What a month! Seems everywhere we look there are records being set. The Dow freefalls for 10 days, then enjoys a record one-day spike, only to dump again. Congress approves a record setting bailout bill worth $700 b-b-b-billion. We’ve got record layoffs, record foreclosures, worldwide chaos…even my beloved Cubbies set a post-season record for the fastest thrashing of a first place team ever, losing three straight to the Dodgers by a combined 20 runs to 6. Ouch! Tough month, for sure. And it’s only half over!
But this afternoon, I had a GREAT meeting with a GREAT client. He helped me put a new spin on this ‘record month’.
As I followed him into his office, I casually asked him, “How’s it going?” And before we even sat down, he spun around, clapped his hands loudly, and said:
“Things are going great! I’m ON FIRE this month!”
“ON FIRE?!?” I thought, “THIS month?!?” Everywhere I look there’s you-know-what hitting the fan and people ducking for cover. And he says, “Things are going great!” For crying out loud, he’s in the business of selling CARS! NICE cars. And he’s telling me he’s ON FIRE?!?
I grabbed my pad, clicked my pen, and said, “Tell me more.” He eagerly did:
“We had a bad September,” he began. “Most people in Columbus were without power for a week, tough economy…lot’s of reasons. But a couple weeks ago I sat down with my managers and told them, ‘We can’t buy into all this negative message. We need to focus on success. There are a lot of dealers laying people off and focusing on just trying to keep afloat. But not us. We’re different. We’re in two excellent product lines. We have a great team of professionals. We’re in a large market with a growing population. We just can’t buy into the mindset that EVERYTHING is down.’
‘We need to INCREASE while everyone else is decreasing. We need to go for the record. We need to LOSE September, and not just have a good month in October. We’re going to have a RECORD MONTH!’ ”
“And my managers just lit up! They said, ‘Yea! We can do it. Let’s just do it!’ “
WOW!
He proceeded to tell me that he’s hearing from his competition and they are mad. He’s taking market share and they don’t like it. Of course, he doesn’t tell them he’s having a record month. He just says, “Yea, were doin’ alright.”
“But really, Doug,” he told me, “We’re doing ‘Hot Laps’ around this place!” (I think that’s car-talk for ‘victory dance’)
So, what did he do? What did he REALLY do?
He made a CHOICE.
He CHOSE not to panic. He CHOSE not to buy into the negative hype, and he didn’t let his team buy into it either.
Instead, he CHOSE to focus on the FUNDAMENTALS that got them where they are today. He CHOSE to focus on their great product, their great location, and their great TEAM. And in doing so, he got THEM focused as well. When he told them they were going to have a “RECORD MONTH”, they BELIEVED him. It’s as if he’d given them permission NOT to drink the ‘sky-is-falling’ Kool-Aid.
In the midst of a world of negative talk, he CHOSE a positive VISION and his team ran with it.
He made a CHOICE.
He smelled the blood in the water and CHOSE hunger over fear. While his competition is ‘hunkered down’, obsessing over things they can’t control, and losing sales, he’s stepping out, focusing on what he CAN control, and grabbing market share.
How about YOU?
How’s YOUR month going?
Is October defining YOU with its challenges, or are YOU defining October with your CHOICES?
What records are YOU setting?
YOU choose.
BUILT TO LEAD 