I was reading something by internet sales "guru" Michael Oliver today. He says that sales is not about creating “relationships,” and comments thus:

"Let’s be clear about this. It’s NOT about having a nice chat, creating a relationship and calling them back next week.

It IS about establishing in the first call whether they are serious about changing their present situation and whether they are prepared to do something about it. That’s all. If they are, you introduce your solution and how it can help them get what they want."

In recent years their has been a lot of buzz in business about what is called 'relationship selling'. As the name implies, you don't sell to people, you get to know them, build a rapport and eventually get around to making them a customer.

So why does this matter here at Key Thoughts?.
Because success in life, in nearly all regards, hinges on your ability to either DO something or SELL something. There is little middle ground.

Skilled tradesmen, lawyers, sailors, nurses... these people, from all walks of life, all know how to DO something. That which they know how to do is valuable and so is something for which others will pay. SO what if you don't know how to do anything?

Then you sell something. In fact, even those will "skills" must at sometime or another sell themselves and their skills. Many fortunes have been made by men and women who have no formal skills or education, but are good sales people. It is a field that takes no advanced degrees, adept hands or specialized skills. All you need to know, as Mr. Oliver suggests, is whether the products or services you sell...

a) Can help the people you meet,
b) Are needed by these people and,
c) Are something they can pay for.

If these criteria cannot be met, then so be it. You don't have to leave them in the dirt at that point, in fact no good salesman will. And you can have a relationship with them, albeit it will a customer based one later on. As Mr. Oliver says, "In the meantime, you bow out graciously. You let them know that when they are ready, you’re ready. Then clear your mind and move on to talk with others who ARE prepared to do something about their situation."

In fact, creating a personal relationship for the purpose of making a sale is borderline dishonest. It is certainly ingenuine. Instead, the relationships you build with people are created as a natural consequence of how you relate to those people - thus the name. In other words, the relationship is created regardless of the outcome.

Zig Ziglar, the self-help guru, is famous for saying that "...helping people get what they want will help you get what you want." If this is true, then it takes two people to make a sale and it certainly behooves you to create relationships with them. Finding the right ones that can buy today will help you on your way to success... and pay your bills in the meantime.

But creating healthy human relationships with all of them with whom it is possible to do so, will help you on your way in the future. So if you are intent to GO, DO, and BECOME in this life (as you should be), then consider this 'relationship outlook' as you meet people and look for ways you can help both them and you.

You Dont Need Talent

Alright, having talent can't hurt. But what is really needed as you work your way throught life, trying to BECOME, is best illustrated by this quote from Andrew Carnegie:

"People who are unable to motivate themselves must be content with mediocrity, no matter how impressive their other talents" - - Andrew Carnegie

WOW! Talk about impact!. Mr Carnegie was good for that; any study of him, no matter how perfuctory, will show that. But read that again...

Talent doesn't matter as much as being able to get yourself out of your comfy chair and do the things you must DO. It is crucial, in fact, if you are to change yourself and your life - in other words, to GO, DO AND BECOME.

So think about what it is you want to BECOME, and get to work on it. Even if all you do right now is plan and align your thoughts, that is a start. It is the putting off of action - any action - that is the show stopper.

So get motivated and GO, DO and BECOME!

I’ve been reading the biography of Theodore Roosevelt as my quarterly and self-improvement project. This is the original work by Henry Pringle, considered the definitive source on “Old Teddy.”

I find it to be a fascinating look at a very fascinating individual. While TR was, by all accounts, rather “high maintenance” by today’s standards, he was also overcome with the fervent desire to do the right things by the country.

More than that, though, is the revealing look into the inner workings of politics provided by the book. Today, we clamor for transparency and disclosure in politics. But there was none of that back then. For the politicians of T.R.’s day, it was about deal brokering, special influence peddling and a fervent desire to dominate the opposition. The politicians of his day no more considered themselves "men of the people" than today's political luninaries.

The more I read up on it, in fact, the more I find there is little difference in today’s politics than in Teddy's day. Oh, we cling to a pretense of openness and we give lip service to honesty. But these aren't qualities and attributes we actually hold anyone to.

When Barak Obama won the election I was interested to see Democrats in Congress pumping their fists, red-faced and flushed with emotion. As they jumped and reeled in giddy triumph, I was more shocked to hear the shouts from these so-called leaders… “We’re gonna show them – Now it’s our turn to stick it to ‘em!”


No mention was made by any of them about serving the people of their districts, or looking out for the country’s best interests. No, it was retribution time in their minds, and a pound of someone's flesh was going to be taken.

NOTE: This vid clip quickly disappeared from the various media outlets. I don't think it lasted a day and I doubt you can even find it on YouTube anymore.

The more I learn about how the fabric of politics is really woven, the more I realize that it is the very lack of unity that makes us strongest. Think about it for a minute:

If we are all of one mind, sharing one voice in a society-wide group hug… then what we have is a monocracy.

Democracy and individual choice is gone. There is no dissent, there is no one to raise the red flag in a monocratic rule when something isn't right.

Frankly, I'm firm in the belief that it is not in us to be unified. To impose togetherness on us artificially is the height of ignorance, or requires total brainwashing of the indivdiual.

This is why, in the end, Utopia never works out and why so many promised reforms fall short. Sooner or later, someone wises up and revolts – individually and often enough collectively. The trouble is, it’s very hard to undue the harm done by the ersatz "reformists" of the world while they hold sway. Best to nip it in the bud, before it goes too far, and let us go on with our separate ideals.

That is what Teddy would have done.

A Recipe for Riches
by Duncan Greenberg

Want to become a tech titan or hedge fund tycoon? Up your chances by dropping out of college or go to Harvard and work at Goldman Sachs.

Are billionaires born or made? What are the common attributes among the uber-wealthy? Are there any true secrets of the self-made?

These questions come up a lot, so lets look beyond the broad answers of smarts, ambition and luck by sorting through our database of wealthy individuals in search of bona-fide trends. We analyzed everything from the profession of entrepreneurs' parents to where they went to school, their track records in the early stages of their careers and other experiences that may have set them on the path to extreme wealth.

Our admittedly unscientific study of the self-made members of the Forbes 400 yielded some interesting results.

First, a significant percentage of them had parents with a high aptitude for math. The ability to crunch numbers is crucial to becoming a billionaire, and mathematical prowess is hereditary. Some of the most common professions among the parents of Forbes 400 members (for whom we could find the information) were engineer, accountant and small-business owner.

Consistent with the rest of the population, more American billionaires and near-billionaires were born in the fall than in any other season. However, relatively few of them were born in December, historically the month with the eighth-highest birth rate.

Of the 274 self-made tycoons on the Forbes 400, 14% either never started or never completed college. The number of precocious college dropouts is highest among those who forged careers as technology entrepreneurs: Bill Gates of Microsoft (MSFT), Steve Jobs of Apple (AAPL), Michael Dell of Dell (DELL), Larry Ellison of Oracle (ORCL) and Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook.

Forbes 400 members who derive their fortunes from finance make up one of the most highly educated sub-groups: half of them have graduate degrees. Roughly 70% of those with M.B.A.s obtained their master's degrees from one of three Ivy League schools: Harvard, Columbia or the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business.

Goldman Sachs (GS) has attracted a large share of hungry minds that went on to garner 10-figure fortunes. At least 11 current and recent billionaire financiers worked at Goldman or one of it subsidiaries early in their careers, including Edward Lampert, David Tepper, Daniel Och and Leon Cooperman.

Several Forbes 400 members suffered bitter professional setbacks early in their careers that heightened their fear of failure. Pharmaceutical tycoon R.J. Kirk's first venture was a flop--an experience he regrets but appreciates. "Failure early on is a necessary condition for success, though not a sufficient one," he told Forbes in 2007.

According to a statement read by Phil Falcone during a congressional hearing in November 2008, his botched buyout of a company in Newark, N.J., in the early 1990s taught him "several valuable lessons that have had a profound impact upon my success as a hedge fund manager."

Several current and former billionaires rounded out their Yale careers as members of Skull and Bones, the secret society portrayed with enigmatic relish by Hollywood in movies like The Skulls and W. Among those who were inducted: investor Edward Lampert, Blackstone co-founder Stephen Schwarzman, and FedEx (FDX) founder Frederick Smith.

Courtesy of Forbes Magazine.

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SO what can we learn from this? Be smart, that's one thing. Be good at math, in particular. Be born in the fall. If you cannot change the date of your birth, well... at least act like you were born in September!

Another thing is don't give up. Expect setbacks and keep pushing on. Be involved in cutting edge technologies and industries, too. It doesn't have to be "techie," but it needs to be doing something different from everyone else. If you can be involved in finance or the world of money - so much the better.

But above all else... do something. Quit complaining about life or dreaming, and do something, anything, to get you to where you want to be. None of the people we find among the uber-rich got there by bitching or blaming "The Man," "The System, or anything else. They know that is for losers, so they set themselves apart and decided instead to become great. "Let the rest be content to follow," would be a common phrase among them.

If you want to be like them then you must Go, Do, and Become, yourself. Nothing else will do.

"If you can't get rid of the skeleton in your closet, you'd best teach it to dance." - - George Bernard Shaw

In 1912, the printer was all set to run three million copies of Teddy Roosevelt's nomination speech, complete with photographs of Roosevelt and his VP candidate, the immortal Hiram Johnson. Then the chairman of the campaign committee discovered that no one had obtained permission from the photographer who had taken the pictures. Legal penalties for the copyright violation could be as much as $3 million. The printing plates were made. Changing the photos would be extremely expensive. But no one knew what the photographer might demand for the rights. It was even possible that, heaven forbid, the man was a Democrat.

There were a number of them afoot in those days, you know, and they were an unpredictable lot. The photographer might even deny the committee the pictures altogether. The chairman sent off a quick telegram: "Planning to issue three million copies of Roosevelt speech with pictures of Roosevelt and Johnson on the cover. Great publicity opportunity for photographers. What will you pay us to use your photographs?"
"Appreciate the opportunity," the photographer replied, "but can only pay $250."
The chairman accepted without dickering. He probably could have held out for $350 or $400.

We all want to be positive and enthusiastic about what we have to offer: about our companies, our products, our careers, our selves, our various proposals and visions. But far too often we try to accomplish that by ignoring or burying potential negatives. Everything is wonderful, let's all think happy thoughts, the glass is half full not half empty.

Unfortunately, as we all know, reality has a nasty way of refusing to stay ignored. "So you're saying you shopped around and my prices are really that much higher than those of baby shop down the street? Well . . . ah . . . I mean . . . Hey, look! There's Elvis!"

In his book, "Filling the Glass: the Skeptic's Guide to Positive Thinking in Business" (Dearborn 2001), Barry Maher focuses on strategies for handling these types of potential negatives. The idea is to deal with reality rather than to simply putting the best face on it: to fill the glass rather than worrying about whether to call it half empty or half full. One of the most effective strategies—and one of the most counter-intuitive—is the one exemplified by that Roosevelt story. That strategy is called, Making the Skeleton Dance, after a quote by George Bernard Shaw...

"If you can not get rid of the family skeleton, you may as well make it dance."

People keep telling me that in Chinese the word for problem is the same as the word for opportunity. (They also keep telling me that Coca Cola means bite the wax tadpole.) I have no idea if that's actually true. But I do know that the Making the Skeleton Dance strategy has turned more than a few problems into opportunities.

For example, how often in your business career have you stumbled over that issue of price? Too many of us act like charging what we are worth is something to be ashamed of. Here's how I brag about that particular negative.

"Are my hourly consultation rates expensive? Absolutely. And why do I charge so much? Because my clients are not just willing but happy to pay those kind of rates - because of the results I generate for them. Because they know I'm worth it.
Can you hire somebody else to do the job for less? Absolutely. I'll be glad to supply you with phone numbers.

But why do you think these companies charge less? Do you really think they would charge less if they could charge more? They're not running humanitarian services, I assure you. They charge less because that's what they can get—that's what their clients are willing to pay for the results they generate. Now let me tell you why my clients are so willing to pay more."

Often the secret to making peace with a negative, is to find a way you can honestly brag about it. Save the Reality Checklist below for the next time you're confronted with a negative you're tempted to bury or to try to ignore. You just might find that instead of a negative you've got a selling point—even a bragging point.

Reality Checklist

What are the negatives you need to present—or wish you could avoid presenting—to others?

- Understand the potential downside of those negatives to everyone involved.

- Understand the potential positives that surround those negatives: for you, your company, and most especially to those you'll be presenting the negatives to.

- Isolate the What's in It for Them for each of the Thems you need to reach.

- Take care of the What's In it for Them, and the what's in it for you—and the company—will take care of itself.

- Marshall your best possible case, then imagine yourself presenting that case to the biggest Doubting Thomas you're likely to encounter.

- Are you, yourself, really sold? If not, don't expect that you'll be able to sell anyone else.

• If you're not sold, what would it take—what can you do—to make the case more saleable? If it can reasonably be done, do it. If it can't be done, deal with the reality, explaining why it is the reality, frankly and honestly.

• Never forget that truth is the ultimate sales trick.

Adapted from Filling the Glass: The Skeptic's Guide to Positive Thinking in Business by Barry Maher (Dearborn 2001).