Old School Response

The second response is the classic old-school response to ?get back to basics.? This outlook suggests that nothing really has changed; if we would simply return to our ?roots,? everything would work out. I was working with a large group from an automotive company when an executive said, ?Grant, nothing has really changed; we just have to get back to basics.? I thought to myself, your industry ftas gone from

16 million new car sales a year to 9 million (the lowest level in 25 years). Every car dealer in America depends solely on advertising to drive traffic, something dealers will no longer be able to justify, and your sales force hasn?t the first clue how to generate its own traffic. On top of that, the banks have pulled your floor plans (dealers borrow money to stock inventory), banks are tightening their lending criteria, and the media are telling people never to spend money again! And your response is to get back to basics when 95 percent of the people who work for you don?t know what is ?basic? enough in a major economic shift to make a difference?

While I support the overall concept of returning to the fundamental elements of an industry?and absolutely agree that the basics are vital to success?you can?t depend on block-and-tackle if you?re three touchdowns behind with only three minutes left in the last quarter. In other words, you can?t make advances in business with just the basics. It is going to take some big plays in a very short period of time. The only way to flourish during an economic downturn is to take lots of unreasonable actions in order to dominate. Back to basics may only get you back to where you were?and remember, our goal here is to be first. This is not a time for simplistic sayings but rather for massive actions.

There are a lot of levels of ?basic? to get through before you can finally get down to the most fundamental one: That which will get you traction in the changed mar- ket. It?s also vital to understand that age, experience, and improvements in technology all influence what each person considers to be basic. If you sold products during the 1970s

oil crisis, for instance, and another person had sold only between 1998 and 2008, your definitions of basic would be radically dissimilar. The definition of basic for the person who sells encyclopedias door to door varies greatly from that for the person who sells the hottest, in-demand tech- nological gadget that people cannot seem to get enough of. I built my first company going door to door to businesses all over America, and I did it during a severe recession. People weren?t coming to me to buy my service I had to knock on thousands of cold doors just to get people to even know me. I couldn?t afford advertising or huge marketing programs, and I didn?t have a sales team to do this for me. I was an unknown and unproven commodity. By going door to door I learned skills that no one can ever take from me and that would later define me in business and as a person. I have met hundreds of people that want to be public speakers and I always tell them the same thing. ?It?s easy; just learn how to get an audience!? But most people that want to speak to audiences are not willing to do what it takes to get the audi- ence. People claim how good they can speak but what does it matter if there?s no one to listen.

The point I?m trying to make here is that to claim that an organization just needs to get back to basics is like the ?wannabe? speaker who cannot get an audience. You must get yourself and the organization focused on creat- ing a future instead of one focused on merely getting back to doing something from the past. You must vow to do whatever it takes to get the audience and go one step fur- ther and do whatever your competitors refuse to do and

then some?so that you can separate from all the other wannabes.

Things are always changing, and change requires actions beyond what is basic. If you don?t change with the times, you will be left behind. To that end, even the basics change over time. While we certainly shouldn?t disregard the basic principles of success, we do need to cultivate the basics we are using. Consider the fact that tfte basics during times of expansion are different from tftose we use dur- ing contraction?because you can?t afford to make mistakes. When economies slow down, you cannot miss even one opportunity; you have to kick your activity way up and become much more tenacious about how you approach every interaction.

Think back to a time when you were extremely moti- vated to succeed and had to perform at a high level. You sim- ply ftad to get results; therefore, you probably went beyond basic and switched to serious performance mode. To simply go back to the basics during periods of economic turmoil will not change the fact that you have fewer opportunities to work with, people have less money, credit is tight, fear is everywhere, and your clients will have more objections than ever to purchasing your product or service. While you will hear complaints, stalls, and reasons not to buy similar to those you heard when times were better, they will come with a different level of intensity and certainty from those upon whom your business depends.

It is a fact that many?if not most?of the people with whom you work have never sold in very difficult econo- mies. So instructing those people to get back to basics

won?t prompt them to do things that are basic enough to get the results you want, much less take market share. And we aren?t interested in going backward in this book. We are going forward.

During periods of economic expansion, business can become so easy that individuals and companies are often lulled into an inflated impression of their own abilities. They become conditioned to a false sense of what it takes to be profitable during extended periods of easy money, free credit, surplus opportunities for their products, and a world operating without financial cares or concerns. Then, all of a sudden, you find yourself enduring the polar oppo- site situation. Every individual in the workforce who wants to succeed must take a new look at what it really means to get back to basics, develop or relearn new skills, and start executing actions that most of us have not used for years and many more of us didn?t even know were required.

Date: 2016-06-12; view: 99