Vitamins for the Mind – Jim Rohn an INSPIRATION
via Vitamins for the Mind : Jim Rohn International.
Author: Graham Bunting
I have been around a while and seen some stuff for sure. I have experienced some good bad, indifferent and some downright fabulous.
I am still hugely motivated to get up every day and be curious. I love tech and business and most of all dogs oh and people are ok too ;-)
Having been in sales most of my working life I have a real interest in the art and science and am a committed lifelong learner - constantly frustrating my kids with my stock phrase "every day is a school day"
Personally, I’m a husband to one, and father to five amazing children (three of them are no longer children, but independent adults) and my golden lab – Archie, who is always pleased to see me.
I was blessed with becoming a Granddad in February 2021 (a very proud and somewhat besotted one) and another grandson arrived in October 2022 to keep their parents busy and for me to spoil.
I am also a mad keen lover of the oval ball game and a lifelong supporter of Leicester Tigers. As an Englishman, that's therefore England at a national level and the British and Irish Lions.
If I can be of service in any way including any area of developing a channel sales and support business or ecosystem partnerships, and or sales coaching or development, you can find me at the link below, and contact me via the form also.
One of my favourite "quotes" is
Life's journey is not to arrive at the grave safely in a well-preserved body. But rather to skid in sideways, totally worn out, with a beer in one hand, shouting "Whoo, what a ride!!"
Views here are 100% my own. https://grahambunting.bio.link/
This is a question that I have heard asked on many occasions in interviews for jobs, or of celebrities in TV interviews and many times I have listened to the answers without much reflection. There are always the perhaps more predictable responses – famous historic figures and others in the public eye, but the ones that carry most weight for me are the ones where people quote “real” people that they know – especially family members. Having said this, I rarely think much about this. Until now that is – I was just relaxing in my bath and my thoughts turned to recent conversations and the person in mind I started to remember interviewing him for a position in the company I worked for perhaps 10 years ago. I started to recall that I asked him this very question and his response needed no thought – it was his father who turned out to be a man of the church. So why am I blogging about this? The simple answer is that I have often reflected on people I admire and (sadly) for the first time I thought about my parents in this light….and I thought and thought, and you know what I AM absolutely proud and full of admiration for my parents. They brought my brother and I up incredibly successfully – we always had the essentials and were always loved and cared for. Both of my parents had to work to “make ends meet” and there were occasions when things were difficult, but they made sacrifices and made sure my brother and I always had what was needed. They are definitely my heroes, and you can be sure that I will tell them to their faces when I next see them 🙂
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It’s not so easy to sit comfortably over a coffee while reading emails or browsing websites in places like Starbucks since Watchdog pointed out how easy it is for fraudsters to hack into your laptop. The convenience of these wifi hotspots has become such a normal part of our everyday lives that it’s hard to give up, so it’s tempting to trust the computer firewall and lapse into a false sense of security again. Read more at BBC web site and http://www.geid.co.uk
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The Telecom industry is under-invested in training as a whole. This was the general feedback and view of many attendees of the recent Convergence Summit held at Sandown Park during a panel debate session. So why is this so? Do people generally feel that there is no need to invest in training because they already have all the skills they need to have? I’m sure that most of us need training and do generally welcome it, so why is this the case? Perhaps it’s as simple as not having sufficient training available to them… I’d be interested to know what holds us back in this area, because I know from first hand experience how valuable training is.
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There’s a great motivational poster that deals with CHANGE. It says that a bend in the road is not the end of the road UNLESS you fail to make the turn! And boy are there some bends in the road just now! If you are a difference person and therefore change oriented, then all is well, but what about the poor sameness person who likes things pretty much the way they’ve always been? It can be tough, but I offer this for those facing change. It’s not what happens to us, but what you do about it…watch this inspiring video and you’ll see what I mean ...W Mitchell
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What’s in it for me? And What are you going to do to help me? These are just two of the key questions any potential channel partner will be asking, presupposing that you can get an invitation to meet in the first place. How quickly can the new partner generate profitable revenues, and who will assist them to price, win and implement their initial sales? Next steps are to really build a significant revenue stream together and manage the support issues and obvious cash management challenges, notwithstanding the “hygiene” factors of ongoing training and relationship- building ongoing trust and goodwill. It is a worthwhile journey if you are committed to this path. One word of caution- don’t do this if investing is something you are trying to avoid – you can’t build success by “allowing” partners just to have access to your offering. You may make a few opportunistic sales, but you won’t build a business.
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So- you are a sales professional, and you have an in depth
understanding of your product or solution offering? Could you explain to your grandma what your product does or more importantly what problems your product solves for your customers? I fear that for many sales people today the answer is no (if we are being 100% honest and not just giving the answer you think should be given). This is an opportunity though if you can revisit and get to the problem or problems you solve. Think how much more powerful your proposition is if it’s framed this way.
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Like me, you may sometimes wonder why people make the decisions that they do, and I think the well known NLP presupposition covers this incredibly well – The map is not the territory. Essentially, our own internalised perception of the World is only the way we have recorded a situation and need not be the same as somebody else’s recollection. I think this helps to at least begin to explain the initial assertion of the decisions we see being made that perhaps don’t always make sense to us.
What prompted this thinking is the fact that the sales arena is a very complex one – often onlookers would say that selling is selling! However, there is much more to sales than might at first glance appear to be the case, but is this just my MAP?
It is really easy to become drawn into making sweeping statements about people who come from a certain background in sales as being unsuitable for a new and apparently different role – for example, a sales person who has spent a long time in a small company might be overlooked for a sales job in a large corporate organisation, and of course vice versa. This does not necessarily need to be the case. In fact in my experience I have witnessed many successful transitions from small business direct sales to large corporate indirect sales and the same in reverse.
So why does this occur? That’s difficult to say, other than to suppose that experiences have dictated for some people that the experience has been unsuccessful. Perhaps a deeper investigation into the individual’s skills and flexibility, through objective assessments may have uncovered this, and the mistakes may have been avoided and the perception changed.
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Amazing that this is probably one of the most frequent reasons sales people give for not investing in training. Got customers to see and deals to close is the cry, yet isn’t it the case that World Class athletes, sportsmen and women all participate in training and coaching regularly. I would suggest that taking time for regular, planned training is a fundamental component of success- wouldn’t you agree?
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So it looks like all of the talking and predicting has culminated in Avaya acquiring ailing Nortel Enterprise Solutions for a reported $900 millon…but it’s still subject to some final t-crossing and i-dotting which is expected to conclude later this year.
Speed is of the essence though, as whilst this period of uncertainty for Nortel remains, competitors will pillage the reseller base driving FUD in their paths.
It’s difficult to know how this will shape up moving forward and where the impact will be felt the most (both positively and negatively). Technology is the single most talked about area in conversations I have had, as there is a perception of huge overlap. I can see some really fascinating synergies though and areas to leverage in the quest to defeat their number 1 enterprise nemesis. As always in these matters – the HOW will be one of the biggest challenges. I’m sure we will all be watching with great interest.
Graham Bunting -The Partner Catalyst 
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