What is rehab really? An image change? A detox opportunity? A PR move? Bottom line, it’s an attempt to improve yourself and deal with an addiction. The amount of time people spend in rehab is interesting; we’ve witnessed many varieties lately from one day to many months. But what happens after rehab? Are they cured of their addictions? Have their lives changed? How are they different?

Last week, I conducted training for an extremely sharp group of inside salespeople. They reluctantly came into this training the way most celebrities reluctantly go into rehab. They were defensive, questioned my authority, asked how many breaks they would get, when lunch was, and were upset that their managers scheduled this training, especially since they were out last week for more training.

My job starts when I begin a two-day training with groups like this. I ask them to shut off their phones, laptops and BlackBerrys for 2 whole days. My content and curriculum is organized for ADD-type behaviors and everything must be relevant, fast and interactive. It’s the 3-second attention-span rule. I work hard at creating a shift for them and encouraging them to see and think differently by creating valuable ”ah-ha” moments.

Once the training has ended, they feel motivated, committed and excited to try their new ideas. They are ready to get back out there; to go out into the unforgiving world of selling and prospecting for new business. Just like walking out of rehab, they make a choice to practice the new principles they’ve just learned or to go back to old habits which may sabotage their sales success.

Rehab, just like Sales Training, is a check-in point in your life. It’s a time to stop and look at past behaviors, actions, performance drivers and understand what is working and what no longer works. What you walk in with is directly what you will walk out with.

I think there is a direct correlation between sales and happiness. Miserable people just don’t make good salespeople. Two of my favorite bloggers, Scott Adams and Guy Kawasaki are both blogging about Happiness.

Dilbert’s blog post is on the Happiness Formula. He outlines 3 key happiness influencers and claims that you can only accomplish 2 out of 3 with one that will always suffer. These include:
1. Income
2. Relationships
3. Health

What I like about all 3 of these is the control and power we have to create them in our lives. Sales is pretty black-and-white. You either make your numbers of you don’t. Can salespeople make all 3 of these happen in their lives or does one of these usually suffer as we work hard at the others? Here are some examples of how one usually suffers:

Sales Heavy Hitter Takes a Beating on the Relationship Front: You may be at the top of your game and generating the most revenues for your team. You are working all hours, adrenaline is pumping. Your working hard and partying hard which taps your health. Eventually, your relationships either deteriorate or suffer because you are just not showing up the same way anymore.

Sales Mojo Is Lost because of Love: You fall in love. It’s the relationship you’ve waited for and you’re so psyched about this new person in your life. You spend evenings on the phone with each other, days teasing each other with provocative texts, and your delicious emails take the place of prospecting emails to customers. You are losing focus, momentum and drive because you’ve been floating on the love cloud.

Stay Clear from the Sales Negative Virus: You are in your third week of feeling lousy. Your ears are still plugged from the ride back from the Vegas sales kick-off and your voice is still so raspy that customers barely understand your name. You feel like a giant nose when you talk and walk around and your forecast is looking grim where things are falling out faster than coming in. You’ve missed enough days and your sales are showing it.

How do you balance all 3 of these? And could you balance them better if you lived in one of the 20 happiest countries in the world?  Check out the World Map of Happiness.

A friend of mine got laid off last week. No notice. The CEO walked in to her office and said she had been crunching numbers over the weekend and could no longer sustain my friend’s position. The company had decided to close 4 offices and let go of some staff.

My friend was so bummed; this was the first time she had been laid off. She asked me if I had been. “Hell, yeah!” I answered. This in no way indicates the number of times I’ve been laid off but the resounding “yeah” reminds me of how I survived when I put someone else in charge of my professional future.

I’ve got to thank Diane Templin who was my manager about 15 years ago. Although I was one of her top performers, she knew I was starting to check out and decided to cut her losses. She asked me in to her office one rainy December day and told me it was my last day. I froze. I was speechless, but now, years later I am so thankful. Without Diane laying me off, my company TeleSmart would never have been born. What’s that saying about lemons and lemonade?

I’ve been checking in with my friend on a daily basis to ask how she is doing with her job search. One day she is flying high and networking her LinkedIn contacts and another day her tone is exhausted and she sounds defeated.

Yesterday I sent her the following quote:

Do not look back and do not dream about the future. It will neither give you back the past, nor satisfy your other daydreams. Your duty, your reward, your destiny, is in the present moment.

That’s what motivation is about. It’s how you feel now that matters the most. How long does it take you to rebound? Don’t hold emotional grudges, get out there and make something happen. Salespeople are always in the drivers seat.

I’m taking a creative non-fiction writing class these days while writing my book proposal. It’s helping a lot as I’m being so much more selective with my word choices. These days, the fewer words the better.

Let’s talk about email subject headings. Think seconds, think BlackBerry and think fewer words. With spam on the rise, it takes us about 1/100th of a second to glance at an email. These are some that work and some that don’t when prospecting:

What doesn’t work: Although you might spend time crafting a great email, you forget to get creative on the subject heading, here’s what I’ve seen many times before:

Introduction: Who introduced whom? Where should I file this in my Outlook inbox

Follow-up or Voicemail follow-up: What are you following up about?

Demo Appointment: What are you presenting? When is the appointment?

Expiration: What is expiring? When?

What works: I have discovered one magic formula is to combine the names of your company and your prospect’s and throw an action verb in the middle:

ABC and TeleSmart: When you combine both companies together, it’s easier to get filed in the inbox.

ABC and TeleSmart–Appointment Request for February 18th: This tells the story in the subject heading.

Getting on your radar in 2007: Good idea to send this at the end of the year or beginning of the new year.

Where’s Tom?: This is taken from the Where’s Waldo book series. I have used this only when I know the prospect, we’ve established a rapport and they aren’t getting back to me.

Send us your best subject heading and we’ll mention you on this blog.

Today is my daughter’s 18th birthday, what a milestone.

She is a pretty cool kid and has her mom pretty plugged in when it comes time for gift-giving. She loves presents.

When she was younger and I traveled a lot, I made a deal with her to get her one present for each night that I was gone. You could always find me scrambling at airport terminals before boarding looking for 7 gifts to bring back.

Although I agonized all week on what to get her, I knew it had to be 18 presents. The good news is that a lot of friends and family contributed to this 18 countdown. So here’s what an 18-year-old San Franciscan adult gets for her b-day.

1. Pearl earrings from Tiffany’s

2. Chocolates from Joseph Schmidt

3. Voter registration packet

4. Sexy stuff from Victoria’s Secret

5. The Dreamgirls CD

6. 3-page care instructions I wrote for her babysitter when she was 6 months old

7. Dinner at House of Prime Rib

8. 18 red roses from Ah Sam’s

9. Tickets to see Jersey Boys

10. 18 lotto tickets

11. 18 platinum hearts

12. Lucky Jeans

13. French Toast breakfast

14. Surprise Skype birthday greetings from family all over the world

15. Mani/Pedi

16. Mini dress from American Apparel

17. Tickets to David Sedaris

18. A personalized photo album titled The Many Faces of B