It’s Supposed to be Hard

First, some background on me so that you know something about the guy on the other end of this Blog...

Background: I was born to sell. That’s what I was told my entire life by countless people. I sold life insurance for Northwestern Mutual Life and instantly hated it. My first sales job out of college was to sell for UARCO Business Forms. Great company. Great opportunity. I lasted four years before setting out on my own at age 25 after determining that the burning feeling in my stomach was entrepreneurial and not indigestion.

Connecting the business and personal dots between then and now looks like this: forms distributor (success!); marriage (failure); father (success x 3!); print broker, sales trainer, writer, entrepreneur, coach, speaker (success x 6). Okay, you are caught up. Oh, wait, there is one more thing you need to know: Wiseass (success!). There. NOW you are caught up.

The Sales Challenge: It’s supposed to be hard…

Now that’s we’ve been introduced, let me tell you about my Sales philosophy in the anecdotal fashion that you will come to understand is my all-time favorite communication method...

I love movies. Always have. To this day, I speak in movie one-liners—“I love the smell of Napalm in the morning*…” and “Are you talking to ME?**” and “Are you suggesting that coconuts migrate?***”—you know, the important stuff in life...

I favor the old black-and-whites and some of the new stuff (the more original, the better), but not all. My all-time favorite actor is Jimmy Stewart and my all-time favorite movie is “It’s a Wonderful Life.” These days, I am a big Tom Hanks fan. He is the Jimmy Stewart of our time and other than “Joe vs. The Volcano” he cranks out great movies.

One of those movies was “A League of Their Own” with Geena Davis. Do you recall it? At the end of the movie, Geena Davis’ character, who is the star of the all woman’s softball team, decides to quit due to the fact that her husband has returned from the war. While the rest of the team is walking onto the bus, Davis is glumly walking towards her car. Tom Hanks, the surly manager of the team, confronts her and asks where she is going. Davis replies, “I quit. It just got too hard.” Hanks delivers three lines that serve as the perfect commentary to the challenge of Sales these days. He says, “It’s supposed to be hard. If it wasn’t hard, everyone would do it. The ‘Hard’ is what makes it great.”