Playing to Your Sales Strengths
Treeline, Inc. specializes in bringing together top sales talent to meet the needs of businesses. They understand the business goals of their clients and help them to compose sales teams that help them meet their organizational needs.
Different business goals require different candidate characteristics. If a business is focusing on increasing renewals to their services – they may wish to focus on hiring more sales “farmers” – sales teams that will naturally want to service an account for long-term account loyalty.
At times, when interviewing sales candidates, Treeline can “feel” a disconnect between how the candidate is “selling themselves” and their natural characteristics who they “really are”.
As a sales candidate it’s important to know yourself. What are your best characteristics? What are your strengths? What is an ideal environment to show off those strengths? When you posture and pretend, Treeline can tell and potential employers can tell.
- Do you prefer a strategic sale or an activity-driven sale?
- Do you” live” to uncover and seize new opportunities or are you better suited to cultivate and develop loyalty within an existing client base?
- Do you prefer selling in person or behind the scenes?
- Do you prefer selling with a team quota or as an individual performer?
- Do you prefer selling “direct” and to the end user customer or to a “channel” in an indirect model?
Target Teams has spent close to a decade learning to know businesses and their needs for a variety of sales candidates that help them accomplish their strategy. Of the variety of sales professionals, our extensive research has resulted in the following common traits of Sales Hunters and Sales Farmers.
Both are critical for business success. Be honest. Which one “fits” you more closely?
Extraordinary Sales “Farmer”
- Farmers tend to prefer a more team collaborative approach. The collaborative sales person wants to get a full picture of an opportunity prior to attacking it.
- Farmers like and are good at getting directives on priorities. Farmers enjoy collaboration and input from a manager, other team members or their client teams.
- Farmers prefer working on a few, longer-term, key projects. They excel at greater patience with the time it takes for some leads to close. They are comfortable working with situations that require nurturing.
- Farmers may excel at being more patient when it comes to deals that may have longer sales cycles.
- Farmers work well with more predictability in their accounts and their goals. They excel at creating bridges to help customers embrace change. Farmers have a longer-range approach.
- Farmers want to be paid well for their performance but they may enjoy more of a team quota, team approach or overlay position.
- They may recognize and appreciate the greater benefits provided by an organization and may be less focused exclusively on a financial compensation plan.
- Farmers enjoy understanding the needs of the customer and work to help them achieve their goals. These characteristics help the farmer create long-term, extremely loyal client relationships that extend into the future.
- Farmers love to help and support others. They enjoy taking the time to support clients and prospects even if pieces of that support do not directly impact their own personal sale – they see this as a long-term investment of time and resources.
- Farmers may sometimes be a little offended at the lengths the sales hunter needs to go to achieve their own goals. They may sometimes feel as if the sales hunter is a little selfish.
- Sales farmers may sometimes prefer selling using an indirect or “channel model”.
Extraordinary Sales “Hunter”
- Hunters like to solve problems on their own and on the fly. The autonomous sales hunter wants to close deals with little outside collaboration.
- Hunters like to lead (by themselves) whatever projects are on their plates. They will successfully direct, lead and execute sales initiatives.
- They will want to direct a team of people to help them achieve their own goals.
- Hunters like working on a lot of different projects at the same time. They can tend to be more comfortable working on a greater volume of leads, territories and clients.
- Hunters have a very strong sense of urgency in everything they do. They want sales to close quickly (no prodding required from their management team to move more quickly).
- Hunters thirst for change. They immediately adapt to change whether it’s ushered in by internal or external forces. They are spontaneous and don’t mind if priorities shift as long as it benefits them in the end.
- Hunters want to be paid well financially for their individual, high performance. They would prefer to have their own quota and not a team quota or an overlay position.
- Hunters are naturally very competitive and politically savvy. They are superb at recognizing power players inside of an organization and winning them over in the pursuit of their career as well as closing the deal.
- Hunters love the game of competition.
- Hunters tend to focus on achieving their own goals.
- Hunters are systematic problem solvers. They are curious and ask questions making them an ideal consultative sales person.
- Hunters are thirsty to learn information. This information helps them as they sell – they are consultative sales professionals.
- Sales hunters are highly useful to colleagues, prospects and clients in breaking down and explaining complex topics and ensuring that the team and client has the information to either succeed in their job and/or make an informed purchasing decision.
- Sales hunters may sometimes feel as if the sales farmer gives too much away or over services the client.
Special Offer:
To a large extent, you are who you are. During an interview, prospective employers can “see” you. When your resume paints you as someone “different” than what you present in person it causes confusion and they don’t know which one is the real “you”. Potential employers want clarity, safety and confidence.
We suggest you fully embrace who you are. Market yourself to your greatest advantage. Highlight your natural sales strengths. Play to your strengths – be proud of them. Write your resume to show off who you really are. Take away anything that may be confusing.
It might be useful to complete a quick online assessment to validate some personal characteristics about yourself.
Target Teams is providing a special $95 assessment for sales professionals. This personalized sales assessment will provide you with the following types of information:
- Clarify your resume
- Communicate more effectively in an interview
- Gain insight about your selling style
- Understand more about your approach to networking
- Hit the ground running in your new role
- Identify a business culture that rewards what is important to you.
- Learn about your selling and management style, to help you manage sales teams more effectively, build more effective sales teams in your next leadership role.
- Learn why you may prefer an individual performer sales role instead of a more sales leader sales operations role (or vice versa).
Please send an email to blog@target-teams.com to order your own assessment and validate personal characteristics to help you “sell yourself more effectively in your interview and in your new role.
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What are the Top Traits of a Successful Sales Professionals Today?
Has there been a Death of the Sales Professional as we had known it?
Forty years ago, my grandfather worked for Abbott Laboratories as one of New England’s Top Pharmaceutical Sales Professionals. Although I never personally knew my grandfather (he died when I was just a baby) his memory was kept alive by the many stories told about his unforgettable character. The stories painted a picture of a man “that could and would talk to anyone,” “a gifted influencer”, “a keen listener”, and “a man whose charisma walked through the door before he did”. The consistent theme in these descriptions was that my grandfather was incredibly likable and had the ability to make an impact when he was in front of people. Many said, “the man was born to sell.”
However, in today’s market where the structure of sales organizations continue to change, would those gifts of my late grandfather hold much weight if he was unemployed looking for a job in today’s Sales 2.0 Generation? What other qualities or skills would he need to have to be competitive?
I sought out answers to these questions and asked a handful of influential sales leaders what they felt were some of the most important characteristics of a successful sales professional in the Sales 2.0 Generation. This is some of what they said:
1. Process oriented approach vs early stage relationship selling:
In today’s market, although it certainly doesn’t fall off the list entirely, likeability may fall down a rung of the ladder of priorities when looking for successful sales professionals. Gene Fay*, the former VP of Sales and Business Development of Vkernal Software states that “Sales 2.0 is far more about meeting customers needs then the ability to be likable.” The key difference seems to be a change in the buying process itself. Fay goes on to say, “even three or four years ago sales people would work with a customer to educate them on a new product. Now, people are going to the web and doing much of their own research. Then they are reaching out to co-workers, friends and their network [Twitter, Facebook, and industry forums] to find out what people know about the topic. It is after all of this work that a sales person would be engaged”. Prospects are educated when they are engaged by a sales person. They come to the table already ready to ask specific questions that will help them compare and contrast the products they are considering from a variety of vendors.
Adam Bosnian*, VP of Products, Strategy and Sales at Cyber-Ark Software defends a similar opinion. “It is less about relationships in today’s selling and more about impact within the buying process (vs. selling process). I think it is more about how the salesperson today is able to pull together all the research and work that the prospects have already done, identify what gaps of information or concerns exist, and then making sure that the right information is provided to address that gap/objection at the right time, to all the right people.”
2. The ability to assimilate to new technology immediately and without training
Dan Fantasia*, Founder and CEO of Treeline states, “The most scaleable and successful sales professionals in the Sales 2.0 Generation, don’t waste powerful selling time attempting to adapt to the use of new tools. For a Sales 2.0 Superstars there is no adaptation. Their ability to assimilate is immediate. New tools are a part of their everyday. These reps are not reliant on company training, they have adapted the ability to learn this stuff on their own, troubleshooting through the kinks.”
3. The ability to find the competitive edge in a changing market
Noted sales leader Gerhard Gschwandtner*, Founder and Publisher of Selling Power Magazine, challenged that fact that there is not a concrete list of characteristics successful sales professionals need to have in this new market. Instead he stated that “the real story isn’t that the world has changed, the real story is about how the new, changed world can work to your advantage.”
Let’s consider you are not one of my readers that was born into the Sales 2.0 generation, maybe you are more comfortable with heavy relationship selling styles. You may feel the new tools available to you seem to just complicate things. An opportunistic, positive sales person has that ability to make a decision to look for the opportunities presented in the challenges you face. Gerhard’s attitude, his decision to focus NOT on the fact that “the landscape of sales has changed drastically in the last three years” but moreover, how the “new changed world can work to your advantage” is brilliant.
So in conclusion, what does this all mean? Was there a death of the Sales Professional as we know it? No, absolutely not. As the Sales Leaders in this article confirmed, the world of selling has changed, most notably the “buying process itself” and the tool belts of sales professionals are chocked full of ammunition to make the selling process smoother and more efficient. But teach my grandfather how to use a computer brief him on the new “buying process” and he may still be killing his quota. To quote the play Death of a Salesman, “Be liked and you will never want.” Forty years later this still seems to hold true and all the intangible qualities that define a sales person remain the same. What seems to have changed are the Process and Technology. Garth Moulton*, Co-Founder of Jigsaw, sums it up very well, “the new Sales 2.0 Professional has to be more tech savvy, adaptable, and process oriented, but to me the top traits are the same as when your grandfather was in sales: persistence, personality, brains, talent, and charisma”.
*To learn more about the contributing sales leaders check out their websites and blogs:
Gene Fay
Adam Bosnian, Cyber Ark
Dan Fantasia, Treeline, Inc
Gerhard Gschwandtner, Selling Power Magazine
Garth Moulton, Jigsaw
Join Our Network! Treeline, Inc. has created one of the largest sales communities on the internet.
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What does the market rebound mean for sales positions?
As a recruiter for sales positions I’m often asked what I’m seeing out there in the market place. Both candidates and clients are extremely interested in finding out what other companies are doing and what the new landscape is turning out to look like.
Despite the fact that economists are indicating that the recession is over, it is still apparent that the job market is extremely competitive. As for any industry, there are tons of candidates on the market who have been displaced from their recent jobs and there are also a number of candidates who are currently working but are in search of something more stable or lucrative. Because of the influx of candidates on the market, companies have had the luxury of picking and choosing who they’ll interview, let alone hire. More often than not, we are getting feedback from hiring organizations that they will only look at candidates who have immediate experience in the role that they are trying to fill. Unfortunately, even if a candidate has that type of experience a few years back, the companies would not consider those candidates relevant.
This recent behavior of hiring organizations has been frustrating for candidates and agencies alike due to the narrowness of the scope. However, companies have been selective not only because they can be, but because they feel that they have to be. Many organizations have experienced decreases in revenue quarter after quarter in 2009 and now they are looking to continue the growth that they have recently seen. They are looking to accomplish this by hiring and hiring correctly. Many organizations feel the way to ensure a successful hire is to mitigate as much risk as possible by hiring only candidates who have a proven track record in selling their type of solution to the specific audience that they are looking to sell to.
Today, there are more jobs on the market and companies are finally starting to hire more regularly. This is an extremely positive behavior that indicates a turn around in the market. However, the selectiveness of organizations has still persisted and will potentially be a continuing behavior of many companies over the next few quarters. Therefore, this scenario may prove to be the hardest sale of your career. Take a strategic approach to how you introduce yourself to companies and how you interview. Make sure that you draw similarities from your background to the open position to ensure the relevancy of your candidacy. Be it the sales size, sales cycle, complexity of a deal or the scope of the product, you have to make the similarities obvious for the hiring manager. Look at positions that you are interested in, be it outside your immediate experience or not, but also diversify your opportunities by applying for similar roles to what you’ve been in. It has not yet been indicated whether or not companies will loosen their spec in the near future, so set your expectations. However, there are more jobs out there than we have seen in months so your next dream job may be out there waiting for you. Go get it!
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Meet The New Boss
This is my favorite advertisement of the year. This is a DowJones advertisement from the Wall Street Journal. It is incredibly creative and is amazingly effective at connecting Charles Darwin with today’s selling climate.
The advertisement continues with this paragraph:
“Sales has evolved into a tough profession that puts busy people under intense pressure to constantly hit their numbers. To succeed today, a salesperson needs to close deals – not waste time searching for information or making cold calls.”
DowJones has also provided a free eBook that is excellent. It was created by Jim Dickie and Barry Trailer at CSO Insights and is called Successful Selling in Turbulent Times. You can download it for free at www.solutions.dowjones.com/evolve.
Both this advertisement and eBook describe exactly what we are seeing in today’s sales environment. As a sales exclusive search firm, we tend to be a hub of information for sales executives. Treeline is constantly in contact with sales executives, managers and sales representatives and we know exactly what is happening in the market. We see it at many different levels and from many different viewpoints. The point being, our belief is to share as much information with our sales community as we possibly can. For example, if you follow our newsletter you will notice that we recommend one tool we find to be effective, on a bi-monthly basis, for today’s sales force. In September’s issue of our newsletter we recommend trying Jigsaw.
Companies are ramping up and we see it firsthand. These companies conduct business differently. We find that they are forward thinkers and early adopters that seek new techniques to address evolving challenges in today economy. We see the traditional sales force struggling to adapt to the new market road blocks and challenges. They struggle with change and as a result, a new breed of competition is banging at the door. We have always been a wonderful resource for executives and sales people. Today’s consumer is more educated than ever before. It is no longer about yelling at your customer to buy, it is about working together with them to create the best product together.
That is why I love this advertisement so much. I believe we will figure out how to sell together. Our sales community is growing aggressively each day and our goal is to help sales forces evolve. We need to share ideas and brainstorm as one community to succeed. Please share ideas and technology by becoming part of our community. Contribute to our blog, sales karma or with your consultant. We look forward to hearing from you.
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“This is not part of my job description…”
Every once in a while you hear horror stories about the old “bait and switch” tactic: someone buys something with the expectation that they’ll get what they were promised but once they money has been exchanged, they realize they’ve been duped. Sometimes the same scenario can happen with a job search. What should you do when you find an opening, interview for it, get an offer, accept it and when you come on board – you realize that this role is not at all what you were told it was? What now?
There is no handbook to this situation or proper protocol that you should follow. This can be a frustrating situation so I will share with you some scenarios that might give some insight if you ever find yourself in this pickle:
- Take emotion out of it. It is easy to get frustrated and feel betrayed – but this is business and those who get emotional will always fail. I had a candidate that was hired on to be a Director of Field Sales and when he came on board, he was informed that the company laid off the entire field sales team. Now he has no one to manage and he has to build the team from scratch. Instead of rising to the challenge or exploring other avenues, this candidate took it personally and left the company within a month. Now, he has no income, no referrals and a red flag on his resume all because he did not keep his cool.
- Seek information internally – go to HR or your hiring manager. Do not talk to them with the intention of cracking skulls or complaining but go with the intention of finding some direction and get a gauge on what is happening within your company. I once had a candidate that was hired on as a Business Development Specialist and after being in the role for a month, the company is having her focus on an Account Management role, up selling current accounts. She, in turn, went to her manager and presented an idea to split her time between new business and current accounts. If your company is reorganizing then they most likely will want to hear new ideas – especially if it is going to prove profitable.
- Don’t beat a dead horse. I had a candidate that got a role as an inside sales rep and after being in the role for 6 months, he was fully ramped up with a strong pipeline, he started getting handed administrative projects. He is a team player so he took care of them but they just kept on bringing the projects to him. He went to his manager and discussed the fact that he is being spread too thin and cannot focus on his sales. The manager heard him out but told him that there would be no change. The company needs him to sell and complete the administrative projects and that is that. My candidate was cool, calm and collected – told his manager that he can be relied upon. Then he immediately called me with an updated resume to start his search for a new role. If there is no flexibility and you are stuck – then start looking while you work. You are always more marketable if you’re still in a job.
Once you recognize what the situation is, then you can make up your mind and decide not to be a victim. These things happen to everyone but it is what you do in response that matters.
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Secrets of Sales Success: Becoming a good listener
Good listening skills. Not enough sales professionals have them according to Author Barry Farber in a recent Entreparticle on the subject. He suggests it’s because we feel more comfortable talking about ourselves and the subjects we know that we sometimes neglect to listen. After all, what could be easier? Another Farber theory is that sales professionals are so excited about their product they can’t wait to tell prospects about it – and end up doing most of the talking. Consequently, they may not come away with a clear understanding of what their client really needs. So how does a poor listener break the cycle? As Farber points out, it does take a conscious effort to develop better listening skills, but you can do it with some practice. Here’s how:
Take Notes When someone is taking notes, it means they value what is being said. The next time you meet with a prospect, be sure to bring a pad and pen. It shows right away that you want to capture whatever is most important to them.
Ask Questions Look for ways to extract information about key needs/issues. One technique that helps get people talking is “parroting” – repeating the last few words a prospect says as a question. This encourages people to elaborate more on the subject.
Make Sure You Understand One way to make sure you really understand what your client needs is to repeat back what he/she has told you. Re-phrase what you think you’ve heard to make sure you’ve understood correctly. If you’re a bit off-base, your client can clarify important points.
Practice The next time you are at a party or event, Farber advises, “shut up and listen.” Find out as much as you can about people while revealing as little as possible about yourself. Don’t interrupt and resist the urge to jump into a conversation that interests you. Instead, just watch and listen. You’ll be surprised about all of the new, interesting, and valuable information you’ll learn.
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Why you should care about a potential employer’s Corporate Culture
Have you ever glanced at a job description and thought it matched your skill set so perfectly that the hiring manager surely had you in mind when creating it? Only to realize at the interview that you would never, ever fit in at such a place? There is no denying that possessing the right skills and background are imperative to the position you want. But as too many people learn, allowing yourself to be seduced by great pay or benefits while ignoring warning signs about the culture can be disastrous.
Why should job-seekers care about a potential employer’s corporate culture? Aren’t there more important factors to consider, such as the job itself, salary and bonuses, and fringe benefits? These factors are important, but increasingly career experts are talking about the employee-employer “fit.” How well the employee fits the culture can make the difference between job-search success and failure. According to Leadership Coach Ron Rael, today’s applicants will base their decision to accept a position on two criteria: 1) the person that he will work for, and 2) the feel he has for the corporate culture.
Just what is corporate culture? Simply put, it’s the personality of an organization. It guides how employees think, act, and feel, and includes a company’s core values and beliefs, ethics, and rules of behavior. Culture reveals itself in many ways, both obvious and subtle. The décor of its offices, how its employees dress, and how they interact with each other are all observable clues.
Before you dismiss the corporate culture factor as insignificant, here are some tangible ways it affects you: the amount of hours you are expected to work; whether it’s a fun or hostile environment – or something in between; the dress code; the type of office space you’ll occupy (and rules regarding display of personal items); the training and development you’ll receive; the availability of onsite perks such as fitness and daycare facilities; and the interaction you’ll have with other employees, especially top management.
How do you uncover the corporate culture of a potential employer? The truth is that you will never really know the corporate culture until you have worked at the company for a number of months, but you can get close to it through research and observation. Understanding culture is a two-step process, starting with research before the interview and ending with observation at the interview.
Experts suggest arriving early to the interview — unannounced if possible — and spend the time observing how current employees interact with each other, how they are dressed, and their level of courtesy and professionalism. While it is great that firms are now using their cultures as a tool to attract and retain talent, companies must be able to substantiate their claims of a work/life balance, team atmosphere, or any other such promise.
The bottom line is that you are going to spend a lot of time in the work environment — and to be happy, successful, and productive, you’ll want to be in a place where you fit the culture. A place where you can have a voice, are respected, and have opportunities for growth.
Portions of this article have been excerpted from Dr. Randall Hansen’s website, quintessentialcareers.com. anding
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Partnerships Ring the Register
For those of you who don’t quite understand what we do, simply put – we form partnerships.
Let me tell you about one day last week when I interviewed 3 different sales professionals. They were all great and all came from different backgrounds and all at different stages of their careers;
- Educational sales with about 5 years of experience
- Sales operations with 10 + years of experience
- Pharma representative with just under 10 years of experience
All of them very good professionals and all have success in their background. Only one of them had a well organized and presentable resume, the other 2 needed some real help to polish up the resumes. I am not afraid to write this in fear of said candidates reading my criticisms. Why?…I already told them what I think. We fixed up the information and did some cosmetic changes. They increased their marketability exponentially with those simple changes to their resumes.
We talked about what they are doing for their job search, what websites they are using, the networking strategies, appealing opportunities that they were seeking, and so on. I suggested some other sites that they should use, how to spend their time being more proactive in the search, interviews that they had been on, companies they were targeting, and so on.
We talked about how they are positioning their stories and how they speak about their backgrounds. This is a huge piece of the interview process – it is not just important to have a good story, you have to practice telling it to someone. If you can’t effectively articulate your background, who will?
After speaking with all of them, I recognized that Treeline works with opportunities that they would definitely be fits for. Why? These candidates are all willing to partner with me to assist in advancing their careers.
I feel safe in saying that all of them will be very solid assets to any team. All of them finished the conversation with a sincere ‘thank you’ and two of them even had referrals for me.
I got off the phone feeling that I added significant value to their search and I believed they felt the same way. The kicker of the whole thing is that I did not pitch one job to them. As recruiters, we make money by placing candidates in our clients’ companies. But that is not essentially what we do, we build partnerships…with everyone, and why? Because, even though we did not have any jobs to tell those candidates about today, we might find the perfect fit for them tomorrow. That is what we do at Treeline, we build partnerships and if we don’t have a job to talk about, we will give you everything we got to advance your search because we want to get you back to work.
If you want to partner with us, please join our network by clicking here. We look forward to working with you.
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Can you play without passion?
I still play in adult men’s hockey league and recently we finished our winter season. Unlike a few of the past seasons, this one ended with us not only in the playoffs, but with a good chance to win our league. As the playoffs went on we had success in winning our games and found ourselves in the Championship. Now normally there is a little bit more urgency for a playoff game during the game itself but the moment the game is over, whether win or lose, the game is quickly forgotten. But, this game was different, it was a back and forth affair that featured lead changes and a passion not usually seen in a men’s league hockey game. Guys were sacrificing their bodies to block shots, which is common in the NHL but is almost never seen in a men’s league game. The game ended regulation with a tied score so the game continued into overtime. Much like the first three periods, overtime was hotly contested but unfortunately for my team, we lost.
What surprised me most after the game was how my teammates and I reacted. Normally, if you were to walk into our locker room 5 minutes after the game you would have no idea if we won or lost. It is a men’s league game after all, we don’t play to win, we play because we love the game. But, after this game we were all visually angry that we lost. There was silence, disbelief, anger, and a general mood that I had not seen after a hockey game since college. On the ride home I started thinking about what was different. Why did we care so much? After all, there are no fans in the stands and nobody is going to be talking about the game the next day. Only the teams that played would even know the result…but it finally hit me a couple of days later: there was a passion that was present in everyone that played this game. The ‘why’ didn’t matter it just was fact that we all really cared if we won or lost this particular game.
I thought of this recently as I was making calls at work. In recent months it has been quite commonplace to call a company looking for a contact that you have been speaking with for months or years only to find out they are no longer with the company. Or to hear that budgets are slashed. Or most depressing, “We just had lay-offs, we are not hiring for the foreseeable future.” As a salesperson, what we love is the hunt and the game of negotiations. In this economy, for some months, the only focus has been on just making it through this day, week, or month. And like one of my candidates said to me recently, as salespeople we can handle failure but it is frustrating to not even get a chance to get a chance to bat. It is difficult to recapture lost passion but without it, as salespeople, we are lost. To be successful in sales requires an emotional commitment to fight through all of the negativity that we face every day. For me, I used to brush off the small victories – I now count on them to help me keep my passion every day. How do you fight to keep your passion for selling? And can you recapture it if you lose it?
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Great balls of FIRE!!
About a month ago there was a whole big bowl of Fireballs on our kitchen table in the office. I never really liked Fireballs for the simple fact that they burned my mouth. I also could never figure out why so many people liked them. So, I decided to have one Fireball every day until I could figure out what people like about them and I can tell you, it was certainly not the HOT feeling I got when I first put the Fireball in my mouth. To be honest, the first couple times I ate one, I could not finish it. I really did not like the burning sensation that it gave me.
After about 10 days of spitting theses things out I finally had enough guts to keep one in my month the entire time, until it was gone. To my surprise, I enjoyed the center of the Fireball. The next day I was more excited about the Fireball. I started to think about the sugary center of the candy and not think about the “hot shell” the encases it. After about 20 days eating Fireballs I found myself growing akin to them and actually looked forward to not only having one, but eating about two a day.
The thing that I realized about eating the Fireballs is that it is a lot like sales. NOBODY likes to cold call or the heavy lifting of any job. But, EVERYBODY loves the sugary center or the closing of a deal. Now, after eating the Fireballs for a month I understand that it is not the HOT feeling that people enjoy but it is the sweet center. In life or the working world it is the same thick shell with a sweet center! The thicker the shell, the sweeter the center and that is what we are all after. So remember, every day when you wake up, you too will have a “hot shell” to go through before you get to your “sweet center”. Some days the shell will be thicker than others but there will always be a sweet center.
As a reminder, I now brush my teeth with a cinnamon tooth paste to make sure I never forget that I that I need to get through the “thick shell” before I enjoy the “sweet center.” Plus, I will get fewer cavities.
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