I couldn’t stop reading The War of Art by Steven Pressfield.  He is brilliant and captures the essence of Resistance. Yes, thats’s right, he has written an entire book on this topic. He refers to The Unlived Life as what we want but never really get to it. He asks “are you a writer who doesn’t write, a painter who doesn’t paint, an entrepreneur who never starts a venture?” Yes, all of us have something we have wanted but it has never materialized because we haven’t focused on it.

He refers to specific goals and activities where a higher degree of Resistence interferes and some of these include:

1. Writing, painting, music, film, dance or any creative art

2. The launching of any entrepreneurial venture

3. Any diet or health regimen

4. Any activity whose aim is tighter abdominals

5. Any act that entails commitment of the heart

I call these barriers to success and found a pictures that sums it up.

We surround ourselves with Resistance and he describes it as invisible, internal, insidious, implacable, inpersonal, infallible, universal, it never sleeps, plays for keeps, fueled by fear, most powerful at the finish line, recruits allies.

So true, I haven’t finished reading this book and no, I’m not resisting it- I’m actually devouring it because it’s spot on.

Many salespeople live the lives of artists. They must be creative, inspiring, dedicated, motivated and get past resistance. Just like the artist who starts with a blank canvas, the salespeople starts each month with an empty pipeline. Salespeople are only as good as the last sale they closed or lead they passed and they have to start all over again.

Tomorrow is a new month- don’t procrastinate, plan, prioritize and prepare. Make sure you hit your numbers half way through the month of February instead of the end of the month.

I’m not a joiner and have always stayed away from club memberships. Mainly because my travel schedule doesn’t allow me to be in one place for long. Anytime I sign up for a series of classes, I always miss 2 out of the 5 week sessions and lose on the valuable connections I make. I’m one of those intrepid people who signs up on a Monday for a course on a Thursday and by the time Thursday comes around, I get swamped and have to bail. Yes, membership people love me because I pay my dues but never seem to show up.

There’s a “members only” mystique around private clubs. For example, there’s the famous exclusive Bohemia Club in San Francisco. It’s a men’s club and dates back to 1872. It includes artists, writers, media moguls who refer to themselves as “BoHo’s.” I like the City Club which is more of a business and networking club and open for men and women. I’m blinded by the stunning Diego Rivera mural on the staircase entrance.  

That brings me to the office space I found recently and started negotiating on it.  I’ve been working out of my home office for the past 5 years and it’s time to get out of that situation. I’ve spent months weighing the pros and cons to moving out of my home office and finally decided for the social stimulation and entrepreneurial camaraderie, it was worth it. I found the place in a perfect spot in San Francisco’s SOMA district, I liked the business owners and liked my own private office with a window overlooking a parking lot. I realize it’s not too Feng Shui to situate oneself overlooking a parking lot and could cause some damage to my creative juices but on the otherhand, I’m looking to buy a new car and observing people pull up in their cars and leaving their keys for the parking attendent could be insightful. 

I studied my calendar and noticed with my intense travel schedule coming up the next few months, I would only have about 8 business days in the new office during the month of February and less in March. Does it make sense for me to move to a new office space? Not really- at least not now.

That brings me back to the need for community and to need to belong to something. Although social networking is so hot right now, we become virtually and virally connected- sure, our inboxes are full and friends from all over the world are just an email away. It doesn’t replace the feeling of reaching your hand out and connecting in person, looking at someone walk in drenched from the rain or listening to a side conversation about Edwards dropping out of the Presidential race.  

Today, I’ve decided to join. I am going to become a member of a few organizations. There’s a responsibility that comes with that. Participating and showing up. Please email me about clubs you belong to.

I’m preparing to train a lead dev team this Friday and connected with their manager today to learn more about his needs and what he suggested I delliver to his team. This group has already been through my TeleSmart 10 program and they are on the refresher schedule which means more adhoc-type training to get this pumped up. It’s usually about me saying a lot of what their manager has been saying but somehow they hear it differently because it comes from me.

He tells me his team is bored, morale is low, lead quality is sluggish, and they are clearly burning out. They are not hitting their 65 outbound call metrics and it’s only going to get worst this year with increased expectations and more leads being dumped into their funnel. But that’s why the timing is perfect for a sales trainer to come in an pump them up. Gee, my favorite thing to do, can’t wait.

“Let’s back up” I suggest.  “I understand you want your teams to make their 65 outbound calls but you also want long, meaningful and deep qualifying conversations with prospects?”

“You got it, you can review that with them on Friday.” He was convinced I would make this happen on Friday.

 ”What are you doing to keep them from being burned out?” I heard complete silence. Did I hit a nerve?  He finally responded and shared in confidence that he was burning out himself but it’s the nature of his job and his role and his team and the expectations. 

“What can you do to re-energize this group?” I asked him and listened to some brilliant, insightful and inspiring ideas.

Sometimes we just need someone to give us permission to think big thoughts and to encourage us to move away from the tried and true. Selling in a 2.0 world means exactly that. There’s no more finger pointinig, you must take responsibility and make it happen for yourself and your teams.

What a perfect book to pick up when it’s pouring out- Jeffrey Gitonmer’s Little Red Book of Selling.  I must admit, I bought it about 1.5 years ago and did what I usually do when I buy non-fiction books. I flip through several pages to look at the layout, read the table of contents, one chapter, the testimonials and then put it away. It’s because I don’t think I’ll learn anything new and who else could possibly write one new thing about selling.

This book resurfaced for me today and gave me the attitude adjustment I deserved. I am humbled and want to commend Jeffrey for his brilliant creative writing. After training thousands of salespeople, I can honestly say that very few of them admit to not knowing anything and most of them are tough-skinned. Jeffrey knows this too and writes for this group. He is ahead of his time on personal branding and claims, it’s not who you know, it’s who knows you.  So true and applicable in today’s social networking atmosphere.

Chapter titles such as Kick your own ass and If you can’t get in front of the real decision maker, you suck are direct and insightful. He also has the cutest icons floating on the left and right side of the page. The left side is the Red Whine which always finds the typical loser whiney things to say such as “my boss won’t motivate me” or “the prospect just say there” and on the right is his Red Selling Response which takes action and recommends the positive such as “If you ask compelling questions it’s impossible for the prospect to just sit there.”

Gitomer has written tons of sales books, columns and is known as the sales guru. His packaging and branding are spot on and the best part of this book is that it’s in the form of his “bible” strategy which encourages you to take it where you go and open it and refer to it. How can I beat that when I want my book on the same shelf- actually Feigon would get filed before Gitomer so I have to have lots of extras to keep my audience from buying his. They need to buy his because they will be ready for mine.

January is the weirdest selling month- everyone is off to a sluggish start. Returning from the holidays and the sales kick-off hype seems loses our momentum. Next thing you know, January is almost over and you realize you haven’t closed anything. No matter how many times you review your forecast, it’s looking pretty grim. Enough of wishing your prospects a Happy New Year, it’s time to sell something- - fast.

That’s the call I received today from a desparate salesperson. He wanted to talk about some potential joint partnering opportunities together and asked for a few minutes and ended up taking more. He talked about his offerings and his needs and his request and didn’t really listen to me. I listened and hoped for an opening but he wasn’t too generous and felt trapped in a sales headlock.

When we put our customers in a headlock,  they feel it and know it and all they want to do is run- away from you.

I had a good talk with a SEO specialist yesterday as I complained about my low traffic on my site and blog and he reminded me that Web 1.0 is about putting up content but not driving traffic. Well Sales 1.0 was about putting customers in a headlock and spewing so much information and hoping some of it will stick and you will sell something.  Sales 2.0 is no longer about that-it’s about listening, learning, researching and approaching prospects in a saavy and intuitive way.

My talented friend Martha called me a few days ago for some career advise. She worked for me many years ago and was instumental in helping design the TeleSmart 10 methodology. She is one of those gifted and talented women who understands so much more than you cound ever explain. My adivse to her- start your own blog. That is my answer to everything these days:

When people want to know what I’m up to and where I’m traveling- I say, read my blog

When someone is going through a career transition and feels underutilized- I suggest to start a blog

When a salesperson is prospecting for new business- I recommend, read your prospects’ blog

When management wants to get their people thinking on the same page- I  suggest to start a blog

When the solo entrepreneur wants to showcase their work- I  suggest to start a blog

When you want to reach out and meet thought leaders who go to Davos, Switzerland- Start spreading blog love

When you want to strike up a conversation at a blogging conference- Tell them  you blog

When people ask me where do I begin, I suggest they look at my blogroll and here is my top 10 favorite blog sites that range from marketing, business, spiritual, gossip, technology, sales and life. Here is the list-

1. 37 days- Patti Digh’s blog doesn’t always inspire me to blog because I’m intimidated by her writing eloquence but she inspires me to be the best person I can be. What would you do if you only had 37 days to live? Read her blog.

2. Build a Better Blog- These clever ladies call themselves the Blog Squad and they know what’s going on and keep crankin out excellent content. They are like StrideRite shoes for the first time walker- only it’s blogging for the first timers.

3. Scobleizer- Remember I mentioned Davos? Well Robert Scoble who is now with Fast Company is there interviewing pretty cool people- most are from Silicon Valley—– so I say, why fly to Switzerland?

4. DuckTapeMarketing- John Jantsch gets it from a marketing perspective and he is always generous with great content. Just yesterday, he participated in a great podcast/webinar with Seth Godin and Chris Anderson.

5. Beach Walks with Rox- It’s freezing, my heater is blasting and I’ve got 3 layers of wool. Roxanne Darling makes it happen on the beach in Hawaii- very cool and relaxing. Each day, she records a live segment.

6. Church of the Customer-Ben and Jackie make such a complementary partnership as they observe life through their astute marketing eyes.

7. CopyBlogger- This is a blog I need to look at more often . Brian Clark will also be at San Francisco’s Elite Retreat in April and if I had $5,000 to spend, I would book this now. 

8. Selling to Big Companies- Jill Konrath has one of the better sales blogs out there- we need to stick together, don’t we Jill?

9. Salesopedia- Clayton is building a great site and bringing a sales community together.

10. PerezHilton- I’m sorry, this is my guilty pleasure and time sink- what can I say. I have to admit, there’s way too much on Britney in his blog.

Where can you go if you want to surround yourself with new technology, brilliant entrepreneurs, great looking people, tech gurus, a fun setting and great desserts? This Friday night, the 2007 Crunchies Award premiered in San Francisco. This event was masterminded by Michael Arrington from Tech Crunch and honored some of the most promising internet start-ups.

The categories were delicious- best business model, best bootstrapped startup, best use of viral marketing and my favorite, best time sink. Here are the winners from all categories.

There were lots of amusing videos and the most memorable one: Here Comes Another Bubble.

Lots of blogging celebrities were there such as Seth Godin and Robert Scoble. Of course, the highlight was watching the very brilliant Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook accept his award.

Sales 2.0 is bringing sales, marketing, technology together into one happy family.

There are few things I have a difficult time tolerating and that is people who complain about their boss. We should give them a nickname such as Boss Bitchers or something. I’ve got a few of these friends in my life and inevitably the subject comes up when we are together and it’s about how much stress they have from their job and it’s usually because they have a toxic manager or boss.

A new survey proves the level of their dissatisfaction. As the saying goes, “people don’t leave companies, they leave managers” and it’s true. Many toxic bosses have chased people away from their jobs- I can certainly name a few myself.

Why is this happening? If you glance at my new hotlist for 2008, you’ll notice that innovative managers are in and toxic bosses are out. Managers must check their egos at the door, stop pointing a finger and start developing themselves. Bill Caskey’s blog has a great post titled, “Is Your Salesforce Underperforming?” One of the managers I’m coaching mentioned that he would like to be “in the closet” with our coaching relationship. He said his team mocks him when he walks into a conference room with me for our coaching session.

The biggest gift you can give yourself and others is to commit to your self-development. Gaining insight on yourself and how you impact those around you is the gift of truth. It’s never too late and you are not too senior to work on this.  Managing the way you’ve always managed before is no longer acceptable. Read and learn from some of the best-selling management books, attend training sessions and work with a personal coach to help you be the best.

Strive to become the managers everyone follows around, the mentor that has shaped people’s lives, the leader that has fought the tough battles. Be humble, truthful and ethical.

Great way to start my Monday morning is to read this interview with Miguel Ruiz, author of The Four Agreements. This book was published 10 years ago and it’s wisdom still applies today. We begin a new year with new promises and some of the biggest promises are the ones you can make for yourself. Here are the four agreements and how they relate to your sales life:

Agreement #1. Be impeccable with your word- In sales terms, this would best be interpreted with your level of follow-up. Whether you promise to get back to your prospect or you put something on your forecast or announce the new price changes to your customer, be honest- tell the truth.

Agreement #2. Don’t take anything personally-How can we really believe we know anyone if we hardly know ourselves. We are constantly risking and confronting rejection on a daily basis in sales and when we receive objections from the customer, we must remember that it’s not about us, it’s about them.  Take the time to ask more questions versus reacting to their defenses.

Agreement #3. Don’t make assumptions- Our listening capabilities are becoming more corrupted each day. We are surrounded with distractions and noise and the level of our listening turns into assumptions. We are so quick to jump to a conclusion, solution or story without checking it out. Ask trial closing quesitons to check out your observations.

Agreement #4. Always do your best- This is the most important agreement because it’s not enough to just try to get by. Salespeople tend to sabotage their success by getting by with the bare minimum or once they reach their numbers, they slow down and the other areas in their sales suffer. Don’t settle for being mediocre, do your best all the time.

It’s time to hit refresh and start selling and managing in a new way. If you are driving with your eyes on the rear-view mirror you are not going to get there any faster.  This will slow you down and paralyze your risk-adverse mind.

So welcome this new year by decided to get out from your comfort zone- time to shake things up. If we sit in the comfort zone too long, we miss out on change opportunities that can move us and our customers to a better place.

Managers- don’t just manage by the numbers anymore. Get creative so you can encourage new behaviors.

Teams- don’t just sell the way you have always sold before, do something different and change it up.

Here are my innovation rules for the new year:

1. Look for new ways to prospect and create a 7-touch strategy that incorporates both phone, email, eblast, Texting efforts.

2. Create a 10 second credibility statement about your company and practice it over and over.

3. Have a stronger pre-call, on-the-call and post-call strategy and don’t get sloppy.

4. Stop staring at your Blackberry while people are talking to you.

5. If you are too comfortable, you know it’s time to change.