As a training exercise, I’ve been taking a look at proposals before our sales reps send them out to customers.

Before I even look at the proposal I ask the sales rep “What’s important to this customer?” It might be lead time, price, color matching, control of a specific frequency, you name it. I can’t evaluate the job we did preparing our proposal until I know what’s important to the customer who will receive it.

This implies another truth: Effective sales involves listening a lot, not talking a lot. If you listen, customers will tell you all about what’s important to them. You don’t even need to ask, they’ll start telling you from the minute you answer the phone. Once you know, you can make a relevant and genuinely helpful proposal.

I love dashboards that show the vital stats of an organization at a glance. I recommend them wholeheartedly.

There’s a danger though. Once that beautiful real-time dashboard is a click away, it can be tempting to spend too much time checking results. (I’ve been known to check real-time sales stats before, during, and after a staff meeting.) It feels good when the numbers are up, but checking progress can be a distraction from creating progress.

Create progress through clear strategy and deliberate, consistent action. Check progress often enough to know what’s working and what’s not. Know the score but focus on playing the game.

I participated in this exercise with a seminar speaker recently. It’s fun and surprisingly eye-opening.

Thinking about your business, your organization, or any unit of your life, write a list of the main things that make it what is.

Example: If you own a restaurant: We make food. We have menus. We charge for food. We have tables and chairs.

Next to each item, write a brainstorm list of what you could do if that item was reversed.

Same restaurant example:

• We don’t make food… People bring in their own food. The customers cook the food. A different guest chef makes the food each week.
• We don’t have menus… Every entree is a surprise. The chef decides what will be served based on that day’s market. The servers memorize a clever way of selecting food.
• We don’t charge for food… We charge by the hour for the table space. We charge an annual membership fee. Everything is a suggested donation.
• We don’t have tables and chairs… We use bleachers, like stadium seating. People sit in seats that can be driven around like bumper cars. [Your idea here.]

I love how this exercise brings out ideas that are normally hidden behind the obvious answers.

Last week I saw a young music star belting it out on stage in front of thousands of screaming fans. His confidence and comfort in the spotlight amazed me. It’s tempting to say “He was born different than me, that’s why he can do that and I never could.”. That might be comforting, but it’s not true.

Not long ago in New York City I visited a small music venue. I watched each singer take the stage for a set, and they were good. I was impressed but how much practice they already had, and how much more practice they would get before ever singing on a big stage. Hundreds of gigs, thousands of hours, that’s the back story.

Every mastered skill, everything that looks like a “gift” has the same back story.

Back to last week and the young star. I looked him up on Wikipedia during the performance. He started performing when he was 4 years old.

It’s not inborn, it’s practice.

I recently learned the story of a new friend who started and grew a new division in an established company. He made it a success in spite of challenging circumstances, less-than-supportive bosses, and less-than-plentiful resources. The essential ingredient in the mix wasn’t funding, a trail already blazed, or any external factor.

It was him. He was the essential ingredient.

He might not take credit, but I’m convinced his ingenuity, leadership, salesmanship, and especially perseverance made it work. With the character and ability that he had, almost any external challenge could be overcome. Without his character and ability, a small challenge would have been enough to derail the whole thing.

As I look back, this is true of me and my story. I didn’t start with any funding, a privileged family tree, or a “winning idea” handed to me. I didn’t start with anything except the character and ability that are in me. And that was enough.

This is true of you and your story too. It’s what’s in you, not any external factor, that will make the biggest difference.

I’d bet on a leader with proven character and ability any day. I’d never bet on a well-funded “sure thing” that lacked that kind of leader.

This is not about going it alone without a team or without a coach. It’s about the power of character to shape outcomes in ways that make external factors look weak.