You’ve finally put to rest all the negative mental chatter about sales. You rest on a Nirvanic cloud of peace, wisdom, unconditional acceptance, deep internal silence, and universal love about selling. Until all of a sudden—and out of nowhere!—those niggling little voices start up again. A whisper at first, but quickly swelling into a chorus of:
- Hey, who do you think you are? You can’t just think good thoughts and enjoy selling!
- Yeah right! Like you’re never gonna get stuck in the selling quagmire again and not want to pick up the phone.
Uh oh. Time for the Sunnybee Solution…
THE SUNNYBEE SOLUTION
My first car was a yellow VW convertible, which I named “Sunnybee.” It ran fine for quite a while, but then it developed some odd noises and a clunky feel when I drove it. I called my brother, who knows everything about cars, and described the symptoms. After a terrible moment of silence, he asked, “When was the last time you changed the oil?” I paused, puzzled.
“I think it came with oil,” I said slowly. It came with a steering wheel. It came with oil. Nobody ever said I had to change either of them. My friends and I never talked about cars. It was never discussed in our family. Our father had trouble changing light bulbs and we weren’t really sure he knew how to fill the gas tank. Whenever something went wrong with our cars, they were simply sent “to the garage” and the less said, the better.
My brother gave me a chilling description of what happens to car engines when you don’t change their oil regularly, and promised to remind me to do so in the future. I thought to myself, “This is just like handling selling baggage. You’ve got to keep current with it.”
HOW TO CHANGE YOUR SELLING OIL
I didn’t like changing the oil in my car. It was expensive and time-consuming. I don’t like doing the dishes every day. I did them yesterday, for God’s sake! Same with taking out the garbage. What keeps me going with these tasks are the consequences of not doing them. For me, the solution is a weekly “selling oil inventory,” doing the Soul of Selling exercises for Step #1, Put down you’re your baggage and fix what you can.” These include answering questions like:
- What are the voices in my head saying about selling?
- Is any of this true?
- If it’s true, can I fix it?
- If it’s not true, can I let go of it?
When you keep your oil changed, you can fly down the selling freeway with the top down and a smile on your face.
What do you do to remember your selling oil change?
