Back in 2014, I wrote this blog post titled, Never Lead from Your Chair, which was based on the Sam Walton story. As we all look at the business world today, I believe this blog post is worthy of a repeat.

Sam Walton was the founder of Walmart, and he had many quotes over his years of leadership. One that really impressed me is “never lead from your chair.”

I believe this could be one of the greatest business success secrets of all time. It has been seen in many people from Henry Ford to Ronald Reagan to Bill Marriott.

It simply means to get up and get involved in your business; meet and speak with your people, and let them know that they are important to what you are doing and to what your company is doing. If you are in sales like me, it means making sales calls with your people and leading by example. It also means doing in front of people what you expect them to do. Leading by example is one of the most powerful leadership qualities a person can have.

We have all seen situations where a business manager or group leader will just make decisions from his chair and expect everyone to carry out his orders. Obviously, there are times when a leader does send emails and make decisions from his/her office, but what I am talking about is a metaphor of leading a group while being involved as compared to just giving orders and hope they are followed.

In our world of websites, emails, texts, it is so easy to assume that an email or a text will get the job done. Sometimes it does facilitate business, but it rarely establishes business. Over the last couple of weeks, we have had several hotel deals that needed a verbal introduction rather than an email introduction. There were five of these such calls that I made over the last several weeks. I can tell you that every one of the calls were well received and appreciated by the clients far more than if I had emailed them. People get reams of emails of which many they do not respond to, but a personal call is in my opinion “business 101.”

I think if managers, directors, and employers would go talk to their folks, hear their opinions, and ideas, many of the decisions that are made would be different. Sometimes you have to walk into the forest to actually see the trees, even though you already know what they look like.

Therefore, Sam Walton’s idea of leading a company is very on point today as well as it was in his time. His company outlasted many volume discount retailers, such as GEX, Dixiemart, Kmart, Memco, American Wholesale Club, Edwards, PriceRite, etc. It was probably because he would actually go to the stores, talk to the people, and lead from that position, rather than sit in his office and make decisions. It is also noteworthy to tell you that Sam Walton drove his same old truck to the same diner to eat breakfast with his same old friends, and this was even after he was a billionaire. His philosophy was to keep it simple, keep it real, and lead by example. KT

In our line of work we list and sell hotels. In your line of work you may sell some other kind of product or you may work for a company that manages, sells, manufactures, consults or any other manner of business. One point is crystal clear though. We are all salesman and saleswomen. I don’t care what your job is or what title you have, we are all in sales. Even if you never touch a product in a sales pitch, you are still selling your talent, personality, wisdom, influence and leadership. Every time you pick up the phone at work, you are selling regardless of your job classification.

In every line of sales or work there is usually one or two things you must do to continue having a job. If you did everything else accept those few things, you would eventually lose your job, title or position. Our one thing is listing new business/hotels for sale. For us there really isn’t a second thing. If you do only that one thing, you will succeed in our business. It is that simple yet seemingly so very complicated to do.

In all businesses it is so easy to lose focus and get caught up in busy work instead of the very thing you need to do. The busy work or non-essential activities are like cutting the grass and painting the shutters on a house that is falling apart on the inside. It looks good from the outside but is failing on the inside.

In your line of work there is a very few (1-3) factors or things you must stay on top of or must do to remain a productive producer in your company. I used to have this friend that managed a large grocery store and each day there were 2-3 financial factors he needed to know at all times. He carried a piece of paper with those numbers in his pocket and memorized them several times a day so he would be fluent with the facts when his regional manager called. Pretty smart right? Knowing the main factors your superiors want and finding out the answers in advance is not only smart, it is also called selling yourself.

So if it holds true that we are sales people and that we all continue to interview for a job every time we pick up the phone or answer an email, it would be smart to know what is most important and focus your attention on that. KT

Have you ever heard the term, selling with spin? It means to try and spin the deal better than it really is. I don’t like sales spin. I like to know the good and the bad about what I am buying and I suspect that most are like me. 25 years an ago I was selling a Holiday Inn and we had created a great looking book with pretty pictures of the hotel in it best light. I was meeting with a buyer and he scanned over the book and looked at me and said, “You must be really pushing a dog to spend this much time on a book.” I had to laugh because this Holiday Inn wasn’t a complete dog, but it did have an old long sad face. Ha

I used to know this gentlemen who thought of himself as a salesman’s salesman. The perfect example of what a salesman should be. The funny thing is people didn’t trust him and didn’t believe what he was saying. He thought the basic criteria to selling was to inflate the advantages of what he was selling.  Every time I was around him, I felt like I needed a shower.

A year or so ago I was showing a hotel with the owner to some buyers. The owner was telling the buyers things that anyone could see was an exaggeration of the facts. To the owner it was perfect and didn’t need a single dollar in upgrades. As soon as the showing was over and I was alone with the buyers I told them what a disaster I thought the hotel was. They smiled and agreed because they knew they could now trust me. We ended up selling the hotel to those same buyers but if I had tried to snow them on the condition, they would have walked away.

Years ago I started doing this thing where I would tell buyers all the bad things first before I would tell them the good things. I found that if you get the bad things out of the way, you don’t have surprises down the road and people seem to trust you more.

Real selling is not about slick sales pitches and smooth talking. It is about being real, straightforward, honest and transparent. If you are in sales, you will sell far more by being honest about what you are selling than trying to talk someone into it. KT