“If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got.”

― Henry Ford

You may also have heard that Einstein said “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.”

You may have heard something similar from Tony Robbins, Mark Twain and now me.

Why am I writing about this today? Three reasons...

This week, I talked to a guy who consistently sells 50% more than the #2 salesperson in the company and sells at less than a discount than anyone else in the company. In other words, he's a profit center. The company wants to grow by adding salespeople and adding markets. Last week, the least productive salesperson resigned. The top guy calls and asks how can I get the CEO to buy into using our sales assessment to hire our new people? (Here's what you need to know. We've evaluated everybody, including the top producer and the guy that just resigned.) My answer: If the CEO knew whether the candidates sales competencies aligned with yours or the guy that left, would that help in hiring the right guy? His answer: The CEO is:

• Scared to introduce additional steps and
• Scared of introducing steps that don't allow us to definitely screen someone out.

Huh? Sounds to me like someone is stuck doing what they've always done.

I've written about this former client before. I call him a former client, but he's not really. He signed up for a 'sampler coaching' program that his manager and peers forced him into and was paid for by his employer. He knows that my rock stars have certain things in common. He has most of them. He knows me. We've spoken. His last employer 'suggested' that he hire me to figure out a set of tactics. We worked together for a month. When I told him that I don't consider that engagement a success, he replied with "Curious to hear why you feel our engagement wasn't successful. I achieved my goal, so I look at our engagement as a success, but interested to hear your thoughts. Maybe it's because I haven't given you a shout-out on Linkedin yet?"

He hasn't grown. He's no more capable than he was when we started our four week engagement. He's was looking to buy a box off the shelf with an answer. He totally missed that he's the one that's holding himself back. He makes what most would call good money, but it's not the answer. How's he gonna fix it? He's looking for a new job.

BTW, he hasn't given me a "shout-out" on LinkedIn yet because he thinks that he'd be helping me and he won't until he knows that he'd be helping his followers and he won't do that until he stops doing the same stuff and changes himself.

The third reason is that it's Labor Day. Many prospects are coming back from summer fun. Many businesses will be making the final push of the year to finish 2019 strong. Many salespeople will be ready to double down, but is that really what Ford, Einstein and the others are talking about? Are they really suggesting that you do twice as much of the stuff that hasn't worked in the past? What needs to change? What could you get done? How do you know what you're capable of?

If you're tired of being stuck...

If you want 4Q19 to be bigger than the rest of the year...

If you're ready to change what you do to change what you get...

Start here. Make Tuesday, 9/3 "Turn Around Tuesday".