Carson V. Heady's Blog, page 62

“Birth of a Salesman: Ultimate Edition” is FREE this week!

For sellers stuck at home, this is the time you invest in your learning and relationships. “Birth of a Salesman: Ultimate Edition” is FREE this week. Nab it here. (And please leave a review!)

 

Crisis Reveals Character

Crisis reveals character. During times like these, it’s never been more important to be informed, calm and caring. You can still connect, it just looks different. Much of what mattered so much a month ago is irrelevant today. This is a time of reflection and prayer, of thankfulness for what we do have and for the real heroes of the times: healthcare professionals, grocery store workers, the shipping industry, organizations that are shifting to create supplies, and delivery. The world will absolutely emerge from this pandemic, and will look different. ‘Different isn’t always better, but better is always different’, and there are absolutely ways that you, your faith, your family and loved ones, your career and your passions can emerge better – even if you don’t see it today. Focus on a moment or choice at a time. Tune out the political, hateful, false panic-inducing noise of social media. Embrace good weather, reading, journaling, family and a phone call. Life is different, but it doesn’t mean you can’t live. I pray you and your loved ones are safe and well during this time. If I can help you in any way, don’t hesitate to ask.

2020 March Madness – NCAA Tourney Simulation

In light of cancellation of the 2020 NCAA Tournament and March Madness, I will be running simulations of all games via Whatifsports.com. I found a bracket constructed by Sports Illustrated and will be running the games as I get the chance to determine a winner. Enjoy!

SECOND ROUND

WEST REGION

GONZAGA VS. FLORIDA

BUTLER VS. LOUISVILLE

BYU VS. SETON HALL

ARIZONA VS. SAN DIEGO STATE

MIDWEST REGION

BAYLOR VS. SAINT MARY’S

YALE VS. MARYLAND

XAVIER VS. BELMONT

TEXAS TECH VS. VILLANOVA

EAST REGION

DAYTON VS. OKLAHOMA

OHIO STATE VS. OREGON

VIRGINIA VS. UC IRVINE

HOUSTON VS DUKE

SOUTH REGION

KANSAS VS. LSU

WEST VIRGINIA VS WISCONSIN

UTAH STATE VS. BRADLEY

MARQUETTE VS. FLORIDA STATE

 

FIRST ROUND

WEST REGION

UCLA 85, RICHMOND 82

GONZAGA 91, EASTERN WASHINGTON 80

FLORIDA 77, USC 74

BUTLER 74, CINCINNATI 72

LOUSVILLE 80, VERMONT 50

BYU 79, UCLA 72

SETON HALL 80, HOFSTRA 67

ARIZONA 82, RUTGERS 72

SAN DIEGO STATE 85, NORTH DAKOTA STATE 71

MIDWEST REGION

PRAIRIE VIEW A&M 83, BOSTON U 82

XAVIER 76, NORTH CAROLINA STATE 66

BAYLOR 75, PRAIRIE VIEW A&M 70

SAINT MARY’S 77, COLORADO 68

YALE 91, AUBURN 82

MARYLAND 80, AKRON 77

XAVIER 72, IOWA 59

BELMONT 83, KENTUCKY 79

TEXAS TECH 84, ILLINOIS 57

VILLANOVA 81, WINTRHOP 67

EAST REGION

DAYTON 96, SIENA 64

OKLAHOMA 77, PROVIDENCE 71

OHIO STATE 89, STEPHEN F. AUSTIN 86

OREGON 81, NEW MEXICO STATE 71

VIRGINIA 73, EAST TENNESSEE STATE 64

UC IRVINE 78, MICHIGAN STATE 64

HOUSTON 88, INDIANA 78

DUKE 76, NORTHERN KENTUCKY 65

SOUTH REGION

NC CENTRAL 75, ROBERT MORRIS 68

KANSAS 78, NC CENTRAL 61

LSU 89, ARIZONA STATE 84

WEST VIRGINIA 72, LIBERTY 68

WISCONSIN 81, NORTH TEXAS 72

UTAH STATE 77, PENN STATE 72

BRADLEY 96, CREIGHTON 95

MARQUETTE 72, MICHIGAN 65

FLORIDA STATE 79, LITTLE ROCK 65

 

 

 

 

 

2019

2019: An interesting, busy, emotional year personally and professionally. A couple of deaths in our family as my Aunt Vincie and my wife’s Grandpa passed away. They were loved by many! We were blessed with many new friends, activities and groups. My wife, kids, and I were active in church, Scouts, sports, arts, crafts, travel and nature. Personally, I set another personal gym record and read 22 James Bond novels in anticipation of next year’s “No Time to Die.” Professionally, I’m honored to have won Microsoft Gold Club, earned my 2nd promotion in 5 ½ years and had by far the most fruitful and best results-year of my entire career. I was professionally published again via a “B2B Sales Mentors” book collection and started writing my 4th novel, “Salesman on Fire”, was interviewed on 11 podcasts, participated in a leadership panel at Union Station, and set foot in my old Southwestern Bell sales office (where my sales career began) for the first time in 13 years. Spiritually, personally and professionally, it was a year of challenges and growth. I’m so very thankful for so many blessings. A blessed New Year wish to all of you, and as my Aunt Vincie would say as she closed out every hand-written letter, “Be well and very happy.”

The Importance of Re-Commitment

Re-commitment. It’s powerful and crucial. Sometimes it is needed daily… or weekly, or monthly. Sometimes we have to slow it down so much that it’s re-committing moment to moment. It could be re-commitment to our spouse or significant other, to family, to friends or to purpose. It could be to our career or job, or re-committing in light of changes. It can be re-adjusting our sails in light of rough waters, or re-evaluating after substantial shifting of our circumstances – fair or unfair. It can be re-committing to process or regimen or lifestyle choices or religion or diet. Re-commitment reaffirms our priorities in spite of what’s past or where we made a misstep. It can be done in spite of our initial feelings on the matter. It’s done because it’s what we choose to do, what we have to do, or what we want to do. Re-commitment signals that in this moment, we are committing to a course of action and throwing our energy into seeing through this initiative with a leap of faith the momentum will carry us forward. Re-committing requires strength and courage. Re-committing is sometimes all we have.

The Best Thing About a Career in Sales…

The most wonderful aspect of sales is that if you are a great seller, like a profound artist or uniquely qualified surgeon, there’s always work for you. There’s also always an itch – to achieve, to be relevant, to get that taste of success again and again.

Sales is a sport filled with winners and losers, workers and hustlers, honorable and cheats. Each segment or industry is its own playing field, rich with lingo and best practices and its own nuances. Master your playing field – the things that get you paid and noticed – and you can dominate your field. Sales excellence is not about excellent sales – it’s about becoming a student of the game and understanding how it works. It’s about relationships. It’s about adding value. It’s about odds, probability and consistency.

But it does not always transfer. A great seller does not a great manager make. Someone who thrives in health care sales cannot necessarily move into technology or cars or retail. It takes the rarest of rare – the unicorn of sales (or, perhaps more appropriately, the chameleon) – to transform into the successful seller of every solution.

You must really care about your brand to continue to adapt with every change thrown your way. But we’ve got work to do and money to make. A real seller’s job is never done.

The James Bond Novels: My rankings

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“Bond 25” is released April 2020, and leading up to its release I decided to re-read the Ian Fleming classics. It took just 6+ months and was very enjoyable. Fleming is so articulate, detail-oriented, well-traveled and there’s nothing like the card games, golf, cars, routines, allies and adventures of the James Bond series. Great to delve into the lore and stories that began it all…. Bond’s Bentley, the first appearance of his Aston Martin DB3, the villainous Blofeld, his relationships and marriage and reverence of M, and Bond’s penchant for thrills and the finest things in life.

For the first time, my personal rankings of the Bond novels:

1. On Her Majesty’s Secret Service

2. From Russia, With Love

3. Casino Royale

4. Goldfinger

5. Thunderball

6. Diamonds are Forever

7. Moonraker

8. Doctor No

9. You Only Live Twice

10. Live and Let Die

11. Octopussy and The Living Daylights

12. The Spy Who Loved Me

13. For Your Eyes Only

14. The Man With the Golden Gun

How to Build Credibility in the C-Suite

“The small conversations are the big conversations.” I love the authentic and genuine message of Larry Levine and Darrell Amy and appreciate the honor of contributing to the “Selling From the Heart” Podcast!

https://www.sellingfromtheheart.net/podcast/carson-heady-how-to-build-credibility-in-the-c-suite/

You’ll get practical insights on how to build credibility with top level decision makers by building your brand and being fanatical about follow up. “The small conversations ARE the big conversations.”

Why Your Regular Reinvention is Required for Survival

A stellar seller arrives on the scene – they are the talk of the town. Crushing objectives, winning awards and getting accolades – and within 6 months they are either burnt out or gone.

A brilliant technical resource can answer every question presented by either a customer or co-worker. They are the go-to person – the smartest person in the room. Then, circumstances surrounding their role or division change… maybe they are faced with a sales quota where they weren’t before, or they are forced to play a different role on a team. Whatever it is, they flounder or they decide this is not a path they can continue on and they leave or they are eliminated.

For a litany of reasons, organizations change. They change to meet what they believe client demands are not only now but what they will be in the future. They respond to economic influences, to the changes in resources and parameters. Some organizations seem to change just for change’s sake even when things are working. As employees – and as sellers, leaders and difference-makers – we have two choices: we can either modify our approach and evolve or we can see our impact diminish to the point it means we change roles or companies – by our choice our theirs.

Mergers, acquisition, layoffs, modified role, reduced role, complete change in company or deparatment direction – all of these (and then some) can force a change. Often, these changes are going to come an inopportune times – when we’ve found a rhythm, perhaps when we think things are going well or we think we have a course laid out for ourselves en route to a targeted next role.

Here are the steps we must take to ensure our survival:

Recalibrate and refocus. Limit your immediate reactions. Recall that when you embarked on the path you’re currently on, you entered into a “contract” – you agreed to the terms and conditions of the role as presented to you, and you committed to be the person you pledged to be on interview day. Now, the role has changed, but the expectation you’ll adjust has already been made for you. Changes and new requirements notwithstanding, and assuming you still have a role once the smoke clears, the question is whether or not you can adjust to the changes and commit longterm to the new path you’re on. Sometimes, the “refocus” is actually taking into consideration a job loss and the forced adjustment you make to your sails to plot how you’re going to get back on track. Whatever the circumstances, how you react publicly will be scrutinized – be sure you do not negatively comment or respond to these changes. Be respectful, learn everything you can about the new playing field, and respectfully examine how you can best proceed in the new protocol.
Be patient, and focus on the moment, the day at a time. Managing through uncertain, ambiguous times is very challenging – it’s easy during those times to lose sight of the road we thought we were on or the goals we had in place prior to the shift. I’ve found wading through these murky times with a positive attitude and a choice to endure and to learn everything you can about the new scenario and the willingness to adapt will pay off. “This too shall pass.” All you can do is control what you can control, and while components of your role are changing all around you, change is inevitable… and even the new “changed” role will continue to be modified as well. Don’t develop too much of a love of any component of a role that can very easily take that component away. Enjoy the positive things while they last and don’t sweat the negative things because they will change as well. Managers will change (you’ll lose great leaders and your awful bosses will go away too), job responsibilities and metrics and quotas and products and solutions will all morph over time, and how you navigate uncertain waters and maintain professionalism will go a long way in determining your success.
Take what you’ve learned and enjoyed forward with you. You may have absolutely loved a job you had – but it’s gone. Perhaps you can bring forward the learnings or the principles or processes that you liked doing or that garnered results and apply them in a new environment. Your mentor or favorite leader left the organization? Be happy for their new journey, but stay in touch – the trust you’ve developed can be a very valuable two-way experience no matter where your paths go from here. I’ve found a lot of solace in being able to look back at periods of my career where I felt a lot of reward and success and (1) realistically realizing I could not recreate that exact situation if I tried (nor would I necessarily want to exactly as it was – kind of like how we look back on bad breakups and only remember the good times) and (2) pulling forward the philosophies and process and practices into a new role, helping bring that blueprint of success to the present and really giving me a leg up in this proverbial new environment.

You can be a great seller, leader, employee, but you lose sight of your goals amidst significant changes in your environment and you allow the uncertainties to deter you. It’s actually quite common, and can happen to the absolute best of us. After any type of shakeup – like an earthquake – things move around, footing becomes unsure and we have to adapt and evolve to the new terrain. We have to face the aftermath. Some changes are quite minor and over time things can return to a semblance of status quo, but in today’s day and age of rapidly changing organizations and industries, the likelihood you’ll have to adapt is very high. How effectively you do it will determine where you’ll wind up, and you’ll often find that if you can endure some pain and uncertainty for a bit, you’ll come out in a desirable situation. Monotony beats misery, I always say, and all you really need is to get back into a groove you can dance to again.

You’ll also learn from mistakes; perhaps you reacted poorly to a company or departmental change in the past. You job-hopped or you were vocal dissent, and you paid for it. Endurance through the storm and the ability and willingness to pivot your approach is the greatest career attribute. More important than smarts and more important than skill.

You will be called upon to reinvent yourself numerous times in your career – to learn new processes, new technology, new products and services. Your target audience will change, as will everything around you from leadership to co-workers and even company logo. What cannot change is your tenacity and fire amidst each day. Sometimes it just means you need to readjust and apply these new principles; it can be awkward and a little painful at first, but provided you are dedicated to the cause and realize where the moves you make today can still lead you to your goals, it’s easier to stay focused on the endgame.

How to Optimize Social Selling & Endurance in Your Sales Process

What an honor to chat #sales, #digitalselling, #socialselling and endurance in sales & #leadership with Eric Nelson on the Red Pill Sales Podcast! We dive into #prospecting, prioritization & #closing deals. Check it out here!

http://redpillsales.libsyn.com/interview-with-carson-heady?tdest_id=1202792