“I don’t believe in burnout.” – Grant Cardone

Do something you love and you’ll never truly work a day in your life.

People ask me, “Tony, how do you keep up the frenetic pace of 25 hours every day? How are you not beyond burnt out on selling, calling, and traveling across continents incessantly after 3 decades?” It doesn’t mean I love every element of what I do on a daily basis or enjoy the rejection laden gauntlet… even I run from dawn until dusk and I’ve had moments of near-implosion this year with finishing my next book, meeting client commitments and continuing to publish blog articles .

I blast ahead by getting off on the high I feel miles into a bike ride. I thrive on challenging myself daily for the breakthrough. When you really don’t care about hearing a ‘no’, the yeses are sweet! When all possible rain is water off a duck’s back because you’re making a positive difference, then you’ll make money rain too.

It’s possible to be joyful about this thing called SALES if you’re making a positive difference in the lives of all those you touch.

I have several secrets to preventing and avoiding burnout out over a 30 year career in sales. Here we go:

1. 80/20 rule. Isolate the 20% of your activity that yields 80% of the results or output. Do that before lunch. If I don’t do 2 major things that scare me before lunch, I shouldn’t have even worked that day. Yes, that means directly call 2 or 3 CEOs who could partner with me, who I could consult on revenue acceleration.
2. Curiosity. Yes, it killed the cat but not the human. You must become infinitely interested in other people. Even fascinated by buyer psychology… What makes them tick? How are each of their problems different like a snowflake or fingerprint? You could even take a course from Barry Rhein on Curiosity Based Selling. Prospects are fascinating. Peel the onion with open SPIN questions and turn your ‘listen to talk’ ratio on 20/80. Super hard to do and that discipline of “being fully there” (as I highlight in RSVPselling methodology) will “open doors where there were once walls,” per philosopher Joseph Campbell.
3. Exercise. You’re not going to hit 10X Massive action being sedentary hitting the red bull and jolt cola. Work/life balance comes from concentrating really hard and doing that ‘one thing’ as effectively (and highly leveraged) as possible in that moment. Exercise improves stamina and brain function. You can only become caffeinated for so long. The body’s natural energy systems bloom into a supernova of dopamine (not the Facebook cat video clicker kind), serotonin and endorphins when you can get your heart rate up. For me that’s cycling and not just weekend warrioring it. I often wake in the dark to strike out to put in 60 kilometers.
4. Altruism: I truly seek to help my partners, customers and network to PIF: pay it forward. There are some aspects to what I do that have more residual intrinsic value than money can ever buy. Mentoring wonderful people that exceed my ability. Truly stunning and humbling! Behavioral change at the client level and the client’s team is extremely rewarding when they grok the sales process, methodology and start to hammer high action down through the funnel to CLOSED-WON. Watching all the principles I espouse in these blogs, hardened in the trenches, come to fruition for those that would dare try apply COMBO literally, is what I live for!
5. Passion: You can call it Grant Cardone 10X or Obsession but I stay dedicated to setting 10X goals every day, every quarter and every year to push myself to the next level. I’ve hit many of them inadvertently by shooting for the stars and hitting a mountain.
6. Go off the grid: Every 90 days, shut off all your electronics and go into the outback on walkabout. You’ve gotta unplug from social media, your cell phone alerts, the screens, Netflix and chill, and inbox Zero false hope. Go back to nature or run across your country like Forest Gump. Get real and back to who you are as a human. Epiphanies flow to an open mind. Digital overload has deadened human creativity. Do you think Michaelangelo was rushing to respond to a tweet?
7. Life-Long Learning: Constantly strive for knowledge, wisdom, mentorship, reverse mentorship and read widely across many subject matter areas to cross-train. I absolutely loved this video by Jeb Blount. Readers are leaders and writers are sellers. Never stop learning! There’s truly a correlation between the level of success possible and how much one reads. Yes, you can learn by apprenticeship and doing but you need to get Zig, Bosworth, Eades, Thull, Holden, Rackham, Adamson, Holmes, et. al burned into your DNA! Turn your car into a classroom.

Instead of burning out, KTFB – keep the fire burning.

Sure there are days where you’ll feel overwhelmed (I have many), face the crippling defeat of a lost sale, be met with only silence and rejection, face the blowtorch of internal corporate politics, and flat out want to quit. You’re only human and that’s par for the course. But just like Billy Joel entreated, “Don’t forget your second wind!”

Persistence, tenacity, and grit will pay off in spades. Approach your life and your role with a “beginner’s mind” and growth mindset. Carpe Diem – Seize the day! Sometimes I feel like Benjamin Buttons. You’d be shocked that after reading hundreds of books, attending more seminars than I can remember, and coaching/closure of thousands of sales cycles, it’s still day one on the learning curve.

We’ve never lived in a more exciting time than right now. The machine age, the blossoming of the fourth industrial revolution (from automation to intelligence) where heart, man, machine and software automation are all simultaneously hitting a wild nexus point to finally carry the realm of B2B Complex Sales forward is incredibly invigorating!

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But life is too short to work with people you neither like nor respect. The first boss I fired was good person and we remain friends today but he could not provide me with a viable territory. It wasn’t really his fault, and he had been told to hire a sales person to ‘dominate the white space’… LOL! I discovered, painfully, that the ‘white space’ is that part of the market that’s already being serviced by your competitors or where there is little need for what is being offered.

But before I had the difficult conversation about our future together I worked hard for 6 months ‘trail-blazing our value proposition’ into a new vertical. I did the analysis by sizing the market, profiling potential clients and finding the industry influencers. I ran demand generation initiatives by working closely with marketing and I met with the industry leaders. I adopted a top-down selling approach to overcome the resistance we were encountering at mid-levels.

I felt I had earned the right and am committed to success and I said to my boss: “Either you’re going to fire me in 9 months for poor performance or I’m going to fire you in the 60 days for not providing me with a patch in which I can be successful. I’m happy to keep building this new vertical but I also need additional territory if I am to make my number.”

Seriously, when you’re at the interview, always ask: What’s my territory going to be, how viable is it? Also ask: ‘What happened here to make this role available – why wasn’t my predecessor successful?’

Before we continue, have a smile watching this video about Joshua Peters and Michael Blunt from my book. At the end of this post share your most outrageous stories concerning someone firing their boss. Perhaps via e-mail telling them to open their top drawer where the security pass, laptop and final expense claim is sitting?

In one of my posts I provide guidance to sales managers on who belongs in their sales team and how do they decide who needs to be managed-out? The “rule of 24” helps them make the decision but for sales people assessing whether to fire their boss I recommend the three Cs. The following is an excerpt from my Book, The Joshua Principle.

Success is a 50:50 proposition. By this I mean that you bring fifty percent of the potential for success and your employer represents the other side of the equation. You know that companies look for Competence, Commitment, and Character or Cultural fit when hiring someone and you should also consider these same things in evaluating your potential employer. In addition to the three Cs, you need them to discuss the three Ps. You should evaluate the potential for success within their organization based upon their response to the following topics: People, Proposition and Patch. Your employer has an obligation to provide an environment within which you can be successful. This means that they need to have people you are proud to work with (competent, committed and of good character), and a value proposition that is uniquely differentiated in the market; and a territory – patch – that is viable with an achievable quota.

Another good reason to fire your boss, or client for that matter, is when there is misalignment of values. An immutable law of selling is that people buy from those they like and trust… they also stay and work with those they like and trust.

Is your boss a person of integrity? The best boss I ever had was a woman. I think we need more female leaders because they are naturally wired for better relationships and better morality. People who are trying hard need to be nurtured, not napalmed with flame-thrower forecast pressure from lunatic managers seeking to manage what cannot be managed – revenue. Jason Jordan will convince you this is true.

Another boss I fired was the regional VP and I was country manager for Australia. He was a slippery soul, very cunning and good at self-optimization. He was happy to bold-face lie to staff about them being okay, and then instruct me quietly later to fire them. He happily abused his expense account and travelled internationally for his own personal purposes, staying in the finest hotels with limousines driving him everywhere. I didn’t handle it at all well but I learned much about how not to fire your boss.

The last time I fired my boss was after receiving an e-mail telling me to fire 40% of my employees in 48 hours by booking 15 minute back-to-back appointments before office hours in a hotel lobby to then hand them envelopes and advise they were locked out of the office and all systems. It was suggested that I follow the script and tell them that someone would be in touch to make a time for them come and collect a box with their stuff in it. At the time we were the most profitable region in the world – #1 amongst 40 offices globally. But when acquisitions happen, strange decisions get made. This true story is featured in an upcoming book on leadership written by Anthony Howard: Humanise, Why Human Centred Leadership Is The Key To The 21st Century.

So as you consider your current career; does your boss care about you, is he committed to your success? Is she competent? Do you have aligned values? Choose those with whom you share your life; especially with your work.

Photo is of legendary voice artist and actor, Matt Wills. Video was produced by Joel Philips who also plays role of Joshua Peters. Joel is a man of many talents… musician, actor, producer and leader.

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A lot has changed in the 25-plus years I have spent in the technology channel. New technologies, partner business models, shifting demographics, expanding communication vehicles, and most recently, new technology buyers with different psychologies, behaviors, and journeys have created a whirlwind of change for vendors, distributors, and partners alike.

The one constant is the complexity of finding, recruiting, and managing thousands of partners globally, each with their own unique set of business practices, target markets, value proposition, and culture. We estimate that there are over 600,000 partners worldwide when you include broader technology channels such as IT, telecom, print, pro A/V, etc. This doesn’t include the millions of companies that are converging into the tech services space from far and wide.

Channel partners know that to be successful, they need to carve out a niche — whether that be by line of business, by industry (and, increasingly, by subindustry), by size of customer, geographically, technologically, and by business model. These six vectors are not mutually exclusive, and buyers of technology are looking for a match across all of them.

Partner programs are going through a major change, as the number of nontransacting partners entering the market far outweighs traditional resale-type partners. Selling through the channel is rapidly changing to selling to and with partners.

Cutting through all these changes and finding the ideal partner profile can be a daunting task. The channel is highly diverse and incredibly decentralized. As someone who previously cofounded a company with the aim of bringing them together, I can assure you it isn’t easy!

Most vendors make the mistake of focusing too much on their own communication vehicles inside their domain. Partners continuously point this out to vendors in their advisory councils and repeatedly mark communication and collaboration as top inhibitors to selling more.

The magic behind finding, recruiting and nourishing a top performing channel boils down to three simple questions about partners:

1. What do they read?
2. Where do they go?
3. Who do they follow?

If you were able to ask all 600,000 global technology service companies (with an average of eight people at each) these three questions, you would learn that there are 56 channel-facing magazines around the world, 150-plus trade shows, numerous vendor and distributor communities, over a dozen associations and peer groups, and countless thought leaders who blog, run social media groups, host webinars and podcasts, and participate widely across the media and show landscape.

Understanding influence across this massive ecosystem is important for vendors. Some partners rank visibility and community involvement highest on their criteria for partnership, even higher than product, pricing, or margin potential.

The SMB (small- and medium-sized business) channel, which makes up over 90% of these firms, is significantly influenced inside its own chosen communities. For example, if you were to look at the MSP (managed services provider) market, you would find 31 distinct communities that highly influence the 50,000 MSPs globally. Targeting these 31 communities is a manageable and, for many vendors, profitable market.

With Google and numerous ratings sites at their fingertips, why do partners choose communities?

During this time of growing electronic ubiquity, the need for trusted and expert sources of information has increased significantly. The amount of competitive choices for products and services, combined with vast information on the internet and endless buzz through social media, has created a scenario where cutting through the white noise has become one of the most important skills.

Communities offer a smaller group of like-minded people (perhaps even competitors) who share similar experiences and challenges, have the ability to collaborate, and help improve decision making. The feeling of belonging is strong, as well as the affinity of membership. There is a feeling that communities are more democratic, as they are built by the membership, and participation is encouraged and celebrated.

Who Starts These Communities?

How Do These Communities Interact With Their Followers?

A dizzying array of new marketing vehicles have popped up in recent years. Traditional media such as magazines and events are very important in communicating to a community, but new media allows innovative ways to extend and enhance the message. From webinars, podcasts, vodcasts, blogs, tweets and LinkedIn and Facebook groups to virtual trade shows, community groups are using as many as 30 different marketing vehicles to drive collaboration within the group.

The challenge with these marketing vehicles is different than in the past. The main inhibitor to effective marketing used to be money; today, it is effective content and delivery. Many of the vehicles I mentioned above are free or cost very little compared with traditional media. Keeping content fresh, relevant, and abundant takes dedicated resourcing and should stretch beyond the marketing department.

Media savvy executives who can keynote an event, tweet about it offstage, promote the message through a podcast, do a media interview, and then write a blog about it later on represent the new model for the future. Messaging that would have required triple-checking through legal a few years ago needs to be sent out just in time and delivered consistently.

Be visible every day.

Community members have very effective personal spam filters. Anything that doesn’t add value to the community will be rejected and have a negative result for the vendor behind it. Selling to a community will be ignored and likely get you kicked out.

Beyond the human requirements of personal interaction and belonging, communities provide tangible benefits to all involved. Unfiltered information based on common experience will always trump random white papers and case studies posted on the internet. The give/get relationships within a community inspire openness and, in most of the communities I have seen, a level of bluntness that is refreshing.

Key Advantages Of Communities

What Is The Future Of Communities — And Why Now?

As information overload continues to flood the channel, communities will continue to form and grow, adding value to members. For example, we have grown from 10,000 software firms a decade ago to now over 175,000. I predict that this number will hit 1 million by 2028. What happens when a big chunk of these firms decide they need a channel?

Specialization will continue to expand as well, driving more need for these groups and subgroups. There is an upper limit to the size of a community where the point of diminishing returns kicks in, the point where coordination of the group and the generality of messaging outweigh the benefits listed above.

Smart communities will organize subgroups before the fringe members go off and launch a competing community. The permutations and combinations of geographic, technology, industry, line-of-business, solution, and business model specializations are endless.

Are you saying I should join thousands of communities?

No. Without some level of focus, you would stretch your organization too thin and not add value anywhere. For every firm I have worked with at Forrester, there are a manageable number of communities full of their ideal partners.

The future of the channel account manager will transition to community managers in order to support the diverse partner ecosystem. With millions of potential partners flooding into the marketplace, those that can find, recruit, manage, and nourish partners at scale will determine future winners and losers.

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