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Lessons from my mom and Dancing with the Stars

My mom, Jill Konrath of Selling to Big Companies, came to me yesterday with a request. 

She had just written an article for her newsletter on Sales Lessons from Dancing with the Stars--and she wanted me to blog about her amazing connection-making abilities.

Of course, I was delighted to oblige.  As I just wrote yesterday in Just Like Teaching Someone to Fish, creativity is all about making connections.

Besides, I had made a connection as well:

Not only do I have my mother to thank for a great upbringing, but she also helped pay for my college education, and has graciously allowed me to be her do-whatever-Jill-doesn't-want-to-do slave so I can earn some money while in grad school.

Plus, I'm dependent on her good will in the next couple months since I'll be living at home while looking for a real job.

So, obviously, I also thought it would be a GREAT idea to write about her brilliance!

According to my mom, here are some Sales Lessons that can be learned from Dancing with the Stars:

"You can't skip any steps."

Every dance has certain requirements that the judges expect to see. When the couples don't have enough turns or taps or whatever, they're docked points – which could ultimately lead to their eviction the following week.

Sellers who skip steps of the sales process in their attempts to get the business quickly, create obstacles that can delay or even derail their own sales efforts.

Customers have their own buying process to go through. They won't be rushed. The more sellers "push" towards closure, the more likely they'll blow it.

To win more sales, don't skip any steps.

Katie's note: Don't skip any steps in the creativity product/service development process either.  Like, for example, seeing if customers would actually be interested in your idea.  Not that anyone would ever forget to do that!

"The best option doesn't always win."

At the beginning of this season, actress Sabrina Bryan (Cheetah Girls) was clearly a formidable competitor. She danced beautifully and powerfully. Everyone was convinced she would be in the finals. But halfway through the competition, she was booted off the show because the viewers hadn't voted for her.

Sellers need to constantly be aware of anything that could negatively impact their sales efforts. If the right people in the company aren't advocating for your product or service, your ability to win the sale is at risk.

To stay in the game, make sure people are cheering for you.

Katie's note: It's not true that if you build a better mousetrap, the world will beat a path to your door.  Let's face it, even the best new ideas  get a negative reaction at first.  Unless you can get the right people enthusiastic about your idea, it can easily fail.

"Lack of confidence doesn't sell."

Jennie Garth, actress of Beverly Hills: 90210 fame, came out week-after-week and did a yeoman's job. But she didn't believe she was a dancer and it showed. At times, it felt like she was counting steps or moving tentatively, afraid to really get into the role the dance needed from her. Instead, her niceness showed through – and it cost her.

Making a decision to change from the status quo is risky. Customers worry about what might go wrong or if they'll achieve the desired results. Sellers who are confident in their firm's capabilities often can provide the impetus to move ahead.

To initiate change, know the difference you can make.

Katie's note: If you don't know how your new idea does something new and remarkable, chances are that others won't know either.  Great ideas get attention and get people talking.  That's why we love them.

So, there are 3 of the 5 connections my mom made on her blog.  If you want to read the rest, go here.

You know what the best part about the Dancing with the Stars connections she made?

People loved it!  She's gotten more emails and comments about this one article that a lot of her serious ones.

And that's the other part of innovative thinking that's worth remembering:

Don't get so wrapped up in the serious business of coming up with ideas (or being a sales expert) that you forget to enjoy it!

Creativity is serious business, of course, but people always have better ideas when they're having fun!
 

Just like teaching someone to fish.

Creativity is not just about creating buy-it-now, I-gotta-have-it gadgets, opening new markets, or making the cover of Fast Company.

Creativity is as simple as seeing an opportunity or making a connection that turns into something greater than itself.

Consider this fantastic story on Larry James' Urban Daily, a blog about "ideas, resources, commentary and opinions concerning the issues facing low-income residents of the inner cities of the United States".

...a very poor woman came to one of our Resource Centers seeking assistance to pay a past due utility bill. Serving over 50,000 people annually makes it impossible for us to pay utility bills except on rare occasions.

The interviewer/case worker who visited with this woman was herself a very low-income person, as are most of our volunteers. She knew the ropes of poverty herself and came up with a great idea for the woman with the overdue light bill.

On this particular day our Thrift Store had a special sale on clothing going on--all the clothing you could stuff into a large trash bag for $1.00!

Our counselor handed the woman $2.00 out of her own pocket with the suggestion that she go to the store, purchase two large bags of clothing, return home and prepare them for sale in a yard sale to see how much money she could earn toward the payment of the overdue bill.

The woman took her advice.

About a week later, the woman returned. She located the volunteer and reported with great excitement that she had turned the $2.00 investment in clothing into more than enough to pay her bill!

She proudly repaid the $2.00 loan and went back to the Thrift Store to purchase more used clothing for another sale! ...

In this instance, the counselor saw an opportunity.

She knew that the ministry couldn't afford to give away money, but she also knew about the thrift center sale (something the woman in need did not).  Connecting the two gave her the ability to help in an urgent situation.

And the best part is that she empowered the woman to help herself in a sustainable way.

It's said that if you "Give someone a fish; you have fed them for today. Teach someone to fish; and you have fed them for a lifetime."

It's the same with opportunities.  Once people have seen new possibilities, they are able to take advantage of them.

Making that first creative connection (no matter how small it is) is the hard part.

Being too busy to think is actually an excuse.

What can I say? It's been a while.  I've been busy. I've been traveling.  I'm was helping my mom with a conference.  I'm just starting German classes again.  I need to find a real job.  I can't think of anything to write.  It's the holidays!  I'm graduating soon. (Eeek!)

Yeah, yeah.  Excuses, excuses.

To be honest, I just didn't have it in me to write anything remarkable, or talk intelligently about ideas, or (especially) come up with ideas on my own.

Ever felt like that?

This is because creativity is a mental function that reacts negatively to stress.  The more stress someone has in their life, the less likely they are to be creative.

A recent study by researchers at Ohio State University called The Effects of Auditory Stressors on Cognitive Flexibility (PDF) found that when participants were in a stressful environment, they became worse at doing mental tasks that required lateral thinking.

Although this test used a constant, annoying background noise to irritate participants, there are a lot of other factors that reduce creativity too.

For example: 3M has long been known as an innovative company, but in recent years they've lost their edge. 

Why?  Because a couple years ago, 3M started using Six Sigma company-wide and their tolerance for "failed inventions" plummeted. 

Engineers started having to worry about every possible reason their invention could fail, and what would happen if they presented an idea that wasn't up to Six Sigma standards.

Oh, and 3M had also started trimming the fat--which meant that some engineers (who had spent years being loyal to the company and expecting the same in return) suddenly found themselves unemployed.

Small wonder that no one wanted to stick their neck out.  The inventors had a lot to lose by being creative!

I'd also venture that stress from extreme busyness reduces creativity as well. 

The more people have on their plate, the less they want to spend time exploring possibilities.  It becomes more about getting things done than "seeing what possibilities are out there."

It's sad, but when there's stress, creativity is one of the first things to go down the tubes. 

People have so many other things to worry about that they don't feel like they can spare the time to be innovative, and then (if they even bother to try) their brains are already so engaged with other things that no new ideas can find their way out.

And then, they start worrying that they can't be creative, which makes the whole situation even worse.

Interestingly, one of the best ways to get out of the creativity death spiral is to just charge straight ahead.

That's what I did here.  I was so completely stuck I just wrote down everything I could about my brain being mired in the muck of a thinking block.  Eventually the clogs started grinding again and it stopped being so painful to put the words together.

I was even connecting concepts again!

But the most important thing is that the rust is gone and the pressure is off.  It's no longer "oh no, I really should be thinking about this--but I have so many other things to do that I really can't."

The ball has started rolling again, and it's all downhill from here.

(Hmmm... not sure that last sentence sounded right.  But hopefully you get my point.)  ;-)

Stay tuned.  We're now back to our regularly-scheduled programming.

Think about the bathroom much? You should!

How often do you talk about bathrooms?

Probably not too much.  In fact, most of us would rather NOT talk about them.  Why not?  Because the subject usually only comes up when something goes wrong.

If we're lucky, it's just a lack of toilet paper.  Or someone neglected their turn to clean the bathroom.  Or the toilet isn't flushing or is backed up.  (A circumstance most of us pray will never, ever happen when we're at someone else's house!)

But have you ever thought about how much a bathroom influences our perception of a place?

At my very first job, as a restaurant hostess, our manager pulled us aside on the very first day to say, "One of the most important parts of your job is making sure that the bathroom is clean."

According to him, people judge restaurants on the shape of their bathrooms.  If the bathroom isn't up to snuff, who knows what other corners the restaurant is cutting?

A group of bloggers just did a really fascinating series on bathrooms and customer service called the Bathroom Blogfest. 

They wrote about the fabulous extra touches in a bathroom that make customers feel appreciated, how businesses ruin their image with bad bathroom experiences, how brands are moving into bathrooms, and about bathrooms that are just so cool that they're almost a destination themselves.

I promised a post as well, but my focus is more on creative ideas than the the customer experience.

But why not innovate to improve customer experiences?  That sounds like a great idea for me.

When I was traveling around Germany this summer, we spent hours on the autobahn.  So, of course, we also went to many roadside gas stations and rest-stops.

Ouch, right?  There's just something about freeway bathroom breaks that make us want to cringe.

Not in Germany though.  Those autobahn rest stops were actually pretty cool.

Why?  First of all, they solved the non-customer issue.

Gas stations and restaurants provide bathrooms for their customers.  But what about the non-customers, or the ones who buy pack of gum to reduce their guilt?  The store loses money on them.

The bathroom rest stops on the German autobahn solved this by installing a turnstile.   It cost 50 euro cents to get in.

The smart thing about this though, was that each customer received a receipt for their money that was also a voucher for the adjoining store.

So, even though the bathroom cost 50 cents, it was free for people who wanted to buy something else.

In my opinion, that's very fair and a creative solution to the problem.

The store still has a free bathroom for their paying customers, but is also providing a service for people who only want the bathroom.

Secondly, they made sure that customers had a good experience.

Of course, paying for a bathroom is only tolerated when that bathroom is clean and stocked.

Here, the German autobahn bathrooms also hit a home run.  All the bathrooms were spotless.  They had motion operated sinks and soap dispensers.  They had hand dryers.

But, the toilets were the real highlight. (I can't believe I'm actually writing that, but it's true. Watch.)

That was a motion-triggered, self-cleaning toilet!  Every time it flushes, the seat is sterilized automatically.

Laugh at my enthusiasm all you want, but I think it's a great innovation!

The absolute most important thing in a public bathroom is cleanliness.  The fact that someone spent time figuring out how to achieve this automatically so that a high-traffic rest stop bathroom stays clean... well, lets just say it made my day.

Bathrooms are not exactly the most exciting place for innovation, but they're a pretty important part of our lives.  And sometimes a simple innovation can make a big difference.

It's a good reminder that a lot of great ideas happen because someone spends time focusing on an area that most people overlook.

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If you want to learn some more about the Bathroom Blogfest, head over to the Bathroom Blogfest blog, or visit the authors directly:

• Kate Rutter—Adaptive Path
• Laurence Helene Borel—Blog Till You Drop
• Iris Shreve Garrott—checking out and checking in
• Susan Abbott—Customer Experience Crossroads
• Maria Palma—Customers Are Always
• Becky Carroll—Customers Rock!
• Toby Bloomberg—Diva Marketing
• Stephanie Weaver—Experienceology
• Linda Tischler—Fast Company Now
• C.B. Whittemore—Flooring the Consumer
• Ed Pell—K+B DeltaVee
• Helene Blowers—Library Bytes
• Claudia Schiepers—Life and its little pleasures
• Katie Clark—Practical Katie
• Sandra Renshaw—Purple Wren
• Reshma Anand—Qualitative Research
• Marianna Hayes—Results Revolution
• Carolyn Townes—Spirit Women
• Sara Cantor—The Curious Shopper
• Anna Farmery—The Engaging Brand
• Dee McCrorey—The Ultimate Corporate Entrepreneur
• Katia S. Adams—Transcultural