Growing up in Macksville, Kansas, a small town in the central part of the State, my dad taught me that if I wanted something, I would have to work for it. His thinking was that if you worked and bought things with your own money, you would take better care. Well, I wanted a bike.
I was too young to work for a farmer, so I started mowing yards for the widowed women in town. Once I pushed the mower to the customer's house, she would call my dad to have him come by and start the mower. While I would pull and pull to try to start it myself, more times than not dad would be the one to get it started. Once mowing, I enjoyed the process of going back and forth seeing the results of my work, a freshly mowed green yard.
At fourteen, I felt like I stepped into manhood when I started working for a farmer. While driving a tractor pulling a plow is the same process as mowing a yard, going back and forth, seeing freshly turned dirt didn't give me the same sense of joy.
One year, the farmer I worked for, Mr. Locke, Alvin to the other farmers, decided to redo his yard. Alvin was different than the other farmers in that he lived in town, didn't inherit his farm, and while married to Goldie, yes Goldie Locke, they didn't have children. I remember as if it were yesterday the process of getting the yard ready to plant grass seed. Then there was that sheer amazement as the grass began to germinate. I thought it odd that wheat seed germinating never gave me the same sense of awe.
Our first house increased my interest in turf-grass. It wasn't long before I had the yard of the month. People would actually stop as they walked by our home to touch the grass. Over the years as we moved to different houses, I enjoyed the challenge of getting the yard into shape. I realized that the process of improving a yard was much the same as improving the performance of an underperforming team.
Working with turf-grass has some commonality with both leading teams and sales. When I moved, I could have the house painted in a day to make it look new. However, the yard could take up to a year or more to turn around.
Humans are more like grass. Time is needed to develop and improve. We aren't like a house where we can be changed overnight. Ineffective habits ingrained over the years take time to unwind.
We had a house where the builder sodded the front yard while seeding the back. The front yard was up to standards in no time. However, the back took more time and work. While I would have preferred to spend time enjoying the front yard, most of my time was spent getting the back yard into shape. The seeded grass in the backyard wasn't a fit for the environment. I decided that the grass in the backyard needed to be replaced.
My point is that if you are an under performer, we were going to spend more time together, and if you aren't willing to develop and make changes, then it is likely you are not a fit for the organization.
Turf-grass has also taught me to be an effective Sales Rep. To be successful and have a nice yard, you have to be proactive. There are herbicide applications that need to be applied up to six months in advance. You have to spend money and do the work in the hope of getting the results you want months later. This type of work is easy to procrastinate.
For a Sales Rep to be successful, he has to be making contact into accounts months in advance of the decision to buy. While it would be easy to procrastinate and work in the moment, effective Sales Reps are those who push through and work the plan to ensure year-over-year growth.
Disappointment after another ice storm.
Turf-grass also teaches you to overcome obstacles. There will be times that, no matter what you do, you don’t get the results you want or expect. Drought, pest or ice storms will cause you to rethink your strategy. You may feel like giving up. However, like successful Sales Reps, you never give up but continue to work through the issues and rethink the plan to get the results you want. Some of the deals I closed took several years. While there were times I thought about giving up, I didn’t. Larger deals come with the biggest obstacles to overcome. Likewise, they are the deals that send you to
Back in Macksville, I did get that bike. It was a green stingray. My dad was right. Because I worked for the money to buy it, I took very good care and it lasted a long time. The freedom I felt riding that bike is the same freedom I feel today when working in my yard.