is that self-confidence is paramount
to our jobs, our businesses and our lives. Prospects buy your services
because they buy into you. They put their trust in you. Your customer
will never be confident in you if you are not confident in yourself,
your firm, your products and services and them—the customer.
Lots of business and personal development gurus have come up
with a myriad of ways to improve your self-confidence but I have
three favourites that I think are worth sharing with you:
38
•
Like yourself: If you don’t like who you are, what you are
and who you are becoming, it’s difficult to pretend you are
confident. How do you like yourself? Simple…by saying to
yourself, with feeling, that you like yourself at least 50 times
a day. Sounds mad I know, but try it.
•
Know your stuff: It’s difficult for the mind to be at ease
when selling to prospects and you not knowing what you are
selling and how you are selling it, and why they might buy it.
Insight 19
To be a professional, you have to always be a student of your
profession.
•
Visualise. Visualise. Visualise: The mind influences
everything you do and say. If you “trick” the mind into
believing that you ooze confidence, guess what? Somehow,
you’ll ooze confidence. Before a meeting, presentation or
phone call, close your eyes and visualise in vivid colour how
you will come across and the positive outcome of the event.
The deeper and more intense you visualise, the more likely
the mind will blur imagination and reality in theatre.
Remember: Confidence,
like wealth, is a shared
pool. Tap into it and we’ll all
be winners.
Make Rain
39
Insight 20
Continuous Fashion
Kaizen (改善). Japanese for continuous improvement. Direct
translation is “change for the better”. In the late 80s to early 90s
the management consulting craze was quality through continuous
improvement. The guru who championed quality was a guy called
Dr. W. Edwards Demming who worked with post-war Japanese
corporations to increase their productivities to levels unheard of at
that time.
At the heart of this philosophy is Kaizen. Yet the concept of
continuous improvement is not new. Thousands of years earlier,
Socrates once said: “Employ your time in improving yourself by
other men’s writings so that you shall come easily by what others
have laboured hard for”.
Your career never stands still. It careers onwards. You know, the
word career comes from the Latin word carrera which means race
(now you know where Porsche got the 911 name from)? Your career
is a race, a pursuit for excellence, for satisfaction, for wealth and wellbeing. In order to achieve all this, you must improve all the time. You
must never stop stepping up your game.
40
Insight 20
Remember:
Adopt personal
Kaizen in your life
and career
and you will
be rewarded
handsomely.
Make Rain
41
Insight 21
Believe! Not Make-Believe.
It’s impossible to achieve anything worthwhile without self-belief,
without the ability to say to yourself “I will achieve this, I am going
to make this happen!” and have an unflinching faith in those words.
Let me give you an analogy.
Two friends, one is at work and one is at home. The one at home
starts watching the football match live on a sports channel. It’s an
intense game, and by half time the team that both friends support is
1:4 down with little hope of a real comeback. However, in the second
half, the losing team come back strong, and slowly but surely start
making a recovery and miraculously score the last two goals in the
final three minutes of the game, with the final score being 5:4 to the
team both friends supported, heart-stopping stuff!
The friend comes back from work eager not to know what happened
and they both sit down to watch the recording of the game. Imagine the
difference in attitudes, since the first friend knows what to expect and is
calm through the heart-wrenching first half and the anxious second half.
The relaxed attitude of this friend is the attitude that Rainmakers
display within themselves day in and day out whatever the
circumstance. They are cool, calm and collected with an unshakable
belief in themselves. Do you believe in yourself, your products and
your company? Do you believe that you can achieve your sales targets
and personal goals even when all evidence appears to the contrary?
Do you believe?
42
Insight 21
Remember:
Belief
precedes
Success.
Make Rain
43
Insight 22
Sitting Uncomfortably isn’t a Bad Thing
The world is a big place. I don’t mean the physical world, though
the globe seems to be shrinking by the day. I mean the world of
experiences. This world is huge, infinitely huge. Yet the world of our
experiences is infinitesimally small in comparison. However, the
path to personal and professional growth exists within this expansive
world of new and limitless experiences and not in the small and
limited paradigm we create for ourselves. This world exists outside
of our comfort zone.
Rainmakers may sometimes appear superhuman with their
impressive display of a myriad of skills and their apparent fearlessness,
but every Rainmaker will tell you that deep down, they are just as
ordinary, fragile and vulnerable as everyone else. The difference is
that Rainmakers know that skills and attitudes are carved out of
experiences, and therefore immersing themselves in bigger, bolder
and more challenging experiences will serve to develop them in
many ways. There is a catch though. The gatekeeper.
Try and imagine the two worlds of experiences I stated earlier. The
small world of your experiences is a small room with a big comfy
sofa in the middle and a single door. On the other side of that door
lies the big world of new and powerful experiences and the path to
success. But at the door stands the dreaded gatekeeper called FUD
(fear, uncertainty, doubt). Now, FUD is a real smooth talker and
every time you try to venture through that door FUD finds a way to
44
Insight 22
talk you out of it. FUD uses every tactic at its disposal to convince
you to sit back in that comfortable chair in the middle of your small
room. Rainmakers meet exactly the same situation every time they
challenge themselves to a new experience, but Rainmakers also know
exactly what’s on the other side of that door. They also believe that
each new experience ends up in making their small room expand in
itself. Therefore, with this knowledge, they must ignore FUD every
time, as FUD only represents our fight-or-flight lizard brain and not
our desire to be the best we can possibly be. The sequence of your
journey should be:
comfortable – uncomfortable – comfortable – repeat. This is the
only way to develop into the Rainmaker you will become.
Remember:
Life begins at the end of your
comfort zone.
Make Rain
45
Insight 23
Nerve Endings
You are about to make that all-important phone call, attend that
pivotal meeting or make that critical presentation and yet you have
that horrible feeling in your stomach. You almost feel sick, your mind
is suddenly void of all knowledge and memory and you’re constantly
thinking about how badly you are likely to perform…which only
makes you feel worse…
Rainmakers constantly find themselves in situations where their
nerves can get the better of them. No matter how much experience
one has, nerves can appear at any time and if entertained and not
dealt with, can affect the sales event and possibly the outcome.
Confucius once said: “If you look into your own heart, and you find
nothing wrong there, what is there to worry about? What is there to
fear?”
It is important to remember that having nerves is simply
a biochemical reaction in your body brought about by your
subconscious. Adrenaline is pumped into your bloodstream and this
is what gives you that queasy feeling in your stomach. Your heart rate
also increases and your blood vessels constrict. This is not a good
place to be if ignored or worse still if you panic, as you will only
increase that cycle.
The adrenaline is actually there to make you more focussed. It’s
there to sharpen your mind, preparing your nervous system to
react quickly. As primitives, adrenaline existed to enable our fight-
46
Insight 23
or-flight response, as Rainmakers, it exists to enable us to think on
our feet and recall everything we know and have trained for. You
should therefore welcome the adrenaline rush and use it the way it
was designed to be used. One way to quickly calm down and yet
benefit from all the positives of adrenaline is to breathe. Yes, it’s that
simple. Breathe. Breathing properly will fill your bloodstream with
oxygenated blood, which will rush to your brain and will instantly
calm you down, whilst you still stay sharp for your big moment.
Follow this routine:
•
Take a four-second, slow and deep breath in through your
nose, pushing your diaphragm down as much as possible.
•
Hold your breath down using your diaphragm muscles for
two seconds.
•
Slowly breathe out through your mouth for four seconds.
•
Repeat the process once more.
That’s it. You will see that straight away you become much calmer
and at the same time ready to do what you need to do and the best
thing about this routine is that you can perform it anywhere.
Remember: There is power in your
nerves. It’s yours to harness.
Make Rain
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Insight 24
Thales’ Answer
“You take the blue pill: the story ends, you wake up in your bed and
believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill: you stay
in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes”.
In the Wachowski brothers’ 1999 film The Matrix, Laurence
Fishburne’s character, Morpheus, presents Neo, Keanu Reeves’
character, with a choice. That choice leads Neo to many things
throughout the Matrix trilogy but the number one gift “the choice of
the pills” gave Neo was self-awareness.
Self-awareness is indeed a gift. Understand and develop it and you
will go on to achieve your prime goal: self-actualisation. Abraham
Maslow, in his 1954 book Motivation and Personality wrote,
“Whereas the average individuals often have not the slightest idea
of what they are, of what they want, of what their own opinions are,
self-actualizing individuals have superior awareness of their own
impulses, desires, opinions, and subjective reactions in general”.
Don’t however confuse self-awareness with self-consciousness.
Self-consciousness makes you see through the lens of how you
perceive others perceiving you. Being entangled in the messy web
of that double lens will only weaken you and will undoubtedly lower
your self-esteem. The lower your self-esteem, the further away your
goals will always seem to be.
Self-awareness, on the other hand, is an acute understanding of
you, by you and for you. If you realise who you really are in the cold
48
Insight 24
light of day—your strengths, weaknesses, deepest fears, aspirations,
historical baggage, attitude, impulses, shame and guilt, you have
a basis to develop yourself, to grow, all the time knowing how far
you are coming. Self-awareness thus empowers you to be better, to
achieve. If you don’t read and understand the instruction manual,
how will get the machine to do what you want it to do? You are the
machine. The instruction manual is written and used through your
self-awareness.
Rainmakers are acutely aware of who they are and what they are
capable of. They know that if they don’t harness this gift, they will be
like tumbleweeds blowing in the wind—destination: nowhere and
anywhere! Take the time out to reflect on who you are versus who
you want to be. Seek the red pill, and see just how far you can go. The
choice is yours.
Remember: Be a high
definition colour version of
yourself and not everyone
else’s perceived black and
white version of you.
Make Rain
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Insight 25
Hold the Fort
One of my favourite movies is Ridley Scott’s Gladiator. I love the
classic revenge plot mixed with pain, passion and a dash of patriotism.
One solemn scene struck me. The stage is set for Commodus, the
son of Caesar to murder his father. He tells his father, “You wrote to
me once, listing the four chief virtues: wisdom, justice, fortitude and
temperance. As I read the list, I knew I had none of them…”
Those virtues immediately demonstrated to me all the character
traits one needs to become a leader, a teacher, a warrior…a Rainmaker.
Rainmakers need to develop and exercise all four virtues to be
successful. If, however, you possessed none and had to start on one,
it would be fortitude. Around 380 BC, Plato taught these virtues to
his pupils. All four are documented in his Socratic dialogue, The
Republic. Plato focused on fortitude for his warrior class—the future
leaders of armies, heads of military conquests.
What is fortitude and why is it so important to the Rainmaker?
The Oxford English Dictionary defines fortitude as simply:
“courage in pain or adversity”. I simply see it as strength of mind in
all situations. Make no mistake about it, being a Rainmaker can be
hard. It’s a difficult, lonely, uphill road to success with a lot of bumps,
twists and turns along the way and countless setbacks. It really is
not for the faint-hearted. The majority of salespeople new to the
profession leave it after a short time because they simply cannot
hack it. There is a constant pressure from all sides. Even if you are
50
Insight 25
successful, it’s momentary; as the old sales adage says: “you are only
as good as your last sale”.
If, however, you focus on the skills needed to succeed such as
adding value to the customers, building the pipeline and always
acting with integrity, all the benefits of this noble profession will
be yours. To do that, you must possess strength of mind. You must
develop it, practise it; you must protect it.
Fortitude will see you through the times when management are
saying you are not good enough. Fortitude will see you through when
it looks like nothing is about to drop. Fortitude will see you through
when personal problems threaten to get in the way of your quest for
success. Fortitude will see you through when you can’t seem to get
any support from anywhere. Fortitude will see you through when
the dark days look like they are never-ending. Fortitude will always
see you through.
Remember:
Hold your mind firm and
you will witness the best
life has to offer.
Make Rain
51
Insight 26
Ahead of the Learning Curve
We currently live in an amazing time in history. We can get to
anywhere on the planet in a matter of hours; we can communicate
with anyone and everyone, anywhere in the world in an instant;
we can truly discern and be responsible for our actions. One thing
however that makes this point in history worthwhile is our access to
knowledge and information. It’s everywhere and at our fingertips.
So how can we tap into this vast reservoir of knowledge and use it
to become what we desire, which is to be that Rainmaker who uses
the skills developed to make him or her better, to make business
better, to make the world better?
There is an academic or professional course for everything,
absolutely everything. If you look hard enough, there is a book or
e-book written that can teach you whatever it is you want and need
to learn. The availability of knowledge is only as abundant or as
limited as you perceive it to be.
One of the world’s leading motivational speakers, Tony Robbins,
was actually a teenager and homeless when he had a chance
encounter with another motivational speaker called Jim Rohn. From
that moment on, Tony decided he wanted to become a world-class
motivational speaker. He had no formal education beyond high
school, but he did do something well—he took learning seriously.
Tony went on any course he could, read every book he could in
his chosen field (literally several hundred books and publications)
52
Insight 26
and he took this knowledge and absorbed it. Within a year he was
a millionaire. Today, Tony is one of the greatest speakers of his
generation and he even owns an island in Fiji.
The point of the story is that if you want to grow in a particular
area in order to be better and more effective, then be proactive and
seek out how to do it. Pay for a course, buy and read that book,
register for that online seminar. Whatever you learn, you will always
take it with you so it’s certainly worth investing in acquiring the
knowledge you need to be better.
Remember:
Your most important
investment is in
yourself..
Make Rain
53
Insight 27
What’s Your One Move?
There’s a saying I once heard that has forever stuck in my head. It
goes: “life is full of obstacle illusions”. When I initially came across
this saying, I thought it was a good play on words. On deeper
reflection, I find it’s not just a cool saying but a profound and true
one. Challenges and setbacks always litter the path to achievement
and success. I suppose that is why it is called “the road less travelled”.
The biggest, baddest, ugliest and most stubborn obstacles, however,
are your own perceived weaknesses and handicaps. They have the
power to stop you dead in your tracks—if you give them permission
to. The good news? They are just mirages, illusions, smoke and
mirrors, tricks of the mind. Many a time, your biggest weakness can
become your biggest strength.
Take, for example, the old fable of a ten-year-old boy who decided
to take up judo despite the fact that he had lost his left arm in a
serious car accident. The boy started lessons with an old Japanese
judo master. The boy began making progress, but could not
understand why after three whole months of training the master had
taught him only one move. “Sensei,” the boy finally asked, “Shouldn’t
I be learning more moves?”
“This is the only move you know, but this is the only move
you’ll ever need to know,” the sensei quietly replied. Not quite
understanding, but believing in his teacher, the boy kept training.
Several months later, the sensei took the boy to his first tournament.
54
Insight 27
Surprising himself, the boy easily won his first two matches. The
third match proved to be more difficult, but after some time, his
opponent became impatient and charged; the boy deftly used his
one move to win the match. Still amazed by his success, the boy was
now in the finals. This time, his opponent was bigger, stronger, and
more experienced. For a while, the boy appeared to be outclassed
by his opponent. Concerned that the boy might get hurt, the referee
called a time-out. He was about to stop the match when the sensei
intervened. “No,” the sensei insisted, “Let him continue”. Soon
after the match resumed, his opponent made a critical mistake: he
dropped his guard. Instantly, the boy used his move to pin him. The
boy won the match and the tournament. He was the champion.
On the way home, the boy and sensei reviewed every move in
every match. The boy then summoned the courage to ask what was
really on his mind. “Sensei, how did I win the tournament with only
one move?”
“You won for two reasons,” the sensei answered. “First, you’ve
mastered one of the most difficult throws in all of judo. And second,
the only known defence for that move is for your opponent to grab
your left arm”.
Rainmakers are in the business of self-improvement, and some of
the biggest leaps towards your goals can be achieved by tackling head
on your biggest weaknesses, personal or professional. You have three
choices available to you. Firstly, you can believe the illusion and stay
where you are, wishing and hoping for the forever-elusive progress
to come your way. Secondly, you can overcome your weakness by
changing your perception of it, your thoughts and behavioural
patterns. Thirdly, if the weakness is a real handicap, as with the tenyear-old boy, find ways to turn it into a strength.
Be honest with yourself: jot down your weaknesses, be they
mental or physical, find ways to change them or develop new skills
to counterbalance them. Either way, ignore the illusions of obstacles
and grab hold of the reality of progress.
Make Rain
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Remember: Stop
staring at the nonexistent palm trees
in the middle of the
desert and start
making it rain.
56
Insight 27
Insight 28
The United States of You
Think of a time when you seemed to do everything right. Maybe it
was the way you handled a particular meeting or a prospecting call.
Every word, action and thought just all seemed to gel in harmony.
You couldn’t go wrong. You were in flow, in the zone. World famous
motivational expert Anthony Robbins calls this phenomenon peak
state.
State is an interesting concept. On one hand it’s everywhere,
constant, yet transparent, as you are always in state—positive,
inconsequential or negative. On the other hand, understanding and
using state is so crucial to the success of our business, our careers, our
lives, our destinies. But what exactly is state? Well, the Oxford English
Dictionary defines state as: the particular condition that someone or
something is in at a specific time. So, for example, one could say, “look
at the state of you” or “He was in a right state”. The powerful thing
about state is that it directly affects outcomes. It is the outcomes that
Rainmakers are really interested in.
So here’s the big question: If state influences results then how can
we manage our state when it really matters? How can we get ourselves
to be at our superlative state at will?
We all know the famous “show me the money” scene in Cameron
Crowe’s 1996 film Jerry Maguire, where Cuba Gooding, Jr’s character
Rod Tidwell tests Tom Cruise’s character, Jerry’s resolve over the
phone. Rod pushes Jerry to be more and more vocal on the phone
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57
ending with Jerry screaming “show me the money!” and other
interesting phrases. When thinking about that scene and what Rod
Tidwell was trying to do, it occurred to me that he was trying to get
Jerry to alter his state. Initially, Jerry was not overly enthused to Rod
Tidwell agreeing to keep Jerry as his agent. Rod realised that in order
to change Jerry’s state of mind, he first had to change his physical
state by getting him to scream at the top of his voice. Once the state
changes, the outcome changes.
Rainmakers understand that the right state is the foundation of
performance. Therefore, they must become masters of their own
state. Rainmakers realise that like actors on the stage, it is not
enough to know your stuff, but one has to be in the right state, the
right zone, when it truly matters—at that meeting, throughout that
presentation, during that call, in that seminar. They use motion and
emotion to get into state, they recall past peak states in their minds
and recreate them again and again in reality. They study NeuroLinguistic Programming techniques to master achieving state at will.
Do what Rainmakers do. Learn the art of getting in state.
Remember: The cumulative
state of your business is a
mirror image of the consistent
management of your state.
58
Insight 28
Insight 29
Tomorrow Tomorrow Tomorrow
There is an old saying that procrastination is the thief of time. It’s the
one thing, which, if left unchecked, can do the most damage to your
sales, targets and career. Yet it is one of the hardest things to shake
off. It’s like a virus: it starts off unnoticed and then slowly multiplies,
making it increasingly difficult to extinguish. Putting things off then
becomes a habit that really starts to take hold of your work life and
can strangle it completely.
The point is that when you finally get around to doing things, it
normally is because you have to and you are now running against
the clock and that can only mean that the quality of your output can
be compromised. The only thing of equity we possess as Rainmakers
is our output: the results of what we do such as phone calls we make,
the meetings we prepare, the proposals and presentations we create.
If these are less than excellent as components, the total sum product
of our efforts begin to fall into jeopardy.
Here are a number of ideas to consider about how to deal with
procrastination:
•
Be aware: Be acutely aware. This gremlin is never far from
you. You need to be honest with yourself and know that it
can affect even the smallest of decisions.
Make Rain
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•
Write down your yearly goals daily: Repeating the process
of evaluating your goals on a daily basis will fortify your
mind with the things you have to do to achieve them.
•
Make a “to do list”: This may sound obvious but we
normally do one in our heads, which can only make it easy
for procrastination to decimate this mental register. Stating
things in black and white will go a long way in helping you
getting things done.
•
Important doesn’t necessarily mean urgent: Yes, you
need to fire-fight sometimes—however, the more you do
the important stuff earlier, the less you will fire-fight later.
Identify what’s important but not necessarily urgent, such as
cold calling or preparing early for a presentation, and work
on those tasks first.
•
Reward yourself: Pat yourself on the back for working hard
and getting the important stuff out of the way. This positive
gesture will only reinforce your positive motivational state
for the next time.
Dealing with procrastination is a lifelong endeavour but we can
form the habit of kicking the habit of procrastination if we stay focused.
Remember: Destroy the thief of
time and time will reward you.
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Insight 29
Insight 30
Where Do You Sign?
Have you ever seen the bright new actor or the promising musician,
the budding entrepreneur or the ambitious professional and you
somehow know this person will do well? This person will go far. But
for the life of you, you can’t think exactly why. You cannot put your
finger on it, but there is something special about that individual. You
recognise that “specialness” every time you see that actor on TV,
hear that musician on the radio or interact with that professional in
some way. They have a signature.
Like your personality, fingerprint or iris, your signature is unique
to you and you alone. Every time you sign a cheque or a letter, you
display a representation of you. Only you!
Question: What representation of you are you displaying to the
commercial world? Is this representation consistent? What signature
do you leave with your prospects and clients?
People buy people. It seems an obvious statement. A mantra
often used in sales. One would be mistaken, however, to think that
this means people buy just a personality. If that is indeed the case,
if you are a “people” person then everyone will flock to buy from
you. Not so. People, committees, companies, organisations buy the
signature. This is the all-encompassing uniqueness that only you can
provide. It is the culmination of many hours of learning, relearning,
practising and refining your profession. Your Rainmaker’s signature
also comprises knowledge, passion, commitment, hard work, vision,
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friendship, service and humility, yet a pride in what you do. The
embodiment of all these factors surrounded by a strong spirit of
excellence will create a representation unique to you that customers
will buy into again and again.
Remember:
Rainmakers
never leave home
without their
signature. What’s
Yours?
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Insight 30
Insight 31
Doing the Nearly Impossible Everyday
Here is a simple equation: Lack of growth = Death. This is true on
many levels. If one stops meeting challenges and developing when
one retires, it’s an early grave. If businesses remain stagnant in
today’s environment, the receivers beckon. If the salesperson doesn’t
consistently grow in skills, in their pipeline, in orders, in relationships,
in the size of their network; then it’s goodbye to their job, possibly their
career and their dreams. These are the harsh realities of life, which can
be viewed as a good thing since it spurs us on to grow. To stretch.
On Monday, August 15th, 2016 at the Olympic Stadium in Engenho
de Dentro, Brazil’s Thiago Braz da Silva, appeared from nowhere to
claim the gold medal and set a new Olympic pole vault record. Da
Silva failed his first attempt at 5.75m. On his second attempt, he cleared
5.93m which was his personal best. Defending Olympic pole vault
champion, France’s Renaud Lavillenie had raised the bar by clearing
5.98m. Da Silva knew he had one chance for gold for Brazil, in Brazil
and go down in history for Brazilian track and field fans, so he decided
to stretch with all his being and might and clear the bar at 6.03m, a full
10cm above his personal best to set a new Olympic record. That is the
power of stretching!
Stretching is the key to growth. It’s the fuel that drives the engine of
success. I like to define stretching as doing the nearly impossible every
day. Think of something in your everyday job you think is impossible
to do or at least really difficult to achieve, such as positively aggressively
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getting that meeting from that difficult client, closing that huge deal,
pushing clients for referrals, insisting to yourself that you will double
your pipeline within a month by hook or by crook (OK, less of the
crook), deciding that you will drastically increase your close rate. Now
imagine one puts a gun to your head and says, “…if you don’t hit your
yearly target within six months of the start of the year I will pull the
trigger”. Are you going to say, “OK, I’ll try?” Of course not! You are
going to say, “Yes I will…I must!” When the mind is focussed, the
impossible is achieved for the simple reason that it’s the mind itself that
defines what impossible is in the first place, it’s called your paradigm.
Stretching is the single characteristic all successful people have
in common, worldwide and in all cultures. Pushing your mind, body
and soul to their very limits to attain a goal is your passport to high
achievement. The weird thing is that it’s actually easy. The hard part,
the really hard part, is deciding to seriously go for it in the first place.
You have to undergo a mind shift to start with. The battleground is in
the mind.
If the mind comes up with an objection to you stretching yourself—
say, for example, you feel you want get out there and cold call prospects
consistently but the mind says “you can’t”, a simple reply to yourself is:
“But if I could, how would I go about it?” Use this statement anytime
you have any doubts: “But if I could…” Because you can, you just have
to condition yourself to accept that very fact.
Stretch yourself, push yourself, dive into the challenges, let nothing
and no one (especially yourself) stop you from making it. Explore the
outer limits of what you think is possible. Do this today and every day.
Don’t ever let the mind fool you into relaxing by thinking you’re doing
fine. Never stop stretching…ever. Rainmakers never do.
Remember: How far you pull the catapult back is a lot less
than how far the stone goes on release.
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Insight 31
Insight 32
Team You
Imagine your sales manager was Grant Cardone, who had all the
time in the world to show you how to overachieve on the numbers.
Imagine how successful you would be if you turned to Anthony
Robbins for advice on personal development and peak performance.
Imagine how many more deals you would close if you had a weekly
session with master negotiator Henry Kissinger or how much more
passionate and involving your presentations would be after spending
time with Steve Jobs.
Watching my two boys grow up is a real privilege and joy. One
thing that particularly strikes me is the way they are like sponges and
all they really want to do is latch on to someone that inspires them to
learn and be better. Should we as adults, be any different?
Author Auliq Ice once said, “Life is constantly teaching us that we
are mirrors of one another and that no one is an island”. Whatever
stage we are at in our professional and personal life, receiving advice,
encouragement, edification and inspiration from those who are
ahead of us provides the growth spurts we need to be successful.
I have not heard of a Rainmaker, entrepreneur, Olympic gold
medallist, Nobel Prize winner or indeed anyone who has achieved
lasting success, who does not have one or more mentors in their
lives—it is one of success’ critical ingredients.
However, obtaining a mentor only tells a third of the story.
Another third is the inverse: being a mentor. Teaching, sharing and
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inspiring others coming after you only serves to enrich your own
journey exponentially. The final third is the influence of your peers.
These are carefully chosen and like-minded individuals that share
common goals and attitudes towards advancement.
I refer to all three components as Team You, and if you design this
team thoughtfully and cultivate it properly, it will propel you to the
top of your game at an astonishing rate.
Team You will not come to you. You have to go out and seek
your team. Be bold and look for the right mentors for you, take on
the right protégé and work on your relationships with your peers
(friends, work colleagues, industry partners and even competitors)
and hold on to those who are like-minded, positive, trustworthy and
most importantly, able to challenge you on a deep and meaningful
level.
Remember:
An individual can
achieve good things
but great things can
only be achieved for the
individual by a team of
individuals.
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Insight 32
Insight 33
Your Very Own Personal Power
Question: If you had all the information about what to do and
how to do it, you knew exactly how to transform yourself into the
superstar sales professional you want to be, and how to earn the big
commissions you deserve; what would you do next?
Where is the power to turn what’s in your head into reality? How
do you get from knowing it to actually living it? The answer is in the
little phrase “to decide”.
Decision comes from the Latin word caedere which literally means
to “cut off ”. Think about these words: suicide, homicide, pesticide,
decide. What do they all have in common? They all have the suffix
“cide” which translates to kill, to destroy, to remove…to cut off.
When you make a decision, you cut off any potential of going back
to your pre-decision stage—that is where your real power lies.
If, for example, you decide today to become better at closing or
to excel at presenting, your goal is guaranteed if you cut off any
possibility of not developing these skills. That is to say, you now have
to develop those skills which weren’t previously a decision but merely
wishful thinking. The finality of your decision ensures a successful
outcome.
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Remember:
If you want
to achieve
anything,
be a Hernán
Cortés and
burn the
boats!
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Insight 33
Insight 34
The Power of Love
When the film The Passion of Christ came out, my local church
hired the local cinema for the congregation to watch it. I remember
being shocked by the ghastly nature of the portrayal of Jesus’ death.
I thought to myself at the time, “what’s so passionate about this?”
It then dawned on me that Jesus had such a passion for humanity
that he gladly chose to lay down his life in such a gruesome and
demeaning manner. The interesting thing is that this act of passion
affected the world and Christianity grew accordingly.
The point here is that to influence people, you do have to be
technically aware, and you do have demonstrate certain skills such as
questioning, building rapport, presenting and closing, but nothing
mesmerises people like passion. Being passionate about what you
do, what you sell, your company, your offering, your methods, and
about the customer and their business are what really get people to
buy.
Passion is not something you learn—it is something you choose!
Yet the underlying platform of passion is love.
Choose to fall in love with what you do and two powerful things
will happen:
•
You will become more disciplined and willing to deal with
the tough aspects of rainmaking.
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•
People will say yes more to your passion and your conviction,
than to just your technical skills and abilities.
Remember:
Passion
begets
passion!
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Insight 34
Insight 35
The Parable of the Rainmaker
You can learn how to be a good Rainmaker by going to sales training
seminars, studying books on sales, practising what you have learned
and modelling other Rainmakers around you. However, making that
intimate connection with individuals who have come before you
and achieved great things can turn you into a great Rainmaker. This
process is simple: Read and study the biographies of those you deem
your heroes.
Little inspires one more than when one has read a good biography
(particularly an autobiography in the first person). It’s amazing how
the power of print (or the tablet screen) can make you emotionally
go through the same experiences, pain of setbacks, joy of successes
and all the drama that the author went through. You get an insight
into how the individual thinks, what motivated him or her and where
they found their strength.
For me, when I read other people’s stories, I cannot help but make
comparisons with my own life and road to success. I start to view
my quest for excellence through the lens of the literary experience
I am going through. The connections made can be profound and
inspiring.
The interesting thing is that the biography does not have to be
of an entrepreneur or a business leader. One can receive as many
powerful lessons from sports personalities, great historical figures
and, dare I say, some celebrities.
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Dr Stephen Covey, in his book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective
People, highlights an important point: Begin with the end in mind.
By reading about other individuals’ experiences, your mind begins
to focus on what your own biography would be like, and what
individuals would say about your life, works and achievements. By
thinking about these things now, you can begin to sow the seeds of
how your destiny will unfold then so that whether or not you ever
write a biography, your accomplishments will be clear.
Remember:
The end
justifies
the means.
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Insight 35
Insight 36
When is the Best Time to Stop?
We all love the “finger lickin’ good” chicken taste produced by KFC.
The story behind the man behind the brand is also interesting. At the
age of 65, Harland David Sanders’ restaurant and motel had failed.
He had known some success previously, so much so that he was given
the honorary title of “Kentucky Colonel” by the state of Kentucky
for his contribution to the state cuisine. All that didn’t matter now
because at this point, Sanders took in his first social security cheque
of $105.00.
Sanders had nothing else but a chicken recipe of 11 herbs and
spices. He decided to go around to restaurants and sell his “recipe
franchise”. The pitch was simple: “Coat your chicken with my herbs
and spices and you will have so much more business. We therefore
split the profits”.
Can you imagine what restaurant owners’ reactions would be?
“C’mon! I have my own chicken recipe and it’s tasty enough, thank
you!”
Sanders’ secret weapon was that he utterly believed in his recipe
and his proposal, and pressed on from one town to another, from
one state to another until he eventually reached South Salt Lake in
Utah over 1,600 miles away from where he started. There he met a
guy called Pete Harman who finally took him up on his offer and the
rest is history.
Try and guess how many rejections he had to his proposal before
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he got his first yes…? 1,009! That’s right, ONE THOUSAND AND
NINE NOs before his first YES. Who reading this would have
stopped at 50 rejections, or 600 rejections or even 1000 rejections?
Colonel Sanders, in his 60s, believed in his product and offering so
strongly that he would have kept going regardless of the number
of rejections. It then took his first YES to change everything. The
franchise operation grew very quickly after that to become what it
is today.
It’s important to understand that the simple basics such as belief,
persistence, the right pitch, positive mental attitude, fortitude of mind
and discipline will always accelerate you to success whatever you do.
Remember:
Rainmakers
don’t stop
because they
can’t stop.
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Insight 36
Insight 37
The Metamorphic Individual
We all know how successful Will “The Fresh Prince” Smith is. The kid
from Philadelphia whose films to date have grossed over $6.6 billion
globally. The only star ever to have starred in eight consecutive films
that have opened up in America at the number one box office spot.
There are several keys to Will’s success: self-belief, long-range
planning, laser-sharp focus, determination, persistence, spotting
and embracing change, humility, conquering fear and grabbing luck.
There is another factor that I believe is critical to Will’s success. This
is the same power that took him from being a rapper in the 1980s,
to an American sitcom star in the 1990s, to a critically acclaimed
Hollywood star in the 2000s, and then a successful film producer
this decade. That thing is called self-reinvention.
Look around you; those that self-reinvent possess staying power at
the top. People like Madonna, Clint Eastwood, Sir Richard Branson
and Peter the Great, or companies such as Apple, IBM, Virgin and
American Express; all harness the power of self-reinvention.
Why is this skill so important? Because one cannot stand still in
an ever-changing world. The problem isn’t that our environment
is changing. It is the speed of that change that is dangerous for the
static. Manageable constant change is dead and buried. Exponential
and unpredictable change is the order of the day and is here to stay.
Recent history is littered with people and organisations caught
unconsciously napping - Wesley Snipes got caught out by Will Smith,
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Nokia got caught out by Apple, Microsoft got caught out by Google
and the list goes on. The speed in which your competition can leave
you out in the cold can be frightening.
For Rainmakers to stay Rainmakers, they have to keep their finger
on the pulse of change and not only use self-reinvention to adapt to
change but to be at the forefront of change, which creates competitive
advantage. The American entertainer Henry Rollins put it aptly when
he said: “I believe that one defines oneself by reinvention. To not be
like your parents. To not be like your friends. To be yourself. To cut
yourself out of stone”.
To be the best is one thing; to stay the best requires you to see
your business environment and indeed the world through the lens
of change and consistently make the necessary adjustments to your
skill sets, your knowledge, your type of clientele, your outlook, your
tools and your goals. By doing this you will begin to jump from
one level of excellence to the next and we know what accompanies
excellence…right?
Remember: Ask yourself: Am
I doing the right thing in the
right place at the right time to
be where I need to be?
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Insight 37
Insight 38
Brain Gain
We know that if we want to be fit and full of energy to deal with
the challenges of the Rainmaker we must be conscious of what
we eat and exercise regularly. Yet the vast majority of what we
as Rainmakers do is related to the brain. We need to keep sharp,
remember broad complex concepts and very fine technical detail
almost simultaneously, make clear decisions, deal with stress and
prolonged intense activity as well as face a constant requirement to
learn. So why not also exercise our brain muscles?
In the 2009 book The Sharp Brain’s Guide To Brain Fitness, we are
told: “Brain fitness is our brain’s ability to readily create additional
connections between neurons, and even to promote new neurons
in certain parts of the brain. Research in neuropsychology and
neuroscience shows that vigorous mental activity can lead to good
brain fitness, which in turn, translates into a sharper memory, faster
processing of information, better attention, and other improved
cognitive skills”.
Our profession embodies Napoleon Hill’s philosophy in Think and
Grow Rich. We need to constantly be thinking clearly and effectively
to make money, so it’s important to keep our brains consistently
firing on all cylinders.
Here are a few ideas to consider:
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•
A healthy body is a healthy mind. Watch what you eat and
exercise regularly.
•
Tease your brain constantly with crosswords, online brain
training, Sudoku, etc.
•
Read a random Wikipedia article daily.…in fact, just read
anything and everything constantly.
•
Constantly communicate like a teacher, especially to yourself.
•
Write instead of type when you can.
•
Never use a calculator unless you really have to.
•
Daily visualise yourself having achieved your goals.
•
From time to time, relax and think of absolutely nothing for
30 minutes.
Your most important tool is your brain. Keep it fit and sharp and
you will be a much more effective sales professional.
Remember: Be a
brain bodybuilder and your
brain will build you a body
of wealth.
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Insight 38
Insight 39
Experiencing Time Versus the Experience of Time
Question: What is the difference between a salesperson with ten
years of experience and a Rainmaker with ten years of experience?
The Rainmaker has a full ten years of making mistakes and learning
from each mistake made—thus, by the tenth year his/her wealth of
experience would have grown exponentially. Others, however, make
mistakes over and over again and after ten years they wonder why
they haven’t tasted real success. One year’s experience times ten
doesn’t constitute ten years of real experience.
It is said that wisdom is experience plus reflection. This is the
exact point. You can only gain true experience if you reflect deeply
on every wrong decision, unwise move and lost deal. You can learn
from anything, including advice from others, your training and
personal development.
Your experience is your personal and professional equity. That is
the value you add to your customers, your company and ultimately
your bank balance.
Stop periodically and think about the professional journey you are
taking so that it’ll be worth it.
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Remember:
Good
judgment
comes from
experience,
and
experience
comes from
bad judgment.
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Insight 39
Insight 40
Sshhh!! Quiet
Years ago, I stumbled upon an obscure motivational book. The first
five or six pages claimed how by doing a very simple thing you could
change your life around, achieve everything you ever dreamed of,
be full of happiness, etc. Impatiently I ploughed on through the
pages looking for the magic solution, the silver bullet. Eventually the
answer came: devote yourself to regular quiet time where you do and
think of absolutely nothing.
At the time, I thought the statement was an outrageous claim,
bordering on the point of fraudulent, so I discarded the book.
Now, many years later however, I realise that there is something in
that claim. What is important to the Rainmaker is clear thinking.
Clarity of thought produces excellent output. The hallmark of the
Rainmaker is seeing the immediate beyond the immediate: the ability
to focus consistently on the details at hand and see the effects much
further down the line. In other words, being tactical and strategic
simultaneously. It is very difficult to be that way with all the fire
fighting, crisis management, constant demands on your time,
deadlines and information overload.
By adopting a regular habit of spending time stripping your mind
of the clutter that builds up you will find that thinking clearly and
strategically will come more naturally.
Here is an idea:
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•
Take some time out in a quiet room where you will not be
disturbed for the next 90 minutes or so (early morning or
weekends tend to work best).
•
Sit on the floor (this prevents you from falling asleep).
•
Close your eyes so that you are not distracted.
•
The conscious mind has to focus on something, so concentrate
on your breathing. Listen to it, imagine it.
•
To start with, your mind will be all over the place, thinking
of all sorts of things.
•
Do nothing else. Just sit there. Initially this will be difficult to
do, but like anything new, repetition will help you through
the initial stages.
•
After about 20-30 minutes, your mind will settle and relax.
Enjoy it for another 20-30 minutes. Don’t let your mind
wander. Focus on your breathing.
•
Once you are truly relaxed, start to think of important things,
like your goals or important decisions you have to make of
which you are unsure.
•
Ideas, answers, convictions, understanding and appreciation
all come to you when you are in state.
Monks have meditated all over the world for centuries, but it seems
now more than ever, with the pressures we are all under and the rate
of change we deal with daily, that quiet time is needed to help us
achieve. It is yet another tool in the Rainmaker’s toolbox. Try it.
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Insight 40
Remember:
By coming
face to face
with the
moment,
you open up
all sorts of
possibilities.
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Insight 41
A (Physical) Moving, Stirring, Agitation…
We like to think that the quality of our decisions is purely based on
rational thought: one weighs up the pros and cons and comes to a
perfect conclusion with complete ease and skill. In reality, this is rare.
What really governs our actions and reactions to our environment
is how we feel. Our emotions govern how we feel. We all need to use
our brain to think and learn, but the Rainmaker also recognises the
power of his own emotions and those of others and develops the skill
of self and relationship management to get results. This is emotional
intelligence.
Jack Welch, former chairman and CEO of GE once told the Wall
Street Journal: “A leader’s intelligence has to have a strong emotional
component. He/she has to have high levels of self-awareness, maturity
and self-control. He/she must be able to withstand the heat, handle
setbacks and when those lucky moments arise, enjoy success with
equal parts of joy and humility. No doubt, emotional intelligence is
rarer than book smarts, but my experience says it is actually more
important in the making of a leader. You just can’t ignore it”.
Several studies around the world demonstrate a clear correlation
between a higher emotional intelligence and sales performance.
These studies show that the business realities we operate in today
cannot sustain those individuals that simply hard sell their way into
accounts. These individuals also manage to hard sell their way out of
the accounts since they are not able to deal with constant setbacks
and feelings of failure.
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Insight 41
Rainmakers are able to understand the emotional content of their
thoughts, decisions and actions. To ignore how to understand and
manage your feelings is to play Russian roulette with your targets
and ultimately your career. The game of selling is full of setbacks,
self-doubt, backstabbing by others, prospects’ double-dealing
and many other disappointments. Maintaining self-control and
fortitude of mind is not something that just happens, it is a process
requiring self-awareness and personal development over time but
the rewards are life and career enhancing. The same goes for helping
and managing the emotions of others you interact with—prospects,
customers, management, suppliers, your colleagues. Understanding
that we are all emotional animals will allow you to get the best out of
all these relationships.
Research emotional intelligence, assess your own EI quotient,
learn to develop it and begin to use it as another advantage towards
sales success.
Remember: Don’t be
emotional over people’s
emotions and yours.
Simply use its power to
move ahead.
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Insight 42
They’re Not Just for Biting…
My tailor at Rosen & Nathan is nicknamed Smiler. Each time I have
an appointment with him I am reminded of that fact. He just can’t
stop smiling. It is not a grinning type of smile, but a nice warm smile
that exudes confidence and trust and although you never see him
when he is not smiling, you never really get sick and tired of his
smile—though I sometimes wonder whether he gets sick of smiling.
In Dale Carnegie’s 1936 bestselling book How to Win Friends and
Influence People, a whole section is dedicated to the power of the
smile. Dale wrote, “Your smile is a messenger of your good will. Your
smile brightens the lives of all who see it. To someone who has seen a
dozen people frown, scowl or turn their faces away, your smile is like
the sun breaking through the clouds”.
The beginning of a successful sales process is likeability through
rapport. Without the prospects liking you from the start, it can
forever be an uphill climb. Showing a genuine interest in your
customers, clients, prospects and associates is critical to building
rapport, yet the only initial outward expression of this is your facial
expression and body language. A warm and genuine smile creates an
impact. It does all the messaging to the client for you. A smile sells
you before you sell you. A smile tells the prospect: This person truly
wants to help me.
Make no mistake about this, I am not advocating going everywhere
with a ridiculous grin on your face and expect orders to fly your
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Insight 42
way. A smile should simply be an outward expression of an inward
harmonic chorus of warmth, self-confidence, trust and a genuine
interest. The smile is the conduit that transfers these elements to the
recipient.
It is not just teeth that make the infectious smile. It’s the facial
expression, the eyes, the air you give off and the body language. All
these factors are embodied to provide the smile that endears the
prospect to you time and time again. Dale also stated in his book,
“Charles Schwab told me his smile had been worth a million dollars.
And he was probably understating the truth. For Schwab’s personality,
his charm, his ability to make people like him, were almost wholly
responsible for his extraordinary success”.
You can’t really learn or practise a warm smile. A smile is the
representation of a state of mind which you need to remember
possessing every time you meet someone. The more you remember
to think positively about who you are and what you are as well as
how you can make a difference with someone every day, the more
you will remember to truly smile into the lives of all who come in
contact with you.
Remember: Likeability
equals stickability.
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Insight 43
Diamond Life
Pressure. It seems to be a constant companion. A friend that
spurs you on or a foe that gets you down, depending on its mood.
Pressure is something that will never leave us as Rainmakers. Why
should it? With it coming from management, other colleagues,
the competition, customers and mostly ourselves, all we can do is
appreciate it, understand it and manage it.
There are two aspects to pressure. There is the type of pressure
we take in as described above. There is also the kind of pressure we
can sometimes give out to our prospects when we get frustrated that
things are not moving as we think or hope they would.
Lord Sebastian Coe once said, “All pressure is self-inflicted. It’s
what you make of it or how you let it rub off on you”. Therein lies
the key. A little bit of pressure when times are OK is manageable
and only helps keep you motivated. When times are tough though, if
you allow it, pressure can debilitate you and limit your output. Like
a true professional, always prepare for the worst-case scenario. Try
and imagine how you would positively handle real pressure when
times are hard, before times get difficult. This mental preparation
will serve you well.
Your clients are also under pressure and if their timetable
somehow conflicts with yours, putting them under pressure will not
accelerate things but may even hamper the relationship you spent
so long developing. Learn to let the pressure flow through you with
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Insight 43
no resistance like a gentle breeze—that way you will always have a
clear head to deal with the unexpected twists and turns a Rainmaker
always comes up against.
Remember: Pressure
can give power as well
as take it. Choose to be
empowered.
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Insight 44
The Rainmaker’s Guide to…
Experience is the mother of wisdom. Experience teaches. Experience
moulds the professional. Experience creates a better Rainmaker. All
this we know and appreciate. Without our ability to learn from our
experiences, we will never grow professionally. Lack of growth in
this regard costs value to your clients and will cost you money.
So we know we have to use experience to grow. But, how do we
find the positive in the mistakes we make through our initial naiveté?
How can we capture the essence of our experiences as and when they
happen to enable our accelerated learning?
My answer is straightforward: Develop an Experience Journal.
Yes, a journal. Like the captain’s Log that Kirk, Picard, Sisko,
Janeway and Archer of Star Trek would write, depending on the
starship and stardate!
Most of the time, when we make a wrong decision or follow the
wrong process, we end up experiencing the ramifications of that
mistake. We mull over the set of events in our minds again and again
until our minds move on to something else. Our minds do have the
capacity to learn from that episode simply by thinking about it, but
the learning experience is rather limited and, many a time, negative.
Why? Well firstly, the mind has a way of being emotional about
everything—it’s very difficult for rationality to feature in the replay
of the black and white horror or the drama movie that signifies the
experience. Secondly, once the replay moves to your subconscious,
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Insight 44
the mind gets busy with other things and thus you forget. This simply
increases the possibility of making the same mistake again in some
shape or form.
Writing your experiences down on paper, however, completely
arrests the irrationality process of your mind. Your words on paper
form a new powerful learning encounter, particularly if you also
write down what you have learnt from the error of your ways. The
beauty of an experience journal is that you can relive the positive
learning episode again and again, which can only serve to precipitate
and reinforce your growth as a Rainmaker.
Do it today. Buy an A5 notebook and take it everywhere. Write
down your mistakes, insights, understandings, revelations and
corresponding goals. Let this be your very own Rainmakers Guide
to...
Remember: Your journal
makes your journey on
the road to success a lot
smoother.
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Insight 45
There is No Substitute
Bill found himself in a sticky situation. He was smart, really smart,
but for the industry he was in, being smart was not a big deal. It
rained smart people in the IT industry. Bill knew that in order to
make it, he’ll have to work hard, and he did. Bill stopped sleeping,
stopped changing clothes. All Bill did was code, code and code. If
he wasn’t coding, Bill was working out ways to out-manoeuvre the
competition. He worked and worked and worked until he broke
through and people stopped calling him Bill and began to refer to
him as Mr Gates!
Nothing really beats simple hard work. Yes, you can work smarter,
you can be skilful, you can learn the tricks of the trade, you can be
good with people, but nothing can substitute unadulterated hard
work.
You have thought through and written down your work goals such
as: what will you bring in? Who will you target? How will you overachieve on your targets? You know what skills you want to develop
to aid you in achieving these goals. All that’s left is to get down and
do it. It takes hard work to really get things done in a sustainable
manner that produces consistent output.
Hard work is the “stuff ” that glues everything you have learned—
skills and experiences—together. According to the former British
prime minister, Margaret Thatcher, “I do not know anyone who has
got to the top without hard work. That is the recipe”.
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Insight 45
Focus on what you need to do. Ignore distractions. Control your
thoughts and stick to the plan. Find the essence of what it is to work
really hard, uninterrupted, throughout the year and I guarantee you
will over-achieve on your targets!
Remember:
The better
you get;
the easier
hard work
becomes.
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Insight 46
Love the High
Sales is a game. It therefore needs to be played. To be played well, you
need to enjoy it.
Enjoying what you do makes a huge difference to the process and
thus the outcome. Yes, it’s true you need to be serious about selling,
deadly serious, but you can thoroughly enjoy the seriousness of the
game.
Successful athletes, sportspeople, musicians, actors, entrepreneurs
and all sorts of professionals enjoy the fundamentals of the games
they play. They focus on the buzz that favourable results give them.
The anticipation of that “high” gets them through the difficult lows
and even the repetitive boring bits as they know once everything
comes together and happens the way it should, it’s great, just great.
That’s exactly how it is with our profession—Rainmaking. If you
can’t enjoy what you do, irrespective of what is happening around
you; if you can’t work smart and hard for the buzz of closing the
deal, developing opportunities, fostering relationships and growing
accounts from acorns to oak trees; then you’re simply not in the right
profession.
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Insight 46
Remember:
Love your
profession and
your profession
will love and take
care of you and
yours.
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Part Two
The Rainmaker’s Practice
“It always seems impossible until it’s done”.
Nelson Mandela