Lessons at Lunch. Age no bar.

A wisp of smoke curled thru the dense air outside a coffee shop on Orchard’s. I poked at it while listening to a friend of mine, a partner in a leading consulting firm. These sessions are invaluable for me. I usually come out validating some of my work thus pressing onwards, or realizing things need to change. He had rich experiences with M&A and enabling growth strategies.

Rajesh, we grow in any area – be it quality of life at home or business accomplishments or anything else, we listen and then learn what sticks…

those two words right there had my fingers snap at the smoke, planting a grin as wide as a cricket pitch. So, I probed and listened. Somewhere, maybe somewhere he read about the culture my team and I had birthed.

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Emotion Sells. Money Smells.

A wailing child clings on to his father’s arm, and is dragged along into a wholesale store. The man’s routine to buy his weekly stock. Early 1980’s. The store owner reaches into a 2 feet glass jar of orange candies, grabs a handful and cups them into the child’s tiny palms. There was glee all around – Father, Child and Store Owner. Win! Win! Win! A gesture since trade started I bet. Now termed “Emotional Insights/Intelligence”.


At that tender age, I did not realise the sales element in this. But, it came handy decades later.

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Part II: Across The 7 C’s and Beyond

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Control.

 

Smart sales people are always in control. Control of a meeting, the process steps, communications….every aspect of the sales process. You read about the attributes pertaining to “Confidence” in the first part. Control and Confidence feed into each other.

 

Most People do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply.  – Stephen Covey

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CURIOSITY killed the CAT. SATISFACTION brought it BACK.

Curiosity killed the Cat

…Age old proverb. The earliest known printed reference to a variation of this proverb was on 23rd December 1912, found in The Titusville Herald newspaper. It read as…You will find greater values here. We are told:  Curiosity killed the cat, But satisfaction brought it back ….”

What does it really mean? Here’s my take – Curiosity (What + How) can get me into a lot of trouble, but if I search for an answer (Why), the satisfaction in the answer (Where + When) overrides the trouble I went thru. After all a Cat has 9 lives does it not?  Randomness is fine, but relevance matters in curiosity.

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