The Core Community Shift {An Excerpt from Selling with Synchronicity} –
Synchronistic Shift #4: The Bold Inspired Action Shift
“Bold action in the face of uncertainty is not only terrifying, but necessary in the pursuit of great work.”
~ Jonathan Fields ~
Standing in front of the room, staring out at the excited faces, I felt the big lump in my throat. I was about to announce to a hundred women at a local community event that Selling with Intention would become a bestselling book in six months.
Note: I intended to announce it as if I was expecting it would happen.
Right before I went up to speak, I asked Amanda one last time, “I should announce the bestseller campaign here, right?”
“Of course you should!”
As I was looking out at the faces in the audience, I wasn’t so sure. Taking a deep breath, I made the decision and announced it in spite of my doubt and fear, “On October 11, 2011, Selling with Intention will become a bestseller.”
My words were met with loud applause, big smiles, and great expectations.
Not only had I made the decision and gotten all in, I had also announced it publicly to one hundred of my clients, friends, and business associates.
There was no turning back…
Getting All In & Making a Declaration
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his is the shift where the magic really starts. You can know there are quantum possibilities and opportunities for you to increase your sales and change your life. You can get clear on what you want and the best way to achieve it. You can work on your self-belief and activate your cheerleader. Yes, you can do all of this and still not get results without making this shift. And this is where I see the most sales professionals and entrepreneurs get stuck. They get all excited about the possibilities, clear about what they want, and begin to believe in themselves, and then they get stagnant and wonder why nothing is happening.
This is the shift where you start moving, and I’m not talking about baby steps. Baby steps are what you did to get to this moment, and those were great. But this shift happens when you “get all in.” It’s what happens when you see where you want to go, and you choose to close the door on every other possibility and move forward.
This is when you begin to take bold inspired action! Your ego will want you to stay home on the couch and watch reality television. But after you’ve made your declaration, this is the time to MOVE! And I mean MOVE!
I guarantee you that this will be one of those moments when every fiber in your body will tell you to stop and that it’s not possible or it’s too hard. And it’s the exact time when you will need to push forward in spite of all of your fears.
The Burning Bridge
I see it over and over again, and I recognize it because I’ve experienced it. When we set a powerful intention to shift our sales or our life, things begin to happen. Yet, there comes a time when in order to make it happen, we have to stop allowing there to be other options – alternative jobs/careers, failure, etc.
There is a time when we have to burn the bridge and take the leap into bold inspired action. And there are times when this seems to happen for us —when the world around us might appear to be falling away, when things might seem to be falling apart. Yet those are the exact moments, the precise opportunities to get committed, to use our One Great Goal to guide us to the next step because it is either in alignment with those goals or it is out of alignment.
Right before I moved from the Inland Empire to Orange County, it seemed like a lot of things were falling apart. As I’ve shared, Tim and I had lost a lot of money in real estate and due to those big hits, we were wondering how we could keep going financially. We had to make many tough decisions about how we spent money. I remember cutting back on everything and just being glad that we could eat.
Yet, I wasn’t the only person going through tough times in the Inland Empire. We had all been hit hard by the economy, and the real estate industry was in shambles. Everyone we knew was upside down on their home or rental properties. A lot of people had either lost a job, a house, or a ton of money in real estate. Even though we weren’t alone, it was hard not to feel alone in the midst of the great recession.
Strangely, as many things fell away in my life, I felt myself getting more and more committed to my purpose and journey. I got all in. Tim got all in. Soon, he was promoted, and my business was becoming more successful.
Tim and I came to the conclusion that losing so much had given us back our lives and reminded us of what was most important: God, family, and health. That was it.
Once I was all in, I let go of how I thought things “were supposed to be.” I burned the bridge. I made public declarations regarding what I was going to create in my business and in my life. I planned my big event Sales Coach Now-LIVE in spite of the lack of funds in my bank account and started telling people about it. I created new training and programs for my clients without knowing where those clients would come from. I started working on my third book, even though I could have stayed at home panicking about what wasn’t showing up in the physical world. And I told anyone who would listen about what I was up to.
The world is full of stories of people hitting their “proverbial bottom” right before their dreams were actualized. I was on a panel interview recently, sitting next to a well-known transformational leader who was the author of a bestselling book that had been made into a movie. She was sharing her story and the challenges she and her family faced getting the book published and the movie made—putting every penny they had into it. She shared that they had almost lost everything. And then, right when they thought they could no longer take it, a major investor showed up, and now they are in the midst of more abundance than she could ever have imagined.
When everything appears to be falling apart, let go! Things aren’t falling apart. The way is just being cleared for you. Don’t be afraid. Don’t put on the brakes. Keep going. Take bold inspired action.
Reconnect with Your Mission and Big Why
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o get “all in,” you must get really clear on why you are doing this (what problem you are really solving) and how you are doing it differently (what makes you unique). A lot of people struggle with leadership because they are afraid to be visible and haven’t fully committed to their Big Why. They are afraid that if they really stand up for what they believe in, they will be ridiculed or ostracized. I understand that fear because I was afraid to stand up in the beginning as well — to really stand for something.
But as my Big Why became crystal clear, the fear left. I’m sure I’m not the first sales trainer who wants everyone to make a lot of money, but I am probably the first who has stood up and said, “I dream of a world where everyone has more than enough money, lives a great life, and gives back to their favorite charities.”
Yes, there are people who probably think my ideas are a little out there. I can hear them now. “Wow, she really believes that the entire world can have prosperity? Good luck with that!” But if I don’t hold that space that is uniquely mine, who will?
And it is the same for you. When you are standing in what is uniquely yours, you will know it. How? Because people will start to quote you. I hear people saying, “My One Great Goal is…” and “I was Selling with Intention today!” Those combinations of words are uniquely mine. No one is saying it quite like that, which is why I have pounded my stake into the ground on those words. That is my homestead. That is the reason I had to make Selling with Intention a bestseller and get the message to a broader audience.
Zig Ziglar’s Big Why was about helping others. He said, “You can have everything you want, if you will just help enough other people get what they want.”
So what is uniquely yours? What is your Big Why? If you were going to take a stand in the world, a BIG stand, what would it be? What do you believe so strongly in that it would make you do things you wouldn’t normally do?
As I have mentioned many times from the stage, I do not like public speaking. I never did. However, my desire to get my Big Why out to the world trumped my desire to play small and stay off the stage.
When you hammer your stake into the ground and really stand up for something, synchronicity kicks in. As you begin to communicate your message to the world and share it with others, your Big Why will become clearer and clearer. And, if you don’t step up, someone else will.
I remember having this conversation with a colleague of mine. He was sharing how irritated he was with people in the industry who had been in business about the same amount of time that he had been but appeared to be much more successful. I asked him a series of questions, and it became clear that he just hadn’t gotten committed to his Big Why. The others who appeared to be more successful were crystal clear on theirs and it easily drove their success. I watched his light bulb go on. It was that easy.
What is your Big Why? Why are you selling the products and services that you are? What do you hope to accomplish for others and for yourself?
Help Your Clients Take Bold Inspired Action
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nce you are crystal clear on your Big Why, it’s time to review your sales goals and make sure they are in complete alignment with your values. Remember, you are the leader of your sales goals. No one else. No one will tell you to get up in the morning and sell more. No one will tell you to get on the phones or hire someone to help you make appointments. No one will design your next marketing campaign for you. It’s really all up to you to lead your prospective clients from where they are to where they want to go—to show them the bridges they need to burn (the things that haven’t been working for them) and then the leap they have to take to get the results they seek.
One of the things my clients have always said to me is that I saw them achieving their sales goals before they could even picture it. I think about that often because it’s true —and it is key to selling with synchronicity. When I meet someone, I don’t see them where they are today with their sales, I see them where they will be in the near future. Being successful in business and sales is about seeing the potential in individuals and businesses and then helping them get there.
Because you know the value of your products and services, it’s easy for you to see how you can help someone solve their problems. But one of the keys to sales is coaching the prospect to see this with you, by helping them to identify The Gap between where they are now and where they want to or can go, and how your product or service can get them there.
It’s about coaching your clients through The Gap. And when I say coaching, I don’t mean literally coaching them. I am talking about supporting them through the process of figuring out where they are and where you can take them. Ask them powerful questions regarding where they are now, what their challenges are, what they would like to change, and what they believe would really support them in making those changes. Once you know that, you can help them take bold inspired action. Whether you are selling a manufactured product or a service, by the end of that conversation, you will know exactly what they need and how you can deliver it to get them results. And when you connect with them and lead them in this way, they will buy from you.
Why will they buy from you instead of from someone else? Because they will be able to sense that you can truly solve their problem — and take them from where they are to where they want to go. I promise you, they do not want to have to go out and talk to fifty other people. Instead, they want you to be the answer. They want you to be able to solve their problem. If you are confident that you can solve their problem, they will feel it, and they will say “yes.”
