My arrival in Saginaw, Michigan on May 26th 1990 was filled with hope and eager anticipation. It was the beginning of my professional life: my first real job. After completing a weeklong training school in Nashville, I was deployed to Eastern Michigan to perform sales and customer service for a national publishing company.

Several weeks into my budding career, I was keen on improving my performance. So, naturally I attended a workshop. At the training, I was introduced to a man named Scott, who had worked with the company for the last three years. We worked in virtually the same territory, selling the same products. In my mind, I imagined him to be the perfect person to share ideas and information with to further my professional development.

Before the beginning of the first session, I asked him if he could provide me with some advice on how to improve my sales and customer service skills. Immediately upon hearing my question he asked, “Haven’t you heard about the strike?”

I had heard a little about ‘the strike.’ That summer, workers from both Ford Motor Company and General Motors were on strike. In Eastern Michigan, these two automotive companies were the largest employers. When these companies experience a strike, economic ripples directly impact an extremely large numbers of workers, extending into numerous industries throughout the region.

He passionately explained that, “This is the worst possible time to be starting in this business. This strike is negatively impacting this entire region. People are off work. No one has any money. No one is thinking about anything else but this strike. In fact, if this strike continues for the rest of the summer, both of us might lose our jobs!”

Up until that moment, I had not met anyone so enthusiastically negative. So I thanked him for his advice and set out to find someone who could help me. That is when I met Marnie Speckman. Like Scott, Marnie had worked with the company for the last three years. She worked in virtually the same territory, selling the same products. I was very curious to learn what advice Marnie would offer.

When I asked her if she could provide me with some advice on how to improve my sales and customer service skills, she stopped for a moment, considered my question, and then asked, “Have you heard about the strike?”

“Yes, I have heard a little about the strike,” I replied.

“Great! Because I believe that this strike is the best possible thing that could happen to our business this summer!” she said.

The perplexed look on my face prompted her to continue with:

“The way I see it, there are three unique opportunities that give us a great advantage in this situation. First, because so many people are not working right now, we can see two or three times as many prospects each day. Normally, people are gone at work during the day, and now most people are at home watching TV. They are more than happy to break up the monotony of their day with an educational presentation about our products.

Secondly, the majority of the customers that we serve are blue collar families. Especially in these trying times, what is the most important thing parents want to be able to offer to their children?”

“I know the answer to this one,” I explained, “improving their children’s education.” Day in and day out for my first three weeks, it had been overly apparent to me that families in this community were very focused on their children’s education. Many of the parents I had met with said that the single most important thing they can do, other than loving their children, was to make sure that they were prepared for the future with a great education.

“That’s exactly right!” Marnie added. “And our products are geared to do just that – support children with their studies.”

“Lastly, people are concerned about how long this strike is going to last, and for many families, money is tighter than normal. But people know that in times like this, it is essential to be making investments in the future.”

For the rest of the summer I did find Marnie’s perspective true for me. I made a tremendous amount of presentations, found most people to be very interested in a product that would help their children thrive in a competitive world, and I exceeded my sales goals.

It was also interesting for me to watch Scott and Marnie’s results. Scott had a below average summer and ended up leaving the company. Out of a sales team of thousands, Marie was in the top 2%. Many skeptics would suggest that positive thinking does not really do much of anything. However, I have found that my perspective absolutely impacts my results and the quality of my experience. Life will always be filled with situations, challenges and opportunities. And we have a choice as to how we approach them all—we can either spend our time focusing on the negative, or we can choose to find the positive and choose to grow.

Many people have said that what you see is what you get. I invite you to take that a step further and notice that what you see is what you look for. If you look for and focus on the problems in your life, your life will be filled with problems. On the flip side, if you start to see that all of the situations are happening for your good, you will see chances to grow and gain new perspective on how to overcome any problem.

I challenge you to think of a circumstance that you currently are facing that appears to be an obstacle. How can you re-view the setback and find where this obstacle is really an advantage for you? If you are struggling to answer this question, you might talk to someone else who has faced the same issue and overcame it. They will have valuable insight on the lessons they learned.

Be Free!

Eric Plantenberg
President