Over the last few months, it seems that all anyone is talking about is the economy, bank failures, sub-prime loans, stock market declines, the price of a barrel of oil and unemployment numbers.  And yes, if you listen to the media, read the papers and magazines, it can get pretty depressing.

I recently asked my network of sales professionals what were the top three challenges that they were facing in hitting their sales quotas.  I did get some insightful comments.  But I also got a lot of negative, depressing comments about the economy and budgets being cut and quotas being too high.

Here is my thought, now, more than ever, we need to stop thinking about ourselves, worrying abour ourselves and hunker down and spend more time focused on our customers.  The old saying “It’s not about me, it’s about you” is true.  Yes, it is hard not to get worried about sales and company income and personal income.  But we must spend more time digging deeper into our customers business and finding solutions to help them solve their problems, find solutions to help them enhance their products, so that they can sell more. 

The value add is not really your product or your company or the brand.  The value add is you.  The difference between you and your competitor is not the lastest widget, it’s you.  The most successful sales organizations are the ones that understand that the way they sell is the largest difference between success and failure.

So, maybe, stop reading the papers.  Stop watching CNN.  Start reading your customers web pages, annual reports, 10-K reports, press releases and brochures.  Reach out and meet more people than you know today in your customers.  Ask more questions.  Ask better questions.  Start helping them find something that will differentiate themselves from their competitors.  I think if you do that, your sales will appear and you will hit your numbers, and the doom and gloom in the media will wash right over you!

I have been a member of Toastmasters for about 18 months now.  While I spent 20+ years speaking to many different types of groups, mostly sales presentations, I had never been in Toastmasters.

When I got into the professional speaking business last year, I thought it was time I joined Toastmasters to work on my speaking skills.  I joined Peachtree Toastmasters in Atlanta.  Fantastic club, great members. 

The beauty of Toastmasters is that you get plenty of practice speaking, but you get a quick evaluation the same night.  Another member gets up after your speech and gives an evaluation, pointing out the things you did well and what you could do to improve.

This past Monday I gave a speech from the Advanced Communication Manual for Story Telling.  The objective was to deliver a Folk Tale or Tall Tale.  So, I wrote my own tall tale, an exaggerated story that was actually based on a true story.  I had a lot of fun taking the kernel of the true story from a camping trip with me and my daughter.  I did plenty of edits, practiced a lot, and was ready to go!

The guy doing my evaluation is a very experienced speaker and knows I am in the business, so he delivered a more critical evaluation than you might do for a novice speaker.  He opened his evaluation with the title of this blog, “Marty, great delivery, great presentation, great drama……but fire your writer!”

He then proceeded to back up his statement….and he was 100% right!  It was great feedback and a great reminder for us all.  We can have the best performance, the best drama, the best vocal variety, the best physicality, but if the story is disjointed or not logical or doesn’t flow well, then the speech does not have the impact it should.

Most people I work with on their speaking want to jump right into the “platform” phase or the “stage” portion of their speech.  I take them back to their script, back to the message, back to the text.  Think about it, the best movies are the ones where the director and actors start with a fantastic script.

So, my own experience was a great lesson for us all.  Focus first on writing a great speech, on writing a logical and well thought out script.  Have others read it and react and help you edit it.  Once the story, the message, the plot and the characters are well thought out and written, THEN move on to working on the delivery and presentation.

Yesterday I went to Spartanburg, SC to attend the Boy Scout Eagle Award ceremony for my nephew, Sam Mercer, my brother Mitchell’s son.  It was a terrific ceremony and great to see teenage boys applying themselves to learn things and excel and develop great habits that will follow them the rest of their life.

My Dad was there as well.  So it was even nicer when they asked any Eagle Scout to come up to the front and stand with Sam (and his friend Drew who also earned his Eagle).  Both my Dad and I are Eagle Scouts.  This year is the 35th anniversary of my Eagle Scout ceremony, down in Tampa, Troop 22, where I grew up.

On the drive back to Atlanta I got a call asking if I could sub in today for a spin instructor at the YMCA where I also teach a spin class.  I agreed and when I got home, made a really great song list and workout for the 5:45 am spin class.

However, when I got to the Y this morning, there was something wrong with the stereo and sound system, and no music would come out of my iPod.  It worked fine with my ear buds, but nothing with the stereo.  A spin class without great loud music is pretty ugly!

So, I dug into my gym bag and found the 10 or so spin music CD’s that I made about a year ago.  I have been carrying these CD’s around and never using them.  Every now and then I thought about taking them out of the gym bag, but didn’t.

I grabbed one of the CD’s, put it into the CD player of the sound system, and voila, music!  Of course, since I didn’t have a written song list on my spin bike, I had no clue what songs would play.  So, as each song would start, I would quickly make up something for that song, and we had an awesome 75 minute workout!

I told my nephew Sam yesterday that the lessons he learned and skills he developed getting his Eagle would follow him the rest of his life.  Little did I know that my “words of wisdom” to a 16 year old young man would follow me this morning. 

So, like the Boy Scout Motto says, Be Prepared.  I was this morning, but only because I had my backup plan stashed in my gym bag, extra CD’s.  So, today’s updated lesson to remember is, Be Prepared….And Have a Backup Plan!

This past Saturday I was cutting my yard (yes, I am one of the few who still cuts their own grass!) and a part on my lawnmower broke.  I could still use the lawnmower, so when I got done I took it into my lawnmower repair guy Mac.  His shop is right next door to an equipment rental store, and so when his door wouldn’t open, I popped into the rental store to find out when Mac would be back.

The guy at the counter gave me some terrible news, Mac had passed away!  He died back in June of this year from a blood clot.  He was probably in his late 60′s or early 70′s.

Mac was the kind of guy who could fix anything, especially if it had a motor.  His shop was full of old lawnmowers, blowers, edgers, pressure washers, mixers, saws.  When you took your lawnmower in, Mac would eyeball it, mumble in his low gruff voice, “I can fix that, come back in a week.”  No paperwork, no minimum fees, no credit cards. 

In 2004 Hurrican Ivan blew through Pensacola, came up the Chattahoochee river and blasted Atlanta.  It flooded Peachtree Creek in our neighborhood.  We were the last house in our neighborhood to get flooded.  All of my gas powered lawn equipment got flooded and covered with layers of Georgia red clay silt and muck.  I took them all into Mac.  When he looked at them, it seemed as if he had a gleam in his eye.  I thought all of them were totalled.  He looked at me, ran his hands over the equipment, and for the first time ever, I saw him smile.  He said, “Don’t worry, I can bring these babies back to life!”  I thought he was crazy, but I left them.  Two weeks later, I went to pick them up, and they all looked brand new!  I think he charged me $125 for four pieces of equipment.

No paperwork, no cash register, you just wrote him a check.  He did have a business card however.  All it said was Mac, Small Engine Repair, showed his phone number and his email.  His email said it all…..Macnificent2003!  When I saw that, I laughed out loud….in my car of course, not in front of Mac.  Mac was not a computer guy, I figured someone told him he should have an email address.  But Macnificent he was!

I figure that with all the golf courses in heaven, there are plenty of lawnmowers and other gas powered equipment needed to keep them as pristine as I have heard they are in heaven.  Right now, Mac is literally in small engine heaven, keeping those engines running…..he never met an engine he couldn’t fix!

On Wednesday of this week I got done with my presentation and coaching with my customer earlier than I had expected.  Great, I thought to myself!  I can make the earlier flight home.  I jumped in a cab in downtown Philadelphia and raced to the Philly airport.  Got there in time to stand by for the 4:30 pm back to Atlanta, but it was full, so I didn’t make it.

No worries, I had my seat on the 6:30 pm flight.  Soon a time of 7:00 pm was posted.  Storm clouds came in, it got dark outside.  They said something about a “ground hold” for flights.  And so for the next few hours, I began to get calls on my cell and emails from Delta telling me that now my flight was 8:00 pm…….no, make that 9 pm……………nope, here was another call, with a lovely recorded voice telling me that “Hi, this is Delta Airlines calling again”…yes, the recording actually said “again”……telling me that is was now going to leave at 10 pm……then later, they told me 11 pm.

At 8:30 pm, I pulled the plug, moved my flight to the next morning, and called the Marriott downtown, the hotel I had just left, and got another room….jumped back into a cab to head downtown to spend another night.

Next morning, up early to head back to the airport for an 8:30 am.   Which was now posted as leaving at 9:30 am.  I met a guy who spent the night in the airport, he said the Atlanta flight I was on did leave…….at 1 am!  We boarded our 8:30 at 10:15 and wheels were up at 11:30 am, landing in Atlanta at 1:00 pm.

Something about that Philly airport and summertime thunderstorms and rain and wind and lightning.  I have seen this before.  As one of my old co-workers used to say….if someone even spits on the tarmac in Philly, they shut down the airport!

Everyone has played the Kevin Bacon 6 Degrees of Separation game.  Name any actor or actress, so the story goes, and you can link them via film roles to Kevin Bacon within three to six actors.

Last week I was at a speaking engagement in the Atlanta area.  It was a luncheon meeting and so I was chatting with the participants as they arrived and ate lunch.  Just prior to the start of the meeting, I sat down at one of the tables near the front and started a conversation with the three men sitting there.

One of the men had noticed that I grew up in Tampa (this was published in my bio that the group printed in their program).  He told me that his wife went to Plant High School in Tampa.  “Well, what do you know!”, I told him, “So did I!” 

But, so did Stephen Stills, Wade Boggs, Gallagher and Lauren Hutton!

He paused for a few minutes and it seemed our “connection” was over.  The business portion of the meeting was about to start, lunch was over, and soon I would be delivering my speech.  So I began to get mentally prepared to stand up and start talking.

Just then, Joe leans over one more time and says, “Oh yeah, my sister in law lives in Tampa too.”  He then proceeds to tell me her address.  It sounds very familiar.  I quickly look up MY sister-in-laws address on my Sprint Treo phone.  My sister-in-law and Joe’s sister-in-law are neighbors, separated by probably 4 houses!  They both live on the same street, opposite sides, in South Tampa, on the water, what the locals call the ”fingers”, as the houses are built on dredged up land that stick out into the bay like fingers on a hand.

Here I am in Atlanta, about to stand up and deliver a speech and I meet a man whose sister in law is my sister in laws neighbor.  So, I used that incredible connection as a nice ice breaker for my speech, still shaking my head at our new found “1 Degree of Separation” as I was introduced.

Two lessons, the world is really a pretty small place.  We are more connected than we think we are.  Secondly, I never would have discovered that connection with my new friend if I had not been purposely meeting and greeting people.  Too often, especially with our hand held technology of today, we get so focused on email, voice mail, text mail, that we forget to smile, stick out our hand and say hi!

Start looking up, smiling, talking and asking questions…..Your 1 Degree of Separation may just be at the table having lunch with you! 

This was posted on the white board at the YMCA where I work out.  In that setting it was meant to remind us about changing up our workouts.  Many people do the same workout every time they workout.  I am sure they like the notion of being comfortable with “their” workout.   They have it memorized, they don’t need a cheat sheet to remind them what to do next.  But the body is an amazing thing.  It is easily adaptable.  After a while your body “learns” your favorite workout that you do over and over again and the benefit from that particular workout begins to decrease.  No wonder that a lot of people complain that they are working out but not seeing any gain or benefit, their body weight doesn’t change, or they cannot lift any more weights, or their time in the 5k is not improving.

The same thing happens outside of the gym in other aspects of your life.  Do you wake up at the same time every day, do you have the same morning routine at home, the same morning routine at work?  Have your work habits become so habitual that you seem to be sleepwalking through them?  If so, look at the results you are getting?  Are sales up?  Is customer satisfaction up?  Are your projects getting done on time?

My email tag line is “You have to be different to make a difference!”  Of course, those of you who know me well probably think that sometimes I am trying to be “different” too hard!  But the fact is, if you don’t change things up, if you don’t create new habits, if you don’t drop some bad habits, if you don’t meet some new people, if you don’t create new processes, YOU WILL KEEP GETTING THE SAME RESULTS!  And that, as Mr. Einstein so eloquently pointed out, leads to Insanity!

So, during this early period in 2008, instead of the typical New Years resolutions, think about just two things:

1)  Doing things differently, not necessarily starting something new or adding a new habit.  Change your schedule.  For example, if you always do email first thing in the morning, don’t check email until 11 am.  Use the first 2-3 hours of your morning to complete projects or make sales calls or have voice to voice conversations with your team.

2)  Stop doing one thing that is negative or getting in the way.  Everyone has lots of things they do that they wish they could stop.  Pick just one and work on that one bad habit or annoying behavior and focus on that until you get rid of it.  Don’t let the rest of the list clutter your mind, just focus on one thing!

Try these two ideas, you should get more productive and effective, and you just might not go INSANE!!!!!!!!!

I know this title might sound like something you are supposed to think about or write about around Thanksgiving.  Well, I was busy during Thanksgiving, we went down to Tampa that week to visit family, and the week ended with the usual loss by Georgia Tech to Georgia!  (Is Chan Gailey thankful now?!)  So, I didn’t get around to writing the typical Thanksgiving blog.

But as we steam into Christmas and the end of the year and get ready to launch into 2008, I thought I would take a look back at my last year and hand out some thank you’s!

My year began on an awesome trip to Paris, with my wife Karen, for our 25th wedding anniversary.  We went to London for our 20th, so Paris was next.  We had a fabulous time and got bumped to first class on the flight back home!  So, a huge thank you to my beautiful wife of 25 years…….and to Delta!

My next thanks goes to my former company, Misys Healthcare, who handed me a great gift the Tuesday after I got back from Paris…..they fired me, whacked me, eliminated my job, pick your favorite phrase.  I like whacked!  Best thing that ever happened to me!  So, thank you to Richard and Kelly and Rob and whoever else decided they didn’t need me anymore!  Life is better on this side of the fence!

I spent some time after that deciding what to do with the rest of my life.  I decided to leap into something I had been considering, but had pushed into the off site storage device in my brain, and jumped into the deep end of the Professional Speaking pool!

So, a gigantic thank you again to my wife Karen.  She never once hesitated to say yes to me on this idea.  In fact, she just smiles and chuckles and says, “Don’t worry about it, it’s just our retirement money you are spending!”  Every man should have a wife as loyal and committed as Karen.  And thanks to my kids, who I know are still scratching their head about what to say when people ask them, “So, what does your Dad do for a living?”  I used to travel 50% of the time, so since I have been home a lot this year, they have all had to get used to me being around, perhaps for the first time in their life!

Thank you to all my friends, family and former co-workers who have amazed me with their kind and generous words of encouragement.  And to those of you who have hired me to speak or who have bought my first CD, an extra special thank you!  To those of you who have not bought my CD, stop right now, and click here and get your credit card out!  http://www.martymercer.com/products.html

I have missed the friends and co-workers that I developed over the years at my former companies.  But I have found a new and wonderful network within the Georgia Speakers Association (Scott!), the National Speakers Assocation (David, Eric!), and the Peachtree Toastmasters Club.  I am learning new things every day from all of you, all of which I hope to use somehow in my new business.  I hope some of the things I have shared with you are helpful as well.  Also, thank you to the experts who helped me build my web site, create my video, photo’s, graphics and CD. 

I want to give a special thanks to my unofficial Board of Directors, or Incubators, as one of them called themselves.  Patty, Bob, Liddy and Ann, thank you all for your help and support.

One year ago today I was thinking about baking Christmas cookies with my children, looking forward to Christmas day with my family, and listening to Karen read me all of the 50 books she had gotten from the library on Paris!  I worked for a $500M healthcare software company, a market I had spent 25 years selling into.

Today, I work for myself, in a market and space that is totally brand new to me, working to get back to an income level that I was used to.  But this afternoon, I will still bake cookies with my children, I still look forward to Christmas, and I plan to have a fantastic revenue year in 2008. 

I know I can do all of this because I have my wife, my kids, my family, my old friends and co-workers, my new friends and co-workers, and my new customers all along for the ride.  I could not have created my new path this year without all of you.  I will not be successful next year without you either. 

I look forward to seeing and hearing from you all next year!  Remember, “If I Can Do It, So Can You!”

The Christmas and New Year holiday season is upon us.  For many people this season turns into one giant, long eating and drinking fest!  Parties at home, parties at school, parties at work, parties at church.  Parties, parties, parties.  Multiple parties in one day.  Some studies have shown that the typical American can gain up to 5-10 pounds during the Holiday Eating Season.

Don’t let this sneak up on you.  Be aware of this, think about it and plan your party season with this knowledge.  Here are some ideas that can help you manage the Holiday Eating Season:

1.  Try to be more active.  Try to squeeze in more workouts or walks or some kind of physical activity.  Wake up 20 minutes earlier and try my “20 Minutes to Success” workout at home if you cannot get your normal workout in.  http://martymercer.com/news/?p=22

2.  Eat something good and healthy before you go to the party.  Don’t go to parties hungry or famished.  Don’t go to parties thinking you will get your normal meal.  If you get to the party having already eaten something, you can reduce the amount of great tasting but high calorie food served at the party.

3.  Manage your alcohol intake at parties.  Many people who don’t normally drink much, use the holiday season to “let loose”.  Be careful!  Alternate a glass of sparkling water or club soda with a lime or lemon twist in between drinks.  Your drink will look like an alcoholic drink, but this trick will help you reduce the amount of alcohol you consume.

4.  Walk around the food table(s) and check out ALL the food first before diving in and filling up your plate.  See what is offered and decide on what you want to eat instead of trying everything!  Use a smaller plate if you can, use a salad or dessert plate and fill it up only three-fourths full.

5.  Choose baked over fried.  Put the sauces on the side, or, don’t get any of the sauces.  Eat plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables.

6.  Cut the dessert, pies, and cake portions in half.  You will still get the great taste and treat, but only half the calories of the normal serving.

7.  Stand and socialize and talk during the party instead of sitting down and not moving.  Standing and talking at a party burns 125 calories in one hour.

8.  Drink water, drink water, drink water.  Water can help give you a “full” feeling, helping reduce the amount you eat.  Drinking water helps you manage your alcohol intake.  And, for the most part, most people never drink enough water on a daily basis.  So, during the holidays, work even harder to drink water.

9.  Get 7-8 hours of sleep every night.  This is true all the time, but especially true at the Holiday season when your schedule gets tighter, your to do list gets longer and your stress levels can increase. 

10.  Lastly, have fun, enjoy the holidays, enjoy your family, smile!  If you overindulge one day, work even harder the next day to get back on track, but don’t beat yourself up over it.  Put that “bad” day in the past, forget it, ignore it, and focus on the next day.  Don’t let one bad day or night turn into four or five, limit your mistakes.

A few days ago, my wife and youngest daughter snuck over to Georgia Tech to watch my son’s fraternity pledge class play a rival fraternity’s pledge class in football. 

My son played all four years of high school football.  He had a great career culminating with his team losing a heartbreaker to the ultimate state champ in the Georgia Dome in the state semi’s.

His senior year he played the offensive line and special teams.  These are not high profile positions, and your name rarely gets called by the game announcer.

But in this fraternity game, which by the way was full contact with no pads or helmets, my son was playing Quarterback!  He had amazing speed and power.  Most plays he would take the snap in the shotgun and then run, he passed a few times.  But as they neared the goal line and the game was on the line, he got up to the center and took a traditional snap from center, and then just took off like a jet up the middle to score a toucdown!  The crowd was screaming and chanting his name!

Of course I was thrilled and yes he is my son, so it is easy to brag on him.  Later, after the game, I told him, “Geez, M.C., you looked so fast out there!”  He just smiled, only the way an 18 year old can smile at his old man and said, “That’s because I am fast, Dad!”

The kid who toiled anonymously for years on the line and on special teams, was now the winning quarterback of his fraternity football game.  He didn’t accept the fact that he was just a lineman.  He knew he had speed and power and he caught the attention of his teammates and coaches.  Four years in high school with one identity was immediately changed in one afternoon.

A great lesson for all of us.  If you don’t like where you are in your career or your skill set or with your perception of who you are…..Change It!  Do something about it!  During his junior and senior years of high school, my son joined the track team and ran the sprints.  He worked hard at getting faster.  He decided that even though he was a lineman, one of the lovable “Hawgs”, he could also develop his speed.   He didn’t accept the conventional wisdom that offensive lineman are slow.  He put a plan together, joined the track team, worked hard, and he did get fast.

Too often many of us let others define who we are.  We can get stuck in a rut.  If you are not happy with who you are, where you are, or how others perceive you,  you CAN change that, but you  have to believe in yourself first.  Just try it……take a hard look across that defensive line….you just might see a huge hole to the end zone!  And when you do…….SPRINT!