Robin Williams and Me (A Personal Experience with a Great Man)

Everyone knows the feeling of being alone in a crowd. Maybe it’s arriving at a party where not only do you not know anyone, but everyone there seems to know everyone else. The first day of work at a new job certainly qualifies. Even if you’re confident by nature, you can’t help but have a feeling of uncertainty, of perhaps screwing up by doing or saying something you had no idea you weren't supposed to do or say.

For me, it was switching to a new school in the seventh grade. It wasn't just a new classroom and building, it was jumping into a whole new city and way of life. I’d lived my entire life in Reno, Nevada, where my family had been socially and economically active for generations. I’d always attended neighborhood public schools, but when we moved to San Francisco, I was a complete unknown, stuck into a new private school in the exclusive Pacific Heights neighborhood.

I wasn't just a fish out of water. It was more like being an actor who stumbled onto the wrong movie set.

One day early on, a speaker addressed my class to talk about the professor in Dead Poets Society, which we were studying at the time. However, he seemed to know I was new, that I hadn't quite fit in, yet. He pulled me to the front of the class, introduced me to the others, and told them how lucky they were to have me there. He spoke of the courage it took to be the new kid at an all boys’ school where everyone else had been together since kindergarten.

That man was Robin Williams.

The next year, I tutored his first-grade son in Latin. When he dropped his son off at school, he’d high-five me every day in the halls, laughing and calling me the Socrates of Town School. I’d already admired him because of his “Good Morning, Vietnam” and “Popeye” movie roles, but being in the same room with him and knowing him even slightly in a personal way was stunning.

Robin Williams’ sensitivity amazed me and was responsible for my successful transition in a very unfamiliar place. It resulted in some immediate friendships, some of which became long-lasting. His sudden death is a personal shock I won’t be over for quite some time.

When you come to a new place, one of the things that makes you uneasy is your lack of guideposts that you depend on for support and backup—familiar places, dependable friends, and so-on. Robin Williams helped me with a tough transition twenty-five years ago, and I’m convinced the whole experience taught me not just the need to make and cherish my own personal networks, but the sensitivity to recognize the same need in others and help as best as I can.

Sales is Entrepreneurial Thinking

If you’re a salesperson who is paid all or part on commission, you’re not just an employee. You’re an entrepreneur, and if you want to be successful, you need to think and work like one.

Unlike traditional employees, how well you perform may mean the difference between paying the rent that month with some change left over, or coming up short. That’s the thing about sales. It sometimes seems that you either knock it out of the park or see a lot of bagels on the scoreboard.

It’s the same for someone starting a business. Entrepreneurs work by visualizing the goals they wish to achieve and plan accordingly.  They know they have to frontload the work at the beginning if they want the big payoff down the road. Successful salespeople do the same thing.

Start by doing what an entrepreneur does, and make a business plan, in writing. Start by visualizing where you want to be in, say, a year. Do you want to make $50,000? $100,000? Plan backwards from then to now, detailing the steps you need to take: How many calls, how many follow-up calls, how many emails, and so on. Your book of business starts with the first solid name you’re able to write in.

An entrepreneur knows you can either let things happen, or make things happen. So should you.

Here’s some useful information in helping create your personal business plan.

·         Eighty percent of sales require five follow-up calls, but forty-four percent of salespeople give up after one call.

·         The average salesperson makes eight dials per hour and prospects for 6.25 hours to set just one appointment.

·         Fifty percent of sales go to the first salesperson to contact the prospect.

·         In most companies with 100-500 employees, about seven actually make the buying decisions.

In other words, it takes a lot of prospecting to get a few good leads, and of those leads, only a few result in a sale. One major real estate brokerage used to teach that it took nine solid leads for one possible sale. Your business plan, then should say how many contacts you’re going to make every day, who they’ll be, and how you’ll contact them—telephone, email, or internet.

You need both quantity and quality. If your business plan goal is $75,000, and each sale averages $5,000, then you have to create 15 solid prospects. How many contacts do you have to make per day to get the magic 15? A hundred? 150? 200?

“I’ll buy $10,000 of whatever your selling,” said no lead, ever, on the first contact. Leads aren’t numbers, they’re people, and they need nurturing. Nurturing a lead doesn’t mean pounding her or him with a sales pitch every time you get in touch. It means you let that person know you’re thinking about him and his company’s needs. Send product updates or price changes, special deals, or maybe just a news clipping about something that person is interested in—say, a favorite sports team’s latest acquisition, or maybe something engaging you saw on Pinterest you know they’d like.

Speaking of which: Top sellers use LinkedIn six hours per week. Just sayin’. How much time do you spend there? Is your profile not only up to date, but polished?

Your sales book is your personal business, and you need to think like a business person to make it work.