Three stories from this week.

First, I've been a bit reflective this week.

My Uncle Sam died suddenly on Tuesday. Last Thursday (July 16) would have been his 90th birthday. He had 6 children and a gazillion grand children and great grand children. Most of them live less than 20 minutes away and it seemed like he was always somewhere with one of them. He had a pretty full life, but I wondered if he did everything on his bucket list. There's more to the story, but it would take too long.

That got me thinking about my own bucket list.

Second, I was talking with a past client today. He shared this story. When he hired me, he was on probation for missing quota. We worked together for four months and in the fifth month, he was not only off probation, but he also got promoted. Today he told me that he had set a record at his company that stands today and will probably continue to stand for a long time. He sold 127% of his whole year's quota in one month December, 2018.

I realized that I don't actually have a bucket list. Like my Uncle Sam, somebody comes along and asks, "Can you help me with this?" and I help. When we're done, I check it off.

Finally, I was listening to the hullabaloo about testing for the Coronavirus and I realized that people's attitudes toward health testing closely aligns with the attitudes that I've seen when I talk with someone about evaluating a salesperson or sales force.

• I don't know if I really want to know.
• I want to be tested to prove that I'm OK.
• I want to be tested so that I know what I have to do to stay healthy.
• I'm not healthy and I need to know how to feel better.
• I'm afraid of false positives or false negatives.
• I don't need to know because I'm not gonna change anything about the way I live.

Some of my clients set records that stand for years. Some start their own companies and grow a sales force. Some have great success as a rep and manager and wind up being successful CEOs or Sales VPs. Some enjoy being the perennial top rep in the company forever. It's their dream that they put on my bucket list. Not mine.

If you'd like to talk about your dream(s), evaluating yourself or your team, or selling in this environment, this might be a good place to start.