Attention! A-TENT-TION!

Listen up!  Do I need to drop of a brick of gold in the sunlight to get your attention?  And then follow it up with an interpretive dance wearing a chicken suit? 

As visually stimulating as that is, I actually find it to be quite rude. How many times have you heard, “Sales people have the shortest attention spans?”  Or, that you have to “flash a shiny object” in their faces to get their attention?  Then, commonly followed by somebody saying with arrogance, “ They are not that smart so you have to keep things simple.”   To that I say, “Phooey!”  

I truly believe good Sales professionals are some of the most skilled, nimble multi-tasking, productive jugglers on the face of this earth. Think about it, they have to be if they are going to be successful at what they do.  They are working on at least a dozen things simultaneously.  They are moving very fast and have to filter the noise like nobody’s business.

On any given night when he’s home, The Sales Guy takes position on “my” leather recliner to relax. It’s pretty easy to notice when he’s tired and thinking.  I can see it on his face and, just when I think it’s really into that super boring Nat-Geo special on the unique insect population in Burma, it dawns on me he’s totally not watching it and he’s creating his plan of attack for tomorrow.  It wouldn’t matter if I dropped the gold brick, danced the jig in the chicken suit in front of t.v. or paraded a million of those killer Burmese fire ants across his bare feet, his attention is focused on tomorrow’s game plan.

Ever look at a Sales person’s calendar?  OMG!  How they can focus on anything for more than an hour or so a day when they are supposed to talk to at least a handful of different people from different companies in a single day, put together compelling cases for why people should buy their stuff, build relationships, a pipeline, a family, a treehouse, work out, eat lunch, shower, etc. 

I don’t know how they do it but I can tell you they deserve a lot more credit than they typically get.  Then again, not sure they care what the rest of us think of them as long as they get paid.  We’ll save that topic for another time… I need to claim my seat on the recliner and grab the remote J