The Person Behind the Professional

Good morning everyone and welcome to Monday.  Today’s Monday Morning Motivational Minute is inspired by a short personal story written by Paul Harvey.  For those of you who may not know, Paul Harvey is most famous for his radio program called “The Rest of The Story” where he tells the beginning of a story whose ending you think is obvious and where, after the commercial break, he reveals the true ending and the moral contained within.  I chose this wonderful story because it is about Paul Harvey as a grandfather.  It reveals the person behind the professional.  It is about his hopes and dreams for his grandchildren.
I began thinking that, as a salesman, I have always tended to see the person in front of me as a professional; as a client or potential client.  The truth is that the person in front of me is a person first.  He or she may have a professional role to play but to himself, he is, most importantly, a private individual with his own thoughts and dreams and ideas.  In a business climate where the new model of selling teaches the value of building both trust and a relationship with your customers, we would do well to remember this.
Nobody cares what you know until they know that you care. 
Ask some questions that aren’t about business once in a while and remember to talk less and listen more. If you think you have a great relationship with a customer and you don’t know about their children or grandchildren, you may want to reevaluate just how much of a relationship you really have.  Over the course of my sales career, I can not remember the number of times I have said that I have such a great relationship with this customer or that one, but I do know that the number of customers about whom I knew their thoughts and dreams and ideas is a much, much smaller number.
I hope you like the story.
Paul Harvey relates:

(As a nation) we’ve tried so hard to make things better for our kids that we’ve made them worse. For my grandchildren, I'd like better. I'd really like for them to know about hand me down clothes and homemade ice cream and leftover meat loaf sandwiches, I really would.

To them I would say…

I hope you learn humility by being humiliated, and that you learn honesty by being cheated. I hope you learn to make your own bed and mow the lawn and wash the car. And I really hope nobody gives you a brand new car when you are sixteen. It will be good if at least one time you can see puppies born and your old dog put to sleep. I hope you get a black eye fighting for something you believe in, I hope you have to share a bedroom with your younger brother. And it's all right if you have to draw a line down the middle of the room, but when he wants to crawl under the covers with you because he's scared, I hope you let him. When you want to see a movie and your little brother wants to tag along, I hope you'll let him. I hope you have to walk uphill to school with your friends and that you live in a town where you can do it safely. On rainy days when you have to catch a ride, I hope you don't ask your driver to drop you two blocks away so you won't be seen riding with someone as un-cool as your Mom. If you want a slingshot, I hope your Dad teaches you how to make one instead of buying one. I hope you learn to dig in the dirt and read books. When you learn to use computers, I hope you also learn to add and subtract in your head. I hope you get teased by your friends when you have your first crush on a girl. When you talk back to your mother, I hope that you learn what ivory soap tastes like. May you skin your knee climbing a mountain, burn your hand on a stove and stick your tongue on a frozen flagpole. I don't care if you try a beer once, but I hope you don't like it. And if a friend offers you drugs, I hope you realize he is not your friend. I sure hope you make time to sit on a porch with your Grandpa and go fishing with your Uncle. May you feel sorrow at a funeral and joy during the Holidays. I hope your mother punishes you when you throw a baseball through your neighbor's window and that she hugs you and kisses you at Christmas time when you give her a plaster mold of your hand. These things I wish for you - tough times and disappointment, hard work and happiness. To me, it's the only way to appreciate life.

Written with a pen and sealed with a kiss. I'm here for you. And if I die before you do, I'll go to heaven and wait for you.

-         Paul Harvey

Be inspired and have a great day.