Turbo Leadership Systems^™

Turn down or turn up? You decide.

Many salespeople, managers and executives have themselves all worked up into an emotional and financial frenzy due to our current challenging and uncertain economic times. Each of us has three choices during those difficult times when customers reduce orders, prospects cancel sales and suppliers cause you great frustration and stress due to their limited capacity to perform. This entire scenario can become a vicious, negative, downward spiral where no one wins. Your three choices are:

1. Relax, learn, grow and see the advantages and benefits of these issues, as difficult a as that might be.
2. Rant, rave and work yourself into an anxiety attack worrying about all of the negative consequences that may happen due to this challenge (cancelled order, etc).
3. Think clearly and rationally about what you can do now to improve or reverse the situation, not just why it happened.

I am not insensitive to the ripple effects of a cancelled order or reduced level of sales from a customer. I deal with the same consequences of a slow month or year just as any billion dollar organization. On a smaller scale, yes, but just the same to me in terms of emotional and physical consequences. I know the disappointment of a sale gone bad and a relationship that has soured. I have learned that, for every lost sale, there is another potential one around the next corner. One has to keep walking, looking and discovering to find it.

Many people today seem to be residing in self-pity, discouragement, remorse or anger due to conditions they can't control. What's the point?

The late, great tennis pro Arthur Ashe, once said: "True greatness is: Start where you are, do what you can, and use what you have." I have that sign on my desk as a constant reminder that, sooner or later, circumstances I don't like or wish were not present can overtake me, if I choose to let them. Instead of whining, I have chosen to look for the benefits in everything - even the apparent negative stuff. I am grateful for another of my heroes, Napoleon Hill -author of the classic best seller, Think and Grow Rich - who said, "Every adversity, setback, failure, problem, risk carries with it the seed of an equivalent or greater benefit." You have to be willing to look for it.

So I encourage you to create something great from the time of turndown. Don’t let fear and uncertainty hold you back. Don’t go into a wait and see mode. I guarantee it will smooth out before you know it. I'll leave you with a question: What are you doing with this time? How are you preparing yourself for the eventual and natural next BOOM time? It's coming, it always does. But if you are not prepared, you will find yourself left behind as your more intelligent peers have chosen to use this time to get better, wiser, faster and stronger.