Sports fans know this chant between two sections of the stadium:
"What do we want?" The other side yells, "A victory."
"When do we want it?" "Now!"
We all want what we want now. We don't want to wait. We are in rush. Time is money -- and all that.
Today I am asking us to take it back a notch or more. Because we don't have to have everything all at once.
Say that with me: We don't have to have everything all at once.
That may not sound like me, because by now you know, I talk and move a mile a minute. Fast is my normal speed. But, I don't rush all the time (especially when I go for a run). I take my time when I need to, and I need to more than you probably think. I slow down because it is in my best interest to do so.
Let me explain. I have recruited hundreds of the best athletes, coaches and broadcasters in the world, and beat out the competition in doing so. Go fishing and there will always be more fish than people who want to catch them. Not so in the athlete representation business. There are more agents than athletes.
So what I saw early on was a lot of jostling, a lot of pushing, a lot of the "Jerry McGuire" scenes of working against some imaginary clock to sign someone, to nail the deal, to get so wound up it just has to happen, or bust.
Yuck.
Early on, I got clarity around the fact that it doesn't happen all at once. I needed to create a connection and that takes time. Without a true connection, a true relationship would never happen.
Deep down, when I saw this pace of competition around me, when I took a step back to put myself in the shoes of those I was pursuing, this really crystallized: I hate being rushed. I believe most people do. In sales -- and that's a big part of athlete representation at the core -- when we rush, the other party feels like we have something to hide. In that moment there is a real risk of being seen as a user or insincere. We're just trying to get the deal done so we can sit back and let their money roll in. Not cool.
Think about that from the other person's view. Doesn't feel good. Right.
Rushing can sometimes close deals, I'll say that -- but rushing never, ever builds a relationship.
In a relationship, the opposite is true: Haste makes waste.
OK, so pause for a minute while I clarify what may seem like a contradiction to you. When I say that you don't need everything all at once, I need to make something clear: We still need to be urgent about building the relationship. This is the key difference: focusing our urgency on the relationship, not on the transaction. What I want to get us moving toward is adding value to them with urgency.... and moving away from any rush to add value to ourselves. Do you see how big that difference is?
A transaction is like one ordinary plant -- a relationship is a garden full of precious, valuable plants. The plants don't grow overnight, especially the ones that have really deep roots. We've got to be patient and let those roots take hold, and then we can count on knowing we'll have a really strong plant.....a flower or a bush or tree that will weather the worst storms and drought. That's the kind of strong relationships we want, too.
There are countless examples in nature, all around us, of living things that cannot be rushed. Take something common like a tomato. These are grown in hothouses so they'll be ready to ship quickly. They don't taste as good as a tomato from a garden. People don't rush out to get tomatoes from a greenhouse. No question, if you want a truly tasty tomato, we're looking on the roadside for the shack with heirloom tomatoes nurtured with sunlight and water. That's going to taste really good.
And so, as it's been said for centuries: there is a time for everything, and paying attention to your pace is critical. Realizing that what we want doesn't have to happen all at once is at the core of this thought from Maya Angelou, the great writer:
"I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel."
It is hard to make someone feel important, and genuinely special, if we rush. Why is slowing down in this regard so important? My goal for us is not to land one deal. It is to land multiple, ongoing deals with a core group of customers who see us not as sales people but as people who add value to their lives. People they cannot live without.
Bottom line is, a good relationship takes time. Anything authentic involves time. When we talk about building a platform that's a place that must be strong, thus you don't expect it to be built overnight. If that happened, the platform would be shaky, wouldn't it? We'd worry about it collapsing and hurting anyone who was counting on it for support, maybe even injuring ourselves.
There are hidden powers in slowing down: For starters, this habit requires confidence, and it builds confidence. If you are confident in what you do and how you do it, you will refrain from forcing it. If you are not as confident as you'd like to be in what you do and how you do it, you can start mastering that mindset by slowing down. Slowing down gives you the room to set one's self up to act "as if." Acting as if I already have someone's business before I do is my way of practicing and rehearsing for the big show. Because I know that I don't have to have it all at once, I have given myself time and space for authenticity. We only control yourselves, and we must wait for another party to connect, so why not let it flow?
Another reason to slow down is to create leverage. When the other side sees our urgency, they wonder, "Are they hiding something? Something up their sleeve?" They sense it and close down. They're having post-trauma from being burned, from being sold, from being pushed too close before they are ready.
Grow relationships like we grow tomatoes in our backyard garden not the hothouse.
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