SELLING IN TOUGH TIMES: TURN ON YOUR MIND

Several years ago, my daughter and I left the house together one morning to run an errand. The radio was on, and two of the local yuk-yuks of morning talk radio – we will call them Doofus and Dumbo – were doing what most of their genre do: discussing sex, taking calls about sex, conducting polls about sex, and sharing various potty jokes with their listeners. Loud – dare I say forced? – guffaws all around.

At one point in the "show" my daughter turned to me and asked the kind of perfect, innocent question that kids ask so well. "Why do they think that's so funny, Daddy?" she asked over the raucous hardy-har-hars of the two DJs. "I didn't think that was funny at all."

She was right. It wasn't the least bit funny. In fact, it was annoyingly stupid. Lost earlier in my own thoughts, I regretted that I had forgotten to turn off the radio.

There are today a lot of lazy, apathetic people in America. Part of the reason for this is that there is a massive and increasingly influential segment of the entertainment industry that works hard, every week, to keep our minds stuffed with utterly useless, nutrition-free brain candy.

An ever-growing segment of our population feeds almost exclusively from this idiot-IV on a daily basis. When these people read (ifthey can read), they pick up People Magazine or Us. When they watch TV, they tune in to Rock of Love with Bret Michaels. And when they drive to work in the morning, they set their dial to our friends Doofus and Dumbo.

Are you, too, spending your morning drive time with these guys? If so, see if the following "listener demographics" apply to you:

? You earn a meager income;

? You hate your job;

? You have no goals in life;

? You are unhappy with your current condition;

? You lack the motivation to do anything about it;

? The only thing you look forward to is the weekend.

There are many quality radio programs that do not rely on dimwitted blather to attract a listening audience. Regardless of content, however, if you want to be an excellent sales person, you cannot afford to be frivolous with your time management. You cannot afford to turn your vehicle into a forum for cheap entertainment.

We have been conditioned in this country to think of "education" as a degree and diploma. For successful business people, academia does not have a place in the same room with the wealth of business learning available from top-tier successful people on digital and CD format.

Your professors on audio are not classroom theorists who have yet to spend Day One in a real job. Most of these instructors are masters in their respective fields . . . real-world experts who, for just a few dollars, are willing to share the very best of what they have learned with you, over and over again. Zig Ziglar used to call time in the car "Automobile University". To his point, why not turn time in the automobile into a classroom on wheels? Why not use that time to permanently improve your skills and income?

When I was a fledgling sales person (back in the days when audio programs were on cassette) one of the first programs I invested in was a six-tape program by the great motivational speaker Brian Tracy called The Psychology of Success. Of all of the books, tapes and CDs that I have reviewed in my career – and there are dozens of them – that audio program had a more profound effect on my attitude and my career than anything else that I have been exposed to, before or since.

Twenty years later I can still remember, verbatim, whole passages of content from that program. I went through the material so many times that the cassettes began breaking. Fortunately, Brian?s policy at the time was to replace them, free of charge, upon request. I am sure that he went through a boatload of them with myself and other people hungry to get to a higher place.

For me personally, the business knowledge I have gained in my car has been worth many, many times the value of both the B.S. and M.B.A. degrees I earned as a student. I have learned practical skills and techniques that have served me as a sales person, sales manager, speaker and entrepreneur. One valuable lesson that I learned early on from one of these audio programs – and I will pass this on to you – is that if you want to elevate your game, identify and seek out people who are where you want to be, and do what they do. Here?s a bonus tip: you can find a wealth of audio learning programs on virtually any subject at this website: www.nightingale-conant.com.

Doofus and Dumbo are two wild and crazy guys, completely out of control! Hilarious! They are also robbing you of income and success. You are cut from a different cloth than their fan base. Turn off the dial. Turn on your mind.

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Based in Charlotte, NC, Landy Chase, MBA, CSP is an expert who specializes in speaking to corporations and associations on professional selling and sales management skills. He can be reached by visiting his website at www.landychase.com or by calling 800-370-8026.