There's No Place Like Home

I'm standing in a sea of 30,000 people singing “Home” in imperfect harmony, as my eyes, heart, and spirit well up with pride.

It’s an amazing experience, to be surrounded by so many people, in my hometown, all experiencing the overwhelming and heightened emotions of being home. 

What feelings does the word “home” evoke for you?

Safety? Security? Happiness? Peace? Comfort? 

I have learned that home is a distinct word that can create special emotions for each person. I’ve also learned that you must create three home fronts in order to be your best. 

How to create your best three homes for success:

1. Personal Home. It could be an apartment, a townhouse, a mansion, or a shack, but your personal home, must be somewhere you feel comfortable, happy, and at peace. The personal home is a reflection of your entire life. If your closet is cluttered, your life is probably cluttered. If there is dust on your floors, there is probably dust in your mind. If there is crayon on the walls, there is probably a three-year-old running around! Your personal home is an expression of yourself; it’s a direct representation of how you see you. When you take the time to adorn your house with décor, you are taking the time to build a sanctuary of your personality and interests. But there is one room that is more important than any other in your home: YOUR room. Whoever invented the concept of “man cave” was spot on! I challenge you to create your own man cave room. Don’t argue with me and say, but I don’t have an extra room to make all for myself. Improvise! At minimum create your own “space” just for you. A spot where you can read, think, write, create, pray, and be with the best person in the world, you! 

2. Work Home. It’s the place you spend thirty, forty, maybe fifty or more hours a week, so why wouldn’t you think of work as your alternate home? I’m a huge advocate for making your workspace, your space, by infusing it with things that inspire you. My space includes pictures, awards, books, candles, and a collection of coffee mugs. It’s distinctly Sales Barista! What’s on your desk? How are you taking ownership of your work home like you do your personal home? Do you take the time to adorn your work space and your actual WORK with your personality and interests? Or do you simple check the tasks off your list without taking full home ownership? 

3. Internal Home. The space inside your body is your internal home, your mind, your conscious, your heart, and your spirit. This the most important to take care of, and usually the one that is most frequently ignored. Taking care of yourself, your mind, your body, and your heart is what contributes to a healthy life. When was the last time you focused in? When you took the time to decorate your internal you as much as the external? When you adorn your spirit with your true interests, you create an internal glow that is hard for others to ignore. What’s your passion? What’s your interest? What are you doing about it? How’s your spiritual home? Empty, half-full, or fully Martha Stewart-ly decorated?

LIVING ROOM: In every home you have to take the time to work on the living room. That’s the area where you actually make the room to live (thanks Michelle!). And while it’s ok to dwell alone, life is not about living alone. It’s meant to be shared with other people. When you combine a physical place with people and the pleasure of experiencing life together, that’s when you are home.

Home can be a place, a dwelling, a big city or small town. Home can be four walls, a staircase, and a walk in closet. Home can even be a button on your phone or Facebook page. 

For me, home is experiencing happiness, peace, and love in as many moments of your life as you can. There’s no place like that home.

I’m your Double-Tall, Non-Fat, No-Whip Sales Barista. How may I help you help yourself?

Where's Stephanie? Somewhere in this singing sea!

Post by Troy High School.

Stephanie Melish, one of the few, hand-selected, Gitomer-Certified Speakers is the ONLY Double-Tall, Non-Fat, No-Whip Sales Barista in the world! Stephanie trains, sells, and speaks to companies and associations all over the country. To book Stephanie for your next event, please visit www.GitomerCertified.com or contact the Michelle at Buy Gitomer via email at michelle@gitomer.com or by calling 704-333-1112.

Profitable Relationships

Breaking up is hard to do.

You may disagree if you are looking at the current divorce rate, so humor me and think about your answer to this question:  How long have you stayed in a relationship after you knew it wasn’t working?

Hmmmm…and why do you stay in a bad relationship?

“It’s comfortable.”

Guilty? I am. I’ve stayed and tried to make relationships work way after my gut, head, and heart all were telling me to RUN! Sticking around hoping for the other person to change, the situation to change, the feelings to change. Change happens. But the change you are looking for usually doesn’t occur in well-established, comfortable relationships.

Comfortable is just another word for lazy. People are innately lazy, very lazy.

Now don’t go getting in a tizzy with me. Not all people are lazy. Successful people definitely wouldn’t be classified as lazy. They don’t stay in relationships that aren’t creating a profit for them. Yes, a profit.

Most people have a misconception about profit. You hear “profit” and you think money. I don’t. With a background in, and passion for non-profit, I tend to think differently about the concept of profits.

Profit defined:

profit |ˈpräfit|

noun

1. a financial gain, esp. the difference between the amount earned and the amount spent in buying, operating, or producing something.

2. advantage; benefit

Take a minute and focus on the second definition: advantage or benefit. Business relationships either produce a profit, or they don’t. And that profit is both financial and beneficial.

Let me break down the true profits of great business relationships:

Pleasure. Your business relationships should be a PIA: pleasure in action (not the other kind of PIA!). You should be experiencing pleasure while doing business together, not pain. It’s a happy, joyful exchange…most of the time.

Respect. A mutual respect for how each person and each company conducts business and it’s openly shown. Respect is two-fold; something you feel and something you demonstrate.

Open Communication. When things are going great and when things go wrong you communicate. Proactive and open communication is a relationship maker or breaker. You should be able to express your thoughts, issues, fears, hopes, dreams, passions, mistakes, and victories. And they should be able to with you.

Friendship. The best business relationships evolve into friendships. You genuinely like each other, want what’s best for each other, and enjoy working together.

Investment. There is a mutual investment in helping both parties achieve success. That investment could be time, energy, resources, people, ideas, or money. But on some level you are making a contribution to their success.

Treasure. You feel appreciated, wanted, needed and accepted as the treasure you are.

If you aren’t feeling the profit in your relationship, it may be time for you to initiate a breakup. EEK! Don’t fret; I’m not going to tell you to breakup without giving you a quick three-step how-to.

How to facilitate a business breakup:

1. Explain why you feel the relationship is no longer working. No blaming. No pointing fingers. No accusations. Deliver an honest account of your feelings.

2. Listen. Allow for a rebuttal, response, and excuses (hopefully no crying or worse, screaming!). Listen to their thoughts and feelings with an understanding that they could feel exactly the same or be caught off guard.

3. Propose the next step. Provide an action plan for how to dissolve your relationship properly. No hard feelings. No burning bridges. Develop a professional exit strategy to ensure both parties are content.

Relationships take work and effort by all involved. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. Heed my advice: if it isn’t working – don’t stay hoping, wishing, and willing change! You create the change. Step up to a breakup. Because in business, only one type of relationship works: a profitable one.

I’m your Double-Tall, Non-Fat, No-Whip Sales Barista. How may I help you help yourself?

Stephanie Melish, one of the few, hand-selected, Gitomer-Certified Speakers is the ONLY Double-Tall, Non-Fat, No-Whip Sales Barista in the world! Stephanie trains, sells, and speaks to companies and associations all over the country. To book Stephanie for your next event, please visit www.GitomerCertified.com or contact the Michelle at Buy Gitomer via email at michelle@gitomer.com or by calling 704-333-1112.

Replacement Refs: There’s a Flag on the Play

Roger Goodell, Commissioner of the NFL, had his phone number tweeted by Wisconsin State Senator, Jon Erpenbach on Monday night after the most controversial touchdown call ever determined the outcome of the Packers-Seahawks game. Did you catch that? TWEETED!

After receiving 70,000 direct phone calls and nearly 300,000 angry #MNF tweets, the NFL referee lockout ended. Ironic? Coincidence? I think not. The social media platform allowed customers of the NFL to be heard, and that they were. Chirp Chirp Mr. Goodell.

Wait, there's a yellow flag on the field!

"Illegal forward pass, Offense, 48 game penalty. Replay second down."

Let me break it down for you:

Illegal forward pass - Moving forward with un-prepared replacement referees.

Offense - NFL.

48 game penalty - Games played under the rule of the replacement refs.

Let me break it down for you further.

The NFL hired 135 replacement referees. These guys may have worked in college, high school, or Pop Warner football games. A few were even from the Lingerie League, one of which was fired, bless his heart.

In August, these men were no more ready than I was to referee at the professional level. They were amateurs. And the NFL didn't invest the time or money to properly train them. Shame on you, NFL!

Forty-eight games and one horrific call later, they are finally off the field (and collecting a check for week 4), leaving a lesson in how to run the business of backups.

Here is how you can learn from the NFL's penalty play:

1. Make a Plan B. Things happen. People leave. Computers crash. Money disappears. Contracts fall through. Things happen. One of the major business failures is to not have a Plan B. Elizabeth, the producer of Sales Caffeine, humors our office in regards to executing a Plan B. My favorite line from her, "God Forbid, I get hit by a bus! We need someone else that knows how to do my job." She's right. This is Sales Caffeine Issue #569, which means it has ran for 569 Tuesday's straight. Do you think we aren't going to have a backup plan to ensure the streak doesn't end? What's your backup plan? Do you have people in place to pick up the pieces, to substitute in, and to be the replacement?

2. Invest in proper training. And once you do have the Plan B in place, you have to allow for proper training. The NFL didn't invest in adequately training these refs to be true replacements. A real replacement would have been able to perform at nearly the same level as their predecessor. They would know the rulebook, the penalties, and how to turn their microphone's on without hesitation. Instead, we saw game after game with dazed and confused black and white shirts. All these guys needed was a little TLC; training, leading, and communicating.

3. Support the replacements. Executing your Plan B requires that you support the replacements, whole-heartedly. They may stumble, make bad calls, and cause you to be bombarded with angry tweets and phone calls, but your job, as a leader, is to stand behind your Plan B and your people. Some of you may think I'm batty for saying this after the touchdown call the replacement refs made against Green Bay on Monday night. Well, Green Bay had another bad call on Sunday when running back Sproles clearly fumbled but was instead ruled down by contact. Um, down by contact my rear! Even the "best" will make mistakes.

When you have to implement your Plan B and put a replacement in the game, remember these three things; it's your decision, it's your game, and it's your reputation. Manage accordingly. The time will come for replacements. Are you ready?

I’m your Double-Tall, Non-Fat, No-Whip Sales Barista. How may I help you help yourself?

Stephanie Melish, one of the few, hand-selected, Gitomer-Certified Speakers is the ONLY Double-Tall, Non-Fat, No-Whip Sales Barista in the world! Stephanie trains, sells, and speaks to companies and associations all over the country. To book Stephanie for your next event, please visit www.GitomerCertified.com or contact the friendly folks at Buy Gitomer via email at hirestephanie@gitomer.com or by calling 704-333-1112.