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MONEY
I could sense John’s smile at the other end of the phone. He wanted to know if I’d like to earn a large cheque by assisting him on a business training for a large telecoms company. I wouldn’t have to do much, just follow his teaching and help the delegates with activities on communication and coaching skills. To a lot of people, this question would be a no-brainer, especially if they’d been struggling as hard as I had to make ends meet. But I’d always seen business as evil, and had done everything I could to avoid getting sucked into the corporate rat race. But I trusted John. And I needed the money. And I had to admit I was curious ... what exactly went on behind those big glass doors? So I put on a suit and went to find out.
I was a bit nervous when I saw the seminar content. Compared to the psychotherapy trainings John and I had delivered together, it seemed very basic. It looked like we’d just be skimming the surface. Would the client really feel they were getting value for money? Yet I was pleasantly surprised when the training began. The managers were eager to learn and grateful for the skills we taught them. As I learned about the problems they were facing, I saw how fresh our approach seemed to them. I started to understand what a difference it made to their work as managers. I realised how much value we were delivering to the company.
That was the first of many trainings I worked on, at that company and others. Eventually, I was made partner in the small consultancy. I was working hard, learning new skills, seeing my work have an impact, not just on individuals but on whole teams and departments. And for the first time in my life, I was earning good money. Until that is, our contracts started coming to an end, and there wasn’t much sign of new ones on the horizon. I waited to see what my partners would do next, since I didn’t have a clue where this kind of business came from. Then they suggested I was the best person to find new clients. I thought they were mad.
I was the introverted poet, remember? How could I possibly become a pushy salesman? I flapped for a bit, then asked myself another question: “What would it be like if you succeeded?” Things looked different after that. I stopped worrying about ‘being a salesman’ and started learning how to sell. I read books and listened to CDs of extrovert salesmen, guys who were totally different to me — Zig Ziglar, Brian Tracy. It was a deliberate effort to stretch my personality in a new direction — like a piece of elastic, it didn’t quite come back to the same shape. I picked up the phone, over and over. I rang and rang and rang all day. I went to meetings. I wrote proposals. I was messed around. I persisted I closed a sale. Then another. Then a big deal rolled in, with my name on it. I tasted success. Not only was I earning good money, I knew I’d defeated one of my Demons. The one with ‘Business Is Evil ‘ tattooed on his forehead and ‘I’m No Good at Selling’ on his rear. But as the months went by, and I grew more confident, I felt my enthusiasm waning. I hated to admit it — just as I’d finally got myself some financial security — but my heart wasn’t in the work any more. The guy in the suit with the briefcase wasn’t me. I’d wandered into someone else’s life. So I wandered out again.
Learn from My Mistakes (Part 2)
Your work may be worth more than you realise I was amazed to discover what a big difference basic coaching skills training made for the managers I worked with. It wasn’t as in-depth as a psychotherapy training, but my clients didn’t need to transform people’s lives. They needed to bring out their best performance at work.
Our training helped them do that very well. Which made me good value for my handsome fee. So if you’re used to earning a certain amount of money for the time and effort you put in, don’t assume that’s all your work is worth. In a different context, the perceived value of your work could be a lot higher. Or if you could reach more customers, you could make more sales. Either way, you could be earning more money for less effort.
Let go of your prejudices Because I despised the corporate world, I didn’t bother learning the business skills that could have made a huge difference to my quality of life. In the end, corporate consulting wasn’t for me, but it helped me learn skills that have stood me in good stead since. And it gave me the confidence to know I could succeed as a businessman as well as a coach. So if you’re self-employed and struggling, ask yourself whether you’ve really applied yourself to learning the business side of things — or whether there’s a Demon standing in your way, tattooed with your prejudices about commercial success. What would your business — and life — look like if the Demon was no longer blocking your way?
You can achieve more with partners You’ve seen from the story that I didn’t do it all myself. John and Roy, our other partner, taught me how to prepare and deliver a professional service. They also explained how the business side of things worked, and were on hand for advice while I was teaching myself sales. And because of the way the business was structured, we all made money from every seminar, whether we were delivering it personally or not. What difference would it make if you had partners like that? Sales without marketing is like surgery without an anaesthetic There are situations where you’ll take the surgery, anaesthetic or no. But they tend to fall into the ‘life-threatening emergency’ category. And unless you’re faced with a ‘business threatening emergency’, you would be well advised to ignore my example and do some marketing before you try selling. Marketing involves telling the world about your products or services, and attracting potential customers. It includes things like research, branding, advertising, pricing and promotions. Sales is about closing the deal. It’s the bit where you explain to people what they’ll get, how you will help them, and then ask them for money. Sorry if you knew that — but I’m afraid I didn’t have a clue about the difference between the two. Faced with the problem of finding new clients, I unthinkingly went into ‘sales mode’, gritting my teeth and dialing my way through a list of cold prospects. It worked, but it’s not an experience I want to repeat. But if you get marketing right, selling can be easy. The next chapter explains how I discovered a way to market myself for peanuts — and had a lot of fun in the process.
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