The right thing. The right way. At the right time.
“Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.”
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“Another turning point, a fork stuck in the road
Time grabs you by the wrist, directs you where to go
So make the best of this test, and don’t ask why
It’s not a question, but a lesson learned in time
It’s something unpredictable
But in the end, it’s right
I hope you had the time of your life“
After almost exactly 24 years, this will be the final post for The Daily Difference, at least in this format. For the ~350 of you who have been on board from the start, you have Blessed me, come along for the ride, offered inspiration, input, and thought. You have challenged and supported me; both great gifts, which I could never repay.
For the almost 40,000 others who have interacted with at least one post during that time, I hope it’s been worth the time it took to read. I pray I contributed to you thinking, Believing, or doing something that made a difference, whether either of us knew it was doing so at the time.
The Diff has always been a labor of love. I love writing. I love reflecting. I love provoking thoughts and emotions. I love my life (even the shitty parts), and the intersections between it and yours. It’s still a labor of love, and I feel like I still have things to offer, maybe even some further value to provide. It’s. Just. Time.
Content consumption has changed over the years, and as I cross a unique set of turning points – forks stuck in the road – the time is right to step back and assess, reflect, prioritize, and just “be.”
The Three are adults. They are and always will be the greatest gift God could have given me. I believe they know that I’ve meant every word of what has been written here. I hope they are 10% as proud of me as I am of them. That would be a lot of pride – the good kind, not the deadly kind.
For those of you who get the reference, the “footprints in the sand” are real, and as He sets me down to begin again to walk alongside Him, I am ever thankful for his carriage in this season, in those that came before this one, and in the ones not yet written.
So, what next?
Perhaps 6,000-ish posts really can be condensed into a book. It’s underway, and now it won’t compete for headspace with Daily Diff Deadline pressure. Perhaps Substack or another channel might become a place for a new approach to sharing, encouraging, challenging, and supporting not just you but a new set of consumers. Decisions, some good and others almost clinically dopey — bring me to here. Now.
That’s one of a few recurring themes:
I don’t have 40,000 handwritten notes, or all of your addresses, so this will have to settle as my gesture to each and all of you. I hope that our paths will continue to intersect, in ways either apparent or transparent. You, dear readers, subscribers, partners, friends, antagonists, observers — whatever brought us together, I hope you had the time of your life.
I have. And I am deeply grateful to you.
“Pressure is the combination of urgency and uncertainty.”
It’d be too cheesy to link the 1981 song (“Under Pressure”) by David Bowie and Queen, or would it?
It ain’t cheese when the quota or bonus hangs in the balance.
Urgency is often imposed upon us, sometimes unfairly. A topic for another day, urgency is typically nourished by a lack of preparedness. Uncertainty, on the other hand, is well within our grasp. How do we grasp it? With curiosity.
Ask questions! Dad was a “Licensed” McCurdy Seed Company salesman, which, in the 1970’s meant he got about a 10% discount on his seed if he made five sales calls. Not five sales, mind you, five sales calls. Every year, he’d strike out down the road (round trip ~5 miles), and stop, first at Alden Biggs’ place. “You don’t want any seed this year, do you, Alden?” Dad would say. “No thanks, Richard!” Alden would reply. As would Delbert, Larry, Doyle and Roy, before Dad’s “territory” was covered.
Looking back, Dad was a pretty chill guy, and I wonder if the lack of uncertainty he chose to endure is part of why.
Even when things were urgent (think floods, wind damage, bugs, whatever else could hurt a crop) Dad had little uncertainty. “If it floods, I’ll plant it again, granted it’s not too late,” was his mantra. If he couldn’t prepare for it, it wasn’t urgent.
As B2B sales types, preparation is a differentiator today, and we have a fantastic bundle of tools to reduce uncertainty: the Googler, LinkedIn, and other social media platforms, among others (referrals, new coverage, thing through the effect of tariffs, etc.)
Take the time to find out as much as we can before we need it, and then let’s measure how much more-better the results are. (“More better is still a technical term at The Diff.)
“Alden, have you ever tried McCurdy seed corn? No? I wonder why not…” It doesn’t take a rocket surgeon (or was that brain scientist?) to choose a path paved with curiosity and then leverage the information we gain to help the Client solve a problem they might not know they have.
“We are often quick to judge, quick to doubt and quicker to jump to our own conclusions. When we take a moment to give others the benefit of the doubt, you may be pleasantly surprised.”
We know, right? Heck, we’ve been “here” a few hundred times, and we. Just. Know.
Except we don’t. ‘Cause we’ve never been here. Now.
I met a new friend last Monday. Many said we’d disagree about most things, that he’d be a “real challenge” for me, and that we probably wouldn’t like each other much.
He was whip smart, likeable, and turns out we agree on dang near everything that matters in our work. We only argued over who’d pick up the check for dinner.
When we give the benefit of the doubt, we give a gift, and not just to them. To ourselves.
Difference makers find ways to make a difference. Receiving the gift of the benefit of the doubt means we should unwrap it, keep a little part of it and then re-gift it over and over.
“Happiness is not material. It is relational.”
Seriously, have you not subscribed yet? Of the 218 e-mails you get on Monday mornings, I’ll bet my putter that The Monday Morning Memo will consistently be the most impactful.
Chasing the golden ring. The promotion. The title, the check, the deal, the transaction. The new car. The big house. The accessories. All material. Been there, done that, and the emptiness is real.
If 2024 taught me anything, it’s that we’re gonna go out with exactly what we came in with. Nothing. And the way it taught me was redefining and reconfirming my closest friendships and relationships. Some with family, some with friends – although in many cases, the lines have blurred over the years. Some old. Some new. All worth pouring into.
A dear, long-ago-and-now-new-again-friend sent me the homily notes from a service she attended at a seminary out West. It was graduation Sunday, and the message was “don’t settle for potential. Live with purpose!”
And purpose, Difference Makers, is relational.
“Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself.”
Making mistakes is how we grow. We mustn’t function in an attempt to avoid all mistakes as we’ll do nothing.
So, what kind do we want to make?
Mistakes of aggression are generally good as long as we don’t repeat them. When we try to make things happen, something usually happens.
Mistakes of omission are signs of lack of preparedness, best case, and laziness, worst case.
Preparedness is the key to B2B selling – and to many other things in business and life. A banker I knew used to tell me he was “fixin’ to get ready to commence…” He was always prepared, and, no coincidence, a great banker, mentor and leader.
“When Jack Welch was CEO of General Electric, he was able to produce record growth year after year by using a few simple principles relentlessly. The system of management he used was called differentiation.”
While I’m not a huge fan of Clay Clark, who’s somewhat of a conspiracy theorist, I was and remain a loyal follower of Jack Welch. The Diff is too short on a daily basis to chronicle too much of what Welch did, so I won’t try.
Too often, we say our differentiated market position is “our people.” It’s just not. “Our people” can go to work for a competitor, retire, win Powerball, commit a felony; Lord forbid, they could die or become disabled. And, while having the best people is the first tenet of The Heston Group’s REELAX Leadership Model, and while no one had or developed better people than Welch, his successor went on to tank the business (with some help from 9/11 and some market mess).
Unless we give our people better tools, processes, higher expectations (and a clear path to meeting them), we’ll run out of the people advantage before we can find or develop more people. When we do things better (more efficiently, safer, faster, or just…better), we develop people in the system, which makes them stronger. Think not just GE or Berkshire Hathaway, but also Duke basketball, Alabama football, Texas baseball, or Juilliard musicians.
The best people we can afford. An environment where success is the most likely outcome. Expectations that are crystal clear and aspirational. Solid leadership. Accountability and a clear statement and understanding of “Why?” Now, we can be different.
“Be prepared and be honest.”
Wooden, known for making Bill Walton shave and get a haircut (and for winning 10 NCAA championships, 88 games in a row, and yadda yadda yadda), is perhaps one of the best leaders of the last two centuries.
A great coach, he had a system, a coordinated series of beliefs, two cornerstones of which are in bold italic above. Heston’s Rule #1 and #4. In harmony with the three others:
Reliable? I don’t watch the clock, but I expect to know where you are and how I can help you.
Positive? It’s easy to point out all the wrong things, or stuff we’d do better if we were the boss. Get. Over. Ourselves. There are 10,000,000 people on Earth for every one who would trade places with us. Suckitup, Buttercup. Be positive.
Spend it like it’s yours, because on some level, it is. Will the burger, beer, and ballgame go just as far as the steak, lobster, and 2002 Bordeaux? Probably. Unless the deal calls for the splurge. Corollary to this one: use good judgment.
Be honest. Completely. There is no mistake so big it can’t be forgiven. There is no lie so small that it can be. Trust is trust is trust, and excellent business relationships are built on trust.
I get some crap for Rule #5, because some folks think I’m calling them stupid. I am not. Smart people do stupid things all the time. We want to be the ones that work out in advance, whether doing “X” will be brilliant or whether it will be a Rule #5 violation. Let’s avoid the latter.
“We do not see things as they are. We see things as we are.”
So, how do we know if our eyes can’t always be trusted?
And if our assumptions are often wrong (they are, by the way), how do we know?
We ask. And we ask again. And we ask again.
Our best outcome as sales pros is when we’re judged by the questions we ask before the answers that we provide.
“Professional B2B selling is the passionate transferring of belief.”
That makes belief the critical element of a sales pro’s toolkit.
The passionate transference part comes when we’re curious enough to ask great questions, listen well enough to understand the answers, and use ideas as our currency and storytelling to transfer our belief.
More on this next week.
Make it a great weekend.
