What A Surprise

It never ceases to amaze me when I see people in agencies scrabbling around for a Christmas card idea in December.

It’s not like Christmas crept up unannounced

They knew it was coming.

But every year it’s the same thing.

Clients are really no different.

Only it’s the last-minute brief.

“We’re launching a product in a couple of weeks…”

“We’re announcing a merger next month…”

So the question is, how long have they known about the opportunity?

Why didn’t you do something about it sooner?

The later you leave things, the more pressured everyone feels, and the more likely it is that great ideas will be sacrificed or corners will be cut.

Opportunities exist in the here and now.

So seize them as soon as they arise.

Sales You Gotta Love It

I remember an old joke about the 1992 fire at Windsor Castle.


Apparently, the damage could have been minimised, but for the fact that the Queen made her way along the line of fire-fighters, asking each one in turn “And what do you do?”
That joke is going to kill on my comedy tour.

Hang on though, I’m going somewhere with this. If I were to take a leaf out of Ma'am’s book and do the royal tour of my offices, asking people that same question, I don’t think a single person would answer “I work in sales.”
But here’s the funny thing.

Everyone at Jack Morton does, and the thing is, they’re really good at it.
I firmly believe that nothing happens anywhere in the world without sales.

The artist displaying her canvas (or dirty bed sheets); the man who checks himself twice in the mirror before that blind date; the politician who stands in front of 200 million people on Election Day. They’re all looking to persuade people to buy or accept something. Look it up in a dictionary – that’s what sales means.

Everything that we make, create, share or find needs to be sold. So the sooner we accept that, the sooner we can embrace it.
Sales isn’t a dirty word.

And it’s not a career option for people incapable of doing anything else. We’re all in it. We all do it. And we should take pride in being good at it.

See the world through the prism of sales, and take advantage of the countless opportunities around you.