Here I go. Two more stories to inspire us on !
Like what Ak always says, its always to learn from stories and experiences.
Here’re 2 stories that I had taken from “A 2nd helping of Chicken for the Soul”. There are of course lots of other stories to share, but I found this 2 the best. Here goes.
Story 1 -- A Place to Stand
If you have ever gone through a toll booth, you know that your relationship to the person in the booth is the most intimate you’ll ever have. It is one of life’s frequent nonencounters : you hand over some money; you might get change; you drive off. I have been through every of the 17 toll booths on the Oakland-San Francisco Bay bridge on thousands of occasions, and never had an exchange worth remembering with anybody.
Late one morning in 1984, headed for lunch in San Francisco, I drove forward one one of the booths. I heard loud music. It sounded like a party, or a Michael Jackson concert. I looked around. No other cars with their windows open. No sound trucks. I looked at the toll booth. Inside it, the man was dancing.
“What are you doing ?” I asked.
“I’m having a party” he said.
“What about the rest of these people ?” I looked over at other booths; nothing moving there.
“They’re not invited.”
I had a dozen other questions for him, but somebody in a big hurry to get somewhere started
punching his horn behind me and I drove off. But I made a note to myself: Find this guy again. There’s something in his eyes that says there’s magic in his toll booth.
Months later I did find him again, still with the loud music, still having a party.
Again I asked, “What are you doing?”
He said, “I remember you from the last time. I’m still dancing. I’m having the same party.”
I said. “Look. What about the rest of the people…”
He said. ‘Stop. What do those look like to you?” He pointed down the row of toll booths.
”They look like … toll booths.”
“Noooooo imagination!”
I said, “Okay, I give up. What do they look like to you?”
He said “Vertical coffins.”
“What are you talking about ?”
“I can prove it. At 8.30 every morning, live people get in. Then they die for 8 hours.
At 4.30, like Lazarus from the dead, they reemerge and go home. For 8 hours, brain is on hold, dead on the job. Going through the motions.”
I was amazed. This guy had developed a philosophy, a mythology about his job. I could not help asking the next question. “Why is it different for you? You’re having a good time.”
He looked at me. “I knew you were going to ask that,” he said. “I’m going to be a dancer someday.” He pointed to the administration building. “My bosses are in there, and they’re paying for my training.”
Sixteen people dead on the job and the seventeenth, in precisely the same situation, figures out a way to live. That man was having a party where you and I would probably not last three days. The boredom ! He and I did have lunch later, and he said, “I don’t understand why anybody would think my job is boring. I have a corner office, glass on all sides. I can see the Golden Gate, San Francisco, the Berkeley hills; half the Western world vacations here . . . and I just stroll in very day and practice dancing.”
Dr. Charles Garfield
Story 2 -- The Cowboy’s Story
When I started my telecommunications company, I knew I was going to need salespeople to help me
expand the businesss. I put out the word that I was looking for qualified salespeople and began the
interviewing process. The salesperson I had in mind was experienced in the telemarketing communications industry, knew the local market, had experience with the various types of systems available, had a professional demeanor and was a self-starter. I had very little time to train a person, so it was important that the salesperson I hired could “hit the ground running.”
During the tiresome process of interviewing prospective salesperson, into my office walked a cowboy. I knew he was a cowboy by the way he was dressed. He had on corduroy pants and a corduroy pants and a corduroy jacket that didn’t match the pants; a short-sleeved snap-button shirt; a tie that came about halfway down his chest with a knot bigger than my fist; cowboy boots and a baseball cap. You can imagine what I was thinking: “Not what I had in mind for my new company.” He sat down in front of my desk, took off his cap and said, “Mister, I’d just shore appreciate a chance to be a success in the telephone biness.” And that’s just how he said it, too :biness.
I was trying to figure out a way to tell this fellow, without being too blunt, that he just wasn’t what I had in mind at all. I asked him about his background. He said he had a degree in agriculture from Oklahoma State University and that he had been a ranch had in Bartlesville, Oklahoma, for the past few years during the summers. He announced that was all over now, he was ready to be a success in “biness” and he would just “shore appreciate a chance.”
We continued to talk. He was so focused on success and how he would “shore appreciate a chance” that I decided to give him a chance. I told him that I would spend 2 days with him. In those 2 days I would teach him everything I thought he needed to know to sell one type of very small telephone system. At the end of those 2 days he would be on his own. He asked me how much money I thought he could make.
I told him, “Looking like you look and knowing what you know, the best you can do is about $1,000 per month.” I went on to explain that the average commission on the small telephone systems he would be selling was approximately $250 per system. I told him if he would see 100 prospects per month, that he would sell to 4 of those prospects a telephone system. Selling 4 telephone system would give him $1,000. I hired him on straight commission with no base salary.
He said that sounded great to him because the most he ever made was $400 per month as a ranch hand and he was ready to make some money. The next morning, I sat him down to cram as much of the telephone “biness” I could into a 22yr old cowboy with no business experience. He looked like anything but a professional salesperson in the telecommunications business. In fact, he had none of the qualities I was looking for in an employee, except one: He had an incredible focus on being a Success.
At the end of 2 days of training, Cowboy went to his cubicle. He took out a sheet of paper and wrote down 4 things :
I will be a success in business.
I will see 100 people per month.
I will sell 4 telephone systems per month.
I will make $1,000 per month.
He placed this sheet of paper on the cubicle wall in front of him and started to work.
At the end of the first month, he hadn’t sold 4 telephone systems. However, at the end of 10 days, he had sold 7 systems.
At the end of this first year, Cowboy, hadn’t eared $12,000 in commissions. Instead he had earned over $60,000 in commissions.
After 3 year, he owned half of my company. At the end of another year, he owned 3 other companies. At that time we separated as business partners. He was driving a $32,000 black pickup
truck. He was wearing $600 cowboy cut suites, $500 cowboy boots and a 3 carat horseshoe shaped diamond ring. He had become a success in”biness”.
What made Cowboy a success ? Was it because he was a hardworker ? That helped. Was it because he was smarter than everyone else ? No. He knew nothing about the telephone business when he started. So what was it ? I believe it was because he knew the Ya Gotta’s for Success :
He was focused on success. He knew that’s what he wanted and he went after it.
He took responsibility. He took responsibility for where he was, who he was and what he was (a ranch hand). Then he took action to make it different.
He made a decision to leave the ranch in Bartlesville, Oklahoma, and to look for opportunities to become a success.
He changed. There was no way that he could keep doing the things that he had been doing and
receive different results. And he was willing to do what was necessary to make success happen for him.
He had vision and goals. He saw himself as a success. He also had written down specific goals. He wrote down the 4 items he intended to accomplish and put them on the wall in front of him. He saw those goals every day and focused on their accomplishment.
He put action to his goals and stayed with it even when it got tough. It wasn’t always easy for him. He experienced slumps like everyone does. He got more doors slammed in his face and telephones in his ear than any salesperson I have ever known. But he never let it stop him. He kept on going.
He asked. Boy, did he ask ! First he asked me for a chance, then he asked nearly all the people he came across if they wanted to buy a telephone system from him. And his asking paid off. As he likes to put it. “Even a blind hog finds an acorn every once in a while”. That simply means that if you ask enough eventually someone will say yes.
He cared. He cared about me and his customers. He discovered that when he cared more about taking care of his customers than he cared about taking care of himself, it wasn’t long before he didn’t have to worry about taking care of himself.
Most of all, Cowboy started every day as a winner ! He hit the front door expecting something
good to happen. He believed that things were going to go his way regardless of what happened. He had no expectations of failure, only an expectation of success. And I’ve found that when you expect success and take action on that expectation, you almost always get success.
Cowboy has made millions of dollars. He has also lost it all, only to get it all back again. In
his life as in mine, it has been that once you know and practice the principles of success, they will work for you again and again.
He can also be an inspiration to you. He is proof that it’s not environment or education or technical skills and ability that make you a success. He proves that it takes more; it takes the principles we so often overlook or take for granted. These are the principles of the Ya Gotta’s for Success.
Larry Winget
Sound's familiar right!
