Are you a Tiger or a Wimp?

Are you a tiger or a wimp?

With today’s economic climate, the companies that will be successful will be the ones that hire tigers, not wimps.

Being a tiger doesn’t mean that you have to be loud, it means that you are full of energy and you are willing to give out the energy needed to help the business overcome the increasing number of obstacles that come up on a day by day basis.

Tigers are optimistic about where they are going and they attract people with that same mind set to look at problems from an abundance perspective, not the scarcity perspective.

Everyone knows that we have high gas prices,that unemployment is almost out of control, the government debt is very high, and that generally there is a sense of despair in our population. Everyone knows that. Do we need employees that come in to remind us of that or do we need people that will sit down, look at the situation and then figure out ways to be successful in spite of the negative factors.

I sat down with a coaching client and I asked him for someone that had been a positive influence in his life, someone that had taught him a lesson he still remembers.

To my surprise he picked someone he had worked for when he was a car salesman.

He won the position as car salesman competing against other candidates by first telling the manager that he had no experience but that he was a born salesman and he knew that he could sell a lot of cars if given the opportunity. He said that to the manager looking him straight in the eye, without flinching, and the manager believed him. He said “you start tomorrow morning”. With that one statement and full of self confidence, he had achieved his first objective which was to get hired.

Next morning the manager greeted him and called a very successful salesperson and said to him, “this is a new salesman, please take him under your wing until he learns the ropes”.

The first thing Joshua did was take the new salesperson to the car lot, which was full of cars and said to him, look around 360 degrees and tell me what you see?

At the moment, the new salesperson, Fabian, thought that he had to come up with a brilliant answer and he actually didn’t have one in mind. So, he just said, “I see a lot of cars”.

Joshua, the trainer, said “no, what you are seeing is the best business in the world. You see a lot of cars, a lot of inventory, and every time you sell one of those, you get paid. You didn’t have to invest in the cars, someone else did, and yet you can sell them and make money. There will be advertising to bring clients in, you will have a decent place to sit with them and negotiate to close the deal. You will have air conditioning and at night you will be able to go home without having to worry about paying the business bills or the payroll. You are sitting on a gold mine”

Joshua was a tiger and he was showing Fabian how to be a tiger. Imagine what would have happened if walking to the car lot, full of cars, Joshua would have said something like this:

What do you see? And when Fabian answered, lots of cars, he would have said, “Yes, exactly, we have excess inventory because the economy is in the tanks, people are not buying cars, it will be very difficult for you to sell cars in this environment and you will have to work your butt off. I don’t even understand why you would work selling cars.”

Do you see the difference between a tiger and a wimp?

Well, Fabian became the number one sales person for that dealership and one of the top salespersons nationally and went on to make lots of money and after a few years, he moved on to open a business of his own.

Right now everyone knows that the economy is not doing well. It doesn’t matter whether you are a pessimist, an optimist or a realist, you simply look at the numbers and you get the whole story.

But, and this is a big but, even though you can’t influence the economy or the negative numbers, you have a choice on how to react to those numbers and what to do about it.

Will you simply shrug your shoulders and resign yourself to a life of scarcity or will you look at the situation and figure out where are the pockets of opportunity.

Look, no matter how negative a situation might look, there is always opportunity. How negative can an earthquake killing 250,000 people be? Very sad, very negative and very unfortunate is the answer. But if you were not killed and you are breathing, you have a chance and you can act and do something about it.

Get into the construction business to build houses, or build a hospital or sell medicines, or, and I say it with total respect, sell caskets. I mention this only to communicate my point that even tragedies offer opportunities for you to help society and make money. There is nothing wrong with making money if you are solving a problem for society.

In 9/11/2001, when the twin towers in NY went down, it united people and the sales of US flags skyrocketed not only in the US but also in Puerto Rico and lots of people made lots of money selling flags and patriotic ornaments.

No matter how tough things are, there are always opportunities to do well, make money and be happy.

So, get your people together and ask each of them:

Are you a tiger or you are a wimp?