By noticing that today’s post focuses on Chapter 10, you night guess you’ve missed a lot of something. We are discussing Art Williams’ inspirational book, All You Can Do Is All You Can Do. To catch up with the rest of us how about going back and reading the Introduction, Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapter 7, Chapter 8, and Chapter 9 before joining us here.
“When nothing seems to help, I go and look at a stone cutter, hammering away at his rock, perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred and first blow it will split in two, and I know it was not that blow that did it – but all that had gone before.” Jacob Riis
In this chapter, Art reminds us to never give up and tells us how to ensure that doesn’t happen. Anybody can quit, in fact most people do. If this were not true, the winners circle would be a lot bigger and far more crowded. If you hang on and refuse to give up, you dramatically increase your chances of winning.
Here are two good reasons not to quit; the first is that losing, like winning, is a habit. All quitters are good losers. If someone keeps losing a second and then a third time, quitting becomes a way of life.
The second reason is that, assuming people have the desire to be somebody, if they quit the opportunity to achieve their dream is lost. Chances are, if somebody quits once, they won’t ever bounce back and will remain average and ordinary for the rest of their life.
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The face-to-face skills I discuss are rarely emphasized in sales training programs. Based on my 45 years in the selling universe I know how critical these basic skill sets are. A quick look at the Table of Contents of Sell is NOT a Four Letter Word will confirm my belief about this.
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I (Doug) want to tell you a story about a guy named Gary who came to work for a services company in Orlando after answering a newspaper employment ad. The manager told him that he needed to hire three people by week’s end. Gary was breathing pretty well so he was hired. He went home and told his wife he accepted the sales job, although he didn’t think he would succeed there. Since the job provided a 3-month income guarantee he decided to go for it.
Gary was a sponge, soaking up everything he was taught, although he didn’t sell much during that the probation period. He wanted to quit most every day and endured lots of rejection. More than once he was ready to throw in the towel, but his wife encouraged him to stick it out.
He finally found his niche, working with service employees to generate sales leads. By the end of his first year he qualified for the President’s Club sales incentive trip offered by the company. He is still there and is a perennial top producer for that company. Where would Gary’s family be, if he had quit during those first few months?
Failure is only the end if you allow it. Gary often says that “failure is the halfway mark on the road to success.” Many salespeople get discouraged and go into a career death spiral. Others, like Gary, double and triple their efforts and press on. They don’t stand still and watch their dreams collapse around them. They keep pushing!
When you bump up against tough times, Art suggests three strategies to aid in “hanging tough.”
Use the magic of thirty days – Set specific short-term goals. Little victories can mean the difference between giving up and experiencing enough hope to hang on until things get better. When you feel like quitting, make one last surge with a 30-day goal. Thirty days is short enough to see an end in sight, and long enough to build some momentum and improve.
Use a reward and punishment system – If you achieve your weekly sales goal by Friday night, reward yourself and take the weekend off and relax. If you come up short on your weekly goal by Friday night, punish yourself and work Saturday and possibly Sunday to set some appointments to ensure you get back on track.
Give your efforts time to compound – Often people quit when they are close to breaking through but just don’t realize how close they are. The issue may be impatience, where they haven’t failed, they have just not succeeded fast enough.
Art continually reminds people that winning is never easy but it’s always worth it. He adds these three caveats, which are tough to take, but he believes in “telling it like it is.”
You never get used to rejection – Just because you may love what you’re doing doesn’t mean that everybody else loves it too. When you face rejection, listen to that little voice inside that says, “I know I’m right and I refuse to let anything stop me from succeeding.”
Things are never as good as they seem or as bad as they seem – When things are going good, don’t ever assume you’re home free. When things are going badly, don’t assume your career is over. During the good times, don’t get complacent, and during the bad times, don’t count yourself out.
Before you can be good, you’ve got to be bad – Most people have to slug it out and go through a learning process. Things usually start out crappy, but eventually they get better.
Before you can be great, you’ve got to be good.
Before you can be good, you’ve got to be bad.
But before you can be bad, you’ve got to try.
Art Williams concludes with some advice on how to make it easier to stay “up” most of the time.
Don’t compare yourself to others – Wherever you are on the road to winning, even as a rookie, be proud of where you are and who you are. Don’t apologize for anything.
Don’t get discouraged – One day the devil decided to go out of business, and he decided to sell all his tools. He displayed them for potential buyers to see. There was malice, hatred, jealously, greed, and deceit. But the tool with 
the highest price was discouragement. The devil said it was worth more because with it he could pry open a person’s consciousness so the other tools could do their work. The point is to keep your dream alive, and never, ever give in to discouragement.
Don’t almost do enough –
Most people almost work hard enough to win
Most people almost hang in there long enough to win
Most people almost have enough determination to win
Don’t do almost enough. Somebody is going to win and it might as well be you.
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