Fanatical Prospecting by Jeb Blount (@salesgravy) — The best tips and tricks for finding new prospects. One of my favorite parts of the book is that he says most sales problems come down to prospecting: missing sales goals? Look 2 or 3 months into the past and ask how much prospecting you were doing.

SPIN Selling by Neil Rackham: based on data from over 35,000 sales transactions over 10 years. The more you help your customer understand the impact of the problems they face the better chance you will have at helping them. He found that the more PIN type questions you asked, the more likely you are to close a deal.

Sales EQ by Jeb Blount (@salesgravy)- Jeb Blount is a prolific sales writer and strategist. This book has everything you need to know about the sales and deal closing process. Understand when a deal is likely to close and when it’s not (this is typically called sales qualification). Uncover all the steps of the deal process, regardless of deal size, and develop a better understanding of people along the way.

The Sales Acceleration Formula by Mark Roberge (@roberge_mark)- If you’re a sales leader or CEO and you want to better understand the structure of sales teams, who to hire, when to hire, and the data you need to track along the way, this book is a one stop shop for the basics of structuring and building your sales team. Even more interesting is that Mark started out on the engineering side before being asked to take over sales!

The Challenger Sale by Matthew Dixon and Brent Adamson- If you are a sales person working on larger deal sizes, this book teaches you how to uncover a customers’ issues and challenge their current assumptions through teaching them a new way of seeing the problem and potential solution.

Are there any other ones you would mention that impacted your career? Let me know in the comments!

Regardless of where you work, whether you’re an entrepreneur or a leader within a company, you have probably had an idea that needed investment. If you’re like me, you went to an investor or another leader at the company and said, “Here’s this really cool idea, and if we do it we’re going to make a TON of revenue and value for you/the company” OR “I really need to hire this person because there’s too much work to do and we need help”. You were probably met with a smile and a “Sounds interesting, let me think about it”, which is where all ideas go to die.

Here’s what I changed that led me to generating millions of dollars in investment and multiple successful projects, divisions, and teams launched and hired (and tons of revenue for my companies):

IF you do THIS, THEN it will create THIS MONETARY VALUE and deliver THIS ROI.

Seems easy right? It is, but the devil is in the details. The hard part is calculating the IMPACT in DOLLARS that the action will deliver.

For instance, let’s say that you need to hire a new account manager because there is too much for all the account managers to handle…they’re only able to stop the bleeding, not generate proactive value. Start to think, “if I had an additional account manager, what revenue would be created?” Then list them out:

• They could ask for more referrals
• They could schedule meetings and upsell additional services
• They could implement strategies that will reduce churn
• They could generate more marketing and testimonial pieces
• We would reduce employee turnover
• We would fill open positions more quickly
• etc.

Then go through and think: “What is a REASONABLE and CONSERVATIVE estimate for what they would be able to accomplish?” List the current value of the activity and then next to it list what the value will move to once you implement the intervention (e.g. hiring the person). THIS IS IMPORTANT: you will need this work later, so put it in a spreadsheet in order to work together with the leader or investor later to come up with values you BOTH agree on. It’s important to be conservative, because you want to be as close to a worst case scenario as possible to ensure there is adequate ROI. You may also find out that your idea won’t drive as much value as you thought it would and if that’s the case, you’ll have to think harder or differently about how you will create value.

So as an example:

They would get more referrals: Current= 0/year, Post= 2/year, Expected close rate = 50% on referrals, =1 new sale per year, across 10 account managers = 10 new sales per year, average deal size is $50,000, so that is $500,000 in additional annual revenue.

You repeat this for each of the growth areas you listed above. Some will be more difficult, e.g. you’ll have to figure out how much it costs the company to lose an Account Manager (think about revenue lost to churn, or referrals lost due to poor experience, etc.).

Once you have done that your first slide or sentence in your email should be:

If you invest $120K/ year in one new Account Manager, then you will see $2,300,000 in additional revenue within 2 years. This is a 9.6X ROI.

Following that sentence is your ask for a next step: “I would like to meet with you to review my conservative estimates in order to pressure test the assumptions I have made and make a go/no go decision to proceed with this investment. My logic is as follows…” (and then either list out the assumptions and revenue drivers, or attach the spreadsheet you used to calculate the assumptions).

You can use this with internal stakeholders, investors, or with customers to secure investments in your ideas, initiatives, or products. Sometimes this won’t work, there will be hiring freezes, or other business focuses that require investment ahead of yours; however, whatever the state of the business, you’ll be able to use this formula to give your idea the best shot possible and at least make yourself look stellar in the process.

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I was on a call once with an important potential prospect. They were the type of prospect that loved to spar on the phone: they delighted in the debate. I would describe the value, they would “yea, but…”, I would handle the objection and they would say, “but what about this over here…”. On and on this would go, until at the end of the call they said, “I really like this we’re going to move forward.”

A colleague and I were on a call with one such prospect. As soon as I saw my colleague that morning, I could tell something was off. I made the mistake of not mentioning it (this is always tricky because sometimes you don’t want to introduce negativity into the equation by saying, “you look tired…”). The prospect was debating every aspect of value, and my colleague who was one of the best and always cool headed, started to get frustrated: “You’re not hearing what I’m saying” she said, “If you just take a moment and listen…”.

The client and I both looked at her wide eyed. I jumped in and said, “it sounds like you still have concerns about x, y, and z, this makes a lot of sense to me, let’s explore it some more…”. Crisis temporarily avoided.

What went wrong is that my colleague and I had both not realized we were in danger BEFORE we got on the call. She was tired, her kids had been up multiple times last night, and she was not feeling well on top of that. Instead of one of us acknowledging that at the beginning of the call, we both plowed forward, not realizing we were in danger. Her tiredness decreased her capacity for patience and levity, and thus her tactless approach on the call.

A mentor of mine used to say: “if you notice you’re tired, scared, angry, whatever, and you know that’s thrown you off your game before, make sure to say to yourself: ‘I’m tired and I’m in danger’, this way you’ll be more prepared.” If you have a colleague that you trust, it can be helpful to say something like that as well to them, “Chris, I’m exhausted today and will need you to help more than usual on this call if you wouldn’t mind”.

I also do this while I’m driving, especially if I notice that I have a shorter temper. I say, “Ah, I must be tired, refocus and pay better attention.” You may also notice you need to do this with loved ones at home or other circumstances that may require more attention of your physical and emotional state.

This is one of the reasons I love sales: it forces you to master yourself and your emotions and to see everything that is going on inside of you at the time. If you take a moment before each call and each presentation to take note of how you’re feeling and to treat the call in the freshest way possible, you’ll increase the percentages of time you’re successful.

Please take a moment to leave a comment, clap, follow, and subscribe if you haven’t already, and thank you for taking the time to read.

I’ve had this conversation far too many times with CEO’s: “we’re behind for the month, we’re not doing nearly as well as we did in August!” At which point I kindly remind them: “There are less business days in this month so we’re going to end up selling less this month”. Now of course this depends on growth, size of team, and business fundamentals, which is always why you need other dashboards to do deep dives, but the graph above shows a dotted line of where you should be based on your standard metrics and team size. The red line shows how you have actually done throughout the month.

What’s great about the dashboard above is that it’s totally customizable based on your monthly or quarterly deal flow (you’ll see flat spots for weekends above which made sense on one of my teams that had a very fast deal cycle). You can also normalize the data for team size by taking the average amount of revenue closed by rep per day (or per month) and doing a cumulative average in order to compare teams. If your team tends to hockey stick at the end of the month you can also bake that in as well.

The chart below is an example of the same thing but plotted with several different months in view. You can see below that you can easily compare months and lengths of month. Since November has less days, the line graph ends earlier. You can also see unusual anomalies…something clearly happened in both November and December in the middle of the month beyond just having holidays: did reps take extended holidays? were fewer customers around? is the system broken some how? It’s fantastic for identifying patterns in the data.

The other wonderful thing about this chart is you can use it to plot reps, lead sources, outsourced partners, really anything, and it will prevent you from making the mistake of not considering holidays, number of business days in a month etc. Marketing, sales, support, and all of your growth related teams can use charts like this to keep a quick eye on their business.

The key to running a powerful and efficient sales and growth organization is easy visibility into data so that at a glance you can see if something is truly off or if it’s just something about the anatomy of the business days in the month.

Need help with your growth team? Don’t hesitate to drop a comment or reach out to me! And please subscribe or clap if you liked the article.

During the holidays we stopped giving as many discounts and we started sending follow up emails offering to donate to the client’s charity of choice.

It was a great reason to reach out to a client (no checking in here…), it maintained the value of the product, it gave us another way to get to know the client and what they cared about, and generate more good in the world.

The great news is that it turned into one of the most successful promotions we ran each year!

I believe in maximizing positive will wherever possible. In fact, one of my recent companies had a value “We leave a positive wake”…loved that!

If you can, why not help as many people as possible?A win for everyone and our belief in humanity ;)

I was standing in front of 35 sales reps I didn’t know. I had a coffee in one hand and my speaking notes in the other. I was sweating, badly. I started my talk: only squeaks and garbled stuttering came out. The cup in my hand shook violently, spilling piping hot coffee down my hand. I winced and looked out on a sea of grimacing faces: they seemed almost more embarrassed for me than I did. I kept trembling.

I finished, not sure if anything coherent made it out of my mouth. I sulked back into my office, leaving the dull stares behind, knowing that the “performance” I had just given was terrible and arguably one of the most embarassing of my career to date. Worse yet, it was confirmed when one of the sales reps came into my office, sat down next to me and said, “that was pretty hard for you eh?”. “No shit…”, I replied, “was it that obvious?”.

I didn’t need an answer.

In that moment I made up my mind that if I was going to be a leader, I needed to master public speaking and I wasn’t going to let anything get in the way. As embarrassing as that moment was, what I learned in the process changed me, my career, and my public speaking ability foreve. Eventually, it led me to winning a company wide pitch competition and to speaking confidently and successfully to a group of 3,000 people.

To get there I talked to mentors, loved ones, experts, read books and built a process that helped me get to a point that I could speak in front of thousands of people. (PS. Make sure to read the closing remarks at the end, there’s a gem quote down there from a mentor of mine ;) )

Here’s what I learned:

An outline of the key steps along the way

1. Research (reading, talking to mentors, etc.): 1 month
2. Toastmasters: 6 months
3. Working with an Executive coach: 12 months (CRUCIAL)
4. Read book and ensuing podcasts: The Art of Learning by Josh Waitzkin and built a pre-speech routine
5. Practiced by presenting at several company meetings
6. Participated in one company international sales manager speaking competition (and won!)
7. Practiced by presenting at large sales rally talks to 300+ reps every few weeks
8. Spoke at company all hands meetings
9. Was company speaker at several large conferences

Boiled down learnings

There are no silver bullets. Sustained change comes through study and practice. However, the following were game changers for me:

• HIRE A COACH- this was the highest leverage activity I did (more on this below).
• Think of a fear as a friend that reminds you to prepare. The more you’ve prepared the less fear you’ll have.
• Rewire your fear in the moment by saying, “I’m excited to do this”…as opposed to dreading it. Surprisingly this works. The physiological responses of fear and excitement are strikingly similar. Imagining people as naked etc. did not help… haha.
• Other positive self talk friends have shared with me that works for them: “I’m nervous because this is difficult, speaking to a group takes courage!” or “The audience wants me to succeed, they’re rooting for me” or “Someone in the audience will be healed by what I’m about to say”
• Write down your script, audio record yourself delivering it several times. Listen to it. Rewrite. This practice will help prevent you from going blank and help you stay in the time limit. You also will hear that you don’t sound as bad as you think.
• Get your beginning phrase and ending phrases nailed down. Start strong and end strong. This way the nerves won’t sabotage you.
• Video record yourself several times giving talks or presentations at work. WATCH THE “GAME TAPE” — it feels awkward but this was arguably the most important thing I did, I truly realized that I wasn’t THAT bad.
• Keep your attention out: out of your head and on those watching. If you feel you’re connecting with the audience, your fear will dissipate. I noticed when I looked back at my slides, fear would start to well up again. Focus on the faces in the room.
• Get there early and talk to the audience ahead of time. It helps humanize everyone.
• Remember the Pratfall Effect- People who are seen as competent that make a mistake are rated as more likable. So, if you trip on your way out to the stage, smile, laugh at yourself, and move on…they like you more now.
• YOU OWN THE STAGE. It’s your time up there. Stop and take a drink of water. Pause to look at your notes. You can literally do ANYTHING you want while you have the stage…that’s kind of cool…make them wait if you want. Remember YOU OWN IT.
• I would take off my shoes to speak when I was first starting out. It helped me feel more grounded…literally. I didn’t have to worry about tripping or being unstable and there was something calming about it…it was weird, but no one cared. They thought it was funny.
• Passion and energy can compensate for content…as Mother Theresa said, “people will always remember how you made them feel”. Bring the excitement.
• Create a pre speaking routine that calms you and makes you comfortable, this can include music, meditation, food, calling loved ones, victory poses, pushups, jumping on a trampoline, whatever helps you be successful.

More Details

Toastmasters

Toastmasters is an international organization. There are chapters in every major city across the world. In the Raleigh, NC area there were over 80 chapters when I was looking. You can find them by going here. I joined a club close to my house that fit my schedule.

Cost: Approximately $60–70 a YEAR. With this you get to participate and you get a book of speeches to complete in order to progress through the program.

What to expect: A group of business people, community members, students, etc. just like you, trying to be better speakers or trying to help others improve their speaking. In my chapter there were 2 people where English was a second or third language for them. Watching them give speeches in English was humbling and inspiring. You don’t have to participate and can just sit and watch if you’d prefer. It took me 3 times before I could even introduce myself. It’s OK. Everyone was friendly and kind.

What you can learn:

• How to give different types of speeches (personal, business, humorous, toasts, etc.)
• Style tips and how to avoid ah’s, ums, so’s, etc. (someone is actually designated to count them for you)
• How to extemporaneously speak (they give you a random topic and you have to speak for a length of time on the topic)
• How to manage your time

I did this for roughly six months and became much more comfortable from just getting up and practicing and desensitizing myself. My heart would still pound, I would sweat, and shake, but it got better over time.

Executive Coaching

There are lots of great coaches out there, pick one that has spoken successfully before. If you’re trying to become a better public speaker in business settings you need someone who has lived it. I was fortunate to have worked with someone that Citrix had found for our leadership team who had worked with Steve Jobs, George Bush, and several other CEOs and celebrities.

If you’d like my help I’m happy to consult and coach you as well, send me a note to chris(dot)leithe(at)leithelabs.com if you’re interested.

Cost: Hourly rates vary but I would budget between $150-$300/hour and expect around 10 hours of coaching. This was one of the highest leverage activities I did on my path.

What to expect: Dedicated one on one AND group time. The most important things that she taught me were how to plan my talk, practice, video record my presentations, and then she would watch it with me and critique it. It was uncomfortable but incredibly valuable.

What you can learn:

• How to move on a stage
• How to engage the audience
• How to use notes
• How to leverage your voice to drive more impact
• Storytelling and presentation structure tips
• Powerpoint design tips
• Building confidence
• How to handle distractions and hecklers
• So much more…

The Art of Learning by Josh Waitzkin

I discovered this book after listening to Tim Ferriss’ podcast. It details how Josh Waitzkin became an international chess champion, Thai Chi push hands champion, etc. and now coaches executives at the highest level. His podcast with Ferriss is crucial to listen to as well. Performance management is mostly psychological. The gist of it is this:

1. Find activities, songs, foods, etc. that calm you
2. Structure the process to decrease anxiety leading up to a talk
3. Once you successfully managed your anxiety through your process, you can begin shortening it
4. Eventually, just thinking of the song, or holding your hands in a meditative position can lower your heart rate and anxiety

My process was the following:

1. Wake up early and do 15 min of yoga
2. Make a smoothie
3. Listen to the song I used to listen to before my organic chemistry tests to calm me down
4. Get to work early and review my speech and powerpoint
5. Do a number yelling exercise to help practice holding intention in your voice (DM me for details…I got this exercise from my executive coach)
6. Meditate for 5 min
7. Do push ups and jumping jacks
8. Drink a cup of cold water and bring one to the stage
9. Use bathroom…twice
10. Get out to the stage area early and welcome people as they entered

Eventually, I was able to get to the point where just listening to the song was enough to get me in the mental state to speak well.

Closing Notes

At the end of the day, Public Speaking success comes from coaching, practicing, and seeing fear as a friend. People love a hero’s journey, underdogs, and rags to riches stories, so messing up and persevering just becomes part of your hero’s journey. As a mentor of mine used to say: “Even if you’re afraid and pee is running down your leg, get up and do it, don’t let fear dictate your actions”.

Enjoying what you’re learning? Please read, subscribe, and share with your friends. If you’re interested in consulting or coaching please send me a message to chris(dot)leithe(at)leithelabs.com.

Here’s a scenario I’ve debated with many sales managers:

There’s a sales rep on your team, they are loved by the rest of the team and by you, they’re one deal away from goal and it’s the last day of the month: if they don’t hit quota this month, they’re gone.

The culture you’ve created touts teamwork and support.

Do you flip the person an easy deal? Do you allow your team to slide one their way? Do you let your best closer jump on their next call to help close it down? Do you do nothing and let them fail?

Morality and ethics are of great interest to me and the question above bothered me for a long time. It was essentially the sales equivalent of the trolley problem.

Here are some of the questions and issues at hand:

1. If they stay and they consistently miss goal, the rest of the team or their manager has to carry their slack. Keeping this person around causes more work for everyone else. We’ve all been apart of groups where one member isn’t contributing and it’s frustrating. There’s also plenty of evidence that suggest bad apples are contagious and can pull down the rest of the team (read here in HBR and here in WSJ).
2. On the flip side, this person clearly brings some positivity to the team. Somewhere in the back of leader’s brain, there may be a fear that team morale may be damaged significantly if the person is let go.
3. We should also consider the history of this person’s performance. Are they typically very strong and just in an extended drought? Is something difficult going on in their life causing them to struggle (a marriage, divorce, ailing loved one, etc.)?
4. How about considering the impact to the individual themselves. Are they doing something that they hate and they’re just trying to hang on out of fear of what they would do without this job or without being around their friends at work? Is allowing them to stay keeping them from finding another way they’d be able to give to the world that would be more meaningful to them?
5. Does the manager have to put more energy into this person and thus take away from helping the others who are contributing at a higher level and risking their departure and frustration? Has the manager done a good job of supporting them when they noticed there was a problem in the first place?
6. Do we consider the impact to the customers because if the rep is not succeeding this means that fewer customers are being helped with their issues, do they need to suffer as well?
7. How about the impact to the company and shareholders? If this person was to be let go, would it give a place for another better performing person to join? Or when that person is replaced, does a new person now just take the bottom spot?

The most important question to me is: how can we approach this person and the situation in the most human way possible? Have we asked the questions? Have we worked with the person on resolutions? Most importantly have they grabbed their end of the rope and tried to save themselves with urgency?

If you’re looking for an answer to the dilemma, I’m sorry, but you won’t find one here. The answer is as always: it depends. What’s the most human thing to do in the situation? It could be to let them fizzle out or it could be to save them. Whatever your answer is, you have to make sure that you’re “clean” when you make it: is fear, pitty, shame, coldness, or another emotion clouding your judgment?

Every decision says something about you and how you lead. Do you do everything you can to support the struggling rep? Do you fiercely protect the needs of the team? How you decide to answer this has lasting impacts on you and the team and showcases your values.

Robert Pirsig (author of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance) believed that the protection of cultural and political structures were of higher moral value than the needs of the individual. What is the highest level structure in a business and how do you serve it best? Is it the team? Is it the corporation? Is it the culture you’ve created? Is it your value structure?

Maybe we leave this one in Schrodingers box…

What would you do? What would you consider?

Here was our problem: at one of my former companies we were able to schedule trainings for real estate offices about branding and paid media best practices, but the brokers were sometimes hesitant to give us the roster of agents in attendance. This made it hard for us to follow up after the training to see if there were questions and to be able to sell our advertising platform to the individual agents. We primarily had to rely on sales during the training, and keep in mind, at the time, this was all done virtually.

The Solution: We were able to significantly increase our revenue in an innovative and fun way. A consultant friend of mine and I got together and realized that there needed to be an incentive for people to give their emails during a training session (this is not rocket science…I know). We had a solid product, my friend was a developer and entrepreneur, and I was a creative marketer and sales lead…so we decided to do something fun.

We thought: “everyone loves a raffle.” In fact, in true “Lean Startup” fashion, we were able to prove this idea in a very low-fi way…with a spreadsheet and having people type their emails into the chat on the zoom. Once we proved out the concept and knew that our training team could do a great job getting people excited to join the raffle, we started on phase 2.

My friend coded a raffle website that would allow people to enter their email address and then when the trainer pressed the run raffle button, it would cycle through all the names and finally choose one. The training attendees were excited, the trainers had fun, and we got droves of emails that significantly increased our ability to follow up after the session was over.

However there were some interesting unexpected outcomes:

1. We found that we were able to get the roster more often AHEAD of time by telling the broker that we needed the emails in order to enter their names into the raffle for them.
2. We found that giving away free ads was a great way to create an evangelist in the office because they would see how great it was and talk about it in the office and get everyone else excited.
3. We also discovered that it was sometimes hard to get the winner to set up the platform afterwards, so it took some significant follow up to get the free ad set up for them.

At the end of the day it was a great mutually beneficial and FUN way to engage our customers while also helping us to acquire additional emails to market to. If you’re interested in using the raffle system we built for yourself or want other ideas like this, please don’t hesitate to reach out to me at chris.leithe@leithelabs.com for more info and Please Subscribe so you don’t miss a post! Thank you for reading!

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The Story

Year after year a Zen Master received a new flock of students, and year after year a few of his students would become enlightened. However, he would visit his fellow Zen Masters and would see that many more of their students were becoming enlightened; this troubled the young Zen Master. He meditated on this for months, and realized he wasn’t going to figure this out on his own, so he decided to make the journey to see his Teacher.

This journey was going to be a difficult trek: miles of difficult terrain during rainy season, but the Zen Master knew he must make the journey if he was to fulfill his life’s purpose and be a better teacher to his students. He gathered his cloak, umbrella, and food and set off on his trip.

After walking several long rainy days through treacherous forests, he finally made it to his Teacher’s temple. Upon reaching the temple doors, he shook the rain from his cloak and placed his umbrella in the holder. As he entered the temple, the warmth and peace within rejuvenated him and upon seeing his Teacher, they embraced and he began recounting his troubles.

The Zen Master recounted his problems to his Teacher for hours, explaining how his students weren’t reaching enlightenment and how other teachers’ students were faring better than his. He explained all of this in great detail and at the end, with his Teacher nodding patiently, he asked, “What do you make of my predicament Master? Can you help?”

His Teacher sat for several moments considering what he had just heard and then asked, “Upon your arrival, when you placed your umbrella in the bucket by the door, which way was the handle facing?”

The Zen Master was shocked, and with understanding flooding through him, he stood up and jubilantly embraced his Teacher, because he knew what he must do. He collected his cloak and his umbrella, and hurried back to his temple.

What had he learned?

In that moment, he realized that he did not know which direction the handle was facing. He realized attention wasn’t deep enough. This was why his students weren’t reaching enlightenment. It took curiosity, humility, and yes, attention for the Zen Master to arrive at this lesson. And after he practiced deepening his attention, I’m happy to report that he had one of the most successful groups of students the land had ever known.

Why is attention important?

Attention is the foundation of understanding. Attention allows you to see the truth of things. Most importantly, it allows you to see the truth within you. The more that you see and uncover within yourself, the more you can see and uncover in others. If I can’t find laziness in myself, then I won’t be able to see and understand it in others. If I can’t find love in and for myself, I won’t be able to find love for others. My capacity to empathize with others will always be limited by the depth of my ability to see things within myself.

At work I have to be able to pay attention to my need for admiration from my loved one in order to understand one of the many reasons a team member might be desperate for a higher title. Or I might need to pay attention to my jealousy or admiration in order to understand how one of their peers might react if the new title was given. Anticipating this ahead of time can help you prepare to avoid issues in the future.

A mentor of mine once said: “Before you give a promotion to someone, first think who will be upset with it and decide how and if you will handle that first.” To handle that conversation, you will have to see those things in yourself to know how best to approach the team member.

How do you hone your attention?

Many people meditate in order to develop their attention so that they can see their thoughts, attend to their internal states, and better understand where their emotions are sprouting from. Personally, I find better ways of honing attention in everyday life.

Outside of meditation, in daily life we practice our attention by listening carefully when our loved ones are talking or watching deeply as they’re moving about. We notice something that’s off and can intuit where our loved one is and what they need in that moment. We also practice our attention when we’re driving and feel the car beneath us and our hands on the steering wheel, we see a car slightly drifting in the lane ahead of us and anticipate needing to speed up or slow down to avoid danger.

In business or sales, we practice attention when we’re talking to a prospect or business partner. I like to practice by asking myself, “what is this person really trying to say?” or “what does this person really need in this moment?” It keeps me focused and attentive and prevents me from listening just to respond; I’m listening to understand; I’m listening to build empathy, but guess what? I mess this up all the time. Why?

What gets in the way of a attention and how to short circuit it

Sleep, food, and exercise, if out of balance, throw off my attention. When tired, I say to myself, “you’re tired and therefore you’re at risk”. I can be at risk in many ways, if at work, maybe I’m more likely to be short tempered or sensitive. At home, this doesn’t change, but maybe I don’t listen as well to my loved one. I find reminding myself I’m at risk is a good way to bring me back to my attention. On sales calls this helps to remind me to keep my energy up and to listen carefully to the needs of the customer.

Sometimes emotional stress will zap our attention. A dear psychologist friend of mine who does work with people to help them regulate their emotions and nervous systems will coach people on grounding techniques, like breathing and body awareness practices, to bring them back into the moment.

Preparation is another good way to short circuit attention depleters. If I prepare ahead of time, I’ll have a plan and my attention will be on following the plan and likely won’t be distracted from the fear or worry of what to do next.

Parting thought on attention

I try to remember that attention is a gift, whether to a child or loved one, friend or colleague. So as we practice our attention, just remember that mindful attention is a practice of gift giving, it’s fertilizer for our souls, whether we’re giving it to ourselves or to others.

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How one question can help you understand if an interviewee… or a date will be a good fit

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Years ago I was sitting across from a date, she was a badass. I was newly single and had been on tons of dates, and was always asked the same questions: “what do you do”, “what kind of food do you like”, “what does your family do”, etc. They’re fine questions but they’re routine and ordinary and don’t cut to the heart of anything.

So, I was stunned, excited, and INTERESTED when my date broke the frame and asked me one of her favorite questions. For a person to ask this question, they had to be a serious person, someone who takes their time seriously, honors it, and hopefully would therefore honor mine.

Her eyes narrowed, she leaned back and said, “tell me about your routine.” My routine! I’ve been waiting for someone to ask me this for years. My routine was meticulously crafted, not rigid, and always open to options for improvement. If you know me, or worked with me, you may know parts of it because I wouldn’t shut up about it (comment below and remind me of it when we worked together ;) ). But just because I would be excited about this question, doesn’t mean you will be, so let me tell you why it changed my game.

We’re all looking for people who are intentional and thoughtful to work with us: “A players” who will put their heads down and figure it out and deliver repeatable results. In an interview (or a date), a routine tells you about a person’s interests, their loves, their passions. It helps you find common ground and also helps you understand if they take themselves and others seriously. Not seriously in a prideful way, but seriously in a “I only have one life to live and want to make as much of it as possible” kind of way.

As a result of this date, I started asking this of interviewees. Sometimes they would ask me back and I would share. I always developed more empathy for the person across from me and I understood where and how they might fit into the organization I was a part of.

I knew that stable and structured routines lead to more repeatable days…I knew what I needed to do every day to be happy, healthy, and fulfilled, and doing those things routinely ensured my days would be better on average. Similarly, you can often expect the same thing from a person at work: If someone knows what goes into creating a successful day for themselves each day and they repeat it (e.g. it’s a routine), it often translates to repeatable success at work.

However, sometimes people will try to draw a wall between personal and professional life and don’t use the skills from one part in the other. If a calendar helps you be successful at work, shouldn’t it also help you be more successful at home? If date night helps you connect better with your significant other, shouldn’t one on ones or team outings help you connect better with your teams at work? The same is true about building routines for yourself at home and at work.

When you interview someone try to get an idea of both… “can you tell me about your routine? Feel free to start from the moment you wake up to when you go to bed.” It’s a great way to break the ice and understand the candidate more deeply. If they don’t have a routine, it doesn’t necessarily mean that they won’t be successful, but they just might not be the right fit for your role. Even creatives can benefit from routine (more on that later).

Many of my articles will aim to identify ideas and concepts that not only will impact your work but will also be beneficial at home as well. Drop some of your favorite interview questions in the comments or some of the things that are important to your home or work routines to inspire others!

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