I was talking to a good friend of mine today who’s been in this business for a long time and very successful at it. He said something to me that really made me think. He said, "Every day I still have a job is one day closer to the recovery of our industry." I thought that was not only brilliant but the display of a great attitude. While most of us are moaning about how bad things are he’s talking about the recovery of our business. It’s that kind of thinking that will keep us ahead of the game.

He was also telling me that his salespeople, who are normally successful, are not succeeding. We talked about working together so I can help him learn how to motivate them. That started an interesting conversation. You see, my friend is very self motivated. When he worked for me in sales, he was the guy who I stuck all the new salespeople with so his positivity and excitement would rub off on them! He’s fun and excited and he’s a magnet for success.

What I told him was that even though he had all those great qualities, he undoubtedly had people who worked on his team that didn’t have those things. So, now he has to learn how to teach those things to them. That’s not an easy thing to do. The key is to realize that this is going to take some study on his part. He’s going to have to invest in some books and programs that will teach him how to do that.

A lot of us who move from salesperson to sales manager find this difficult. Remember, the best salespeople don’t always make the best sales managers. Just because you’re good at selling doesn’t mean you can automatically transfer those skills to others. In fact, most of us can’t. But here’s the good news: It can be learned. And learning is where the commitment comes in. So, we’re going to begin our journey in a couple of weeks of just doing that.

At the end of our conversation he complimented me on my ability to motivate people which he had experienced in our past relationship together. I told him that it may look easy but it took me 15 years and literally hundreds if not a thousand books and programs over those 15 years to acquire that knowledge and ability. Fortunately, he doesn’t have to sort through all that stuff and figure it out for himself. He can stand on my experience and do it much faster. And I’ll be happy to do it for him. That’s the power of a good coach.

I believe in you!