Tim Rethlake

Been through the Profession and Passion phases, now it’s all about Purpose. God only knows what I’m doing on Twitter!

[Tim Rethlake @rethlake]

A prayer for us this week:

Gandhi said, “If I do not see God in the face of the next person I meet, I need look no further.”

Creator of all, help us to remember that every person has been created by you and they are worthy of being treated as a Child of God.

If we can’t see the divine in them, the problem is not with our eyes, but with our hearts.

Help us to see the truth this week. Amen.”

[Fr. Joseph Krupp @Joeinblack]

So, I make $100 and the government takes 1/3 of that.
I take the 2/3 remaining to me and I buy something that I need.
They tax that.
I take what is left over and split it in half: half to the bank and have to an investment account.
The interest I make from the bank?
They tax that.
The interest I make from my investments?
They tax that.
If somehow, after all the confiscations, I’m able to buy myself a piece of land they will tax my purchase.
Then, even though they pretend I owe the land, they charge me every year for the right to live on it.
While the Democrats and Republicans keep us fighting each other over how much billionaires are taxed, we stop looking at how much money they take from us and pour into a monstrous bureaucracy that every day seems to take away a little more of our freedoms and give us less in return.
Just a note for all of you who have picked a side in the tyrannical two party system.

[Tim Rethlake @rethlake]

When folks reach out for coaching, some will ask, “This isn’t like therapy is it, because I’ve done therapy”

“No, therapy looks at your past to make sense of who/where you are today. Coaching looks at who/where you are today and who/where you want to be in the future, and the best path to get there.”

Think of coaching as the windshield and therapy as the rearview mirror. You need both, but there’s a reason the windshield is a helluva lot bigger.

That’s how I landed on the tagline for TRaction when I started it three years ago.

Where ya headed?

[Tim Rethlake @rethlake]

Team leaders:

Someone on your team has just “screwed the pooch” as Gramma Anna used to say.

They come to you, distraught, apologetic, and at a loss how to fix it.

What’s your first move?

Well, take heart that they felt safe enough to confess the error and not hide it. That means you have been doing some things right as their leader.

Don’t taser them. They’re already mad at themself; you being mad at them too doesn’t help anything.

The immediate question is whether the situation is fixable or not.

If yes, then make them responsible for coming up with and implementing a resolution. Don’t rescue them.

If no, then focus on what their plan is to make sure this doesn’t happen again in the future. In other words, what have they learned from this.

Whichever way it goes, your last words in their ears should be,

“Nobody’s perfect. You’ll likely make more mistakes in the future if you’re really pushing the envelope. Just make damn sure it’s not this one again.”

[Tim Rethlake @rethlake]

Many suppliers in my world of building products provide their sales teams with a leads source.

The leads are “qualified” in that they represent a new home or remodeling project that pulled a building permit.

The leads are not yet “vetted”. That’s the job of the sales reps. To make contact (however many times it takes), to inquire about the details of the project. If there’s a fit, to establish the value you provide, to provide a quote, and to be professionally persistent in closing.

If the reps are not diligent in following up on these leads even after months of coaching, cajoling, and threatening, the question has to be asked, “Do we have the right people on the bus?”

Leaders don’t want to ask that question because dehiring and rehiring is a metric buttload of work.

It’s easier to just keep whistling past the graveyard telling yourself “the market is soft right now”.

What path do you want to go down?

[Tim Rethlake @rethlake]

@ZannSuz AND pissing off the RAM and FORD truck owners at the same time!😂

[Snarknado ⚓️ 🇺🇸 @ZannSuz]

The more I think of this picture the more I have to laugh.
Democrats are straight up delusional. They are tanking hard with men so their solution is to shove forward this limp wristed Talarico clown who hates everything real Texas stands for.
Now they slap a pristine cowboy hat and five o’clock shadow on him and parade him around like some cheap parody of the oil field grit, ranching, farming, and hunting culture we live every day.
Real Texans smell this plastic consultant bullshit from a mile away. We’re not voting for this manboy.

[Sassafrass84 @Sassafrass_84]

The most accurate description of leftists.👇

Pride Month be like:
LGBT: I'm gay
Everyone else: Ok
LGBT: I'm REALLY fucking gay
Everyone else: ok
LGBT: Teach your kids about it or you're a bigot
Everyone else: Okay, that's a little too far—
LGBT: FUCK YOU, YOU TRANSPHOBIC NAZI FASCIST
Everyone else: Yeah… this movement has lost the plot.
LGBT: OmG I'm literally shaking, so oppressed, biggest victim in human history.

And that boys and girls is it in a nutshell.

[Tim Rethlake @rethlake]

Sales Leaders:

If your pipeline reviews sound like a weather report, “A bit overcast, might clear up, chance of closing next week.” you’re not managing sales, you’re hosting a forecast-themed podcast.

Good sales leaders don’t ask, “How’s it looking?”

They ask:

“What changed since last week?”
“What evidence says this deal is moving?”
“What’s the customer’s decision process?”
“What commitment did we earn?”

We’re moving into summer months here in North America. Don’t let your team lull you into the “Lazy, hazy, crazy days of Summer” mentality. Stay sharp with your questions.

[Tim Rethlake @rethlake]

Sales Leaders:
If your team only gets “coaching” after they miss the number, that’s not coaching. That’s a CRM autopsy.

Good sales leaders don’t wait until the deal is dead to ask better questions. They get in the game earlier:

“What’s the customer trying to solve?”
“Who else has to say yes?”
“What’s the next real commitment?”
“What’s our risk of losing this to ‘do nothing’?”

Because by the time the forecast is ugly, the problem usually isn’t this quarter’s activity.

It’s last quarter’s leadership

[Tim Rethlake @rethlake]

A prayer for us this week:

“Creator of all, please grant us perspective. To appreciate that the time between our “born on” date and our “expired” date is but the blink of an eye in the light of eternity.

Help us remember that while the days are long, the years are short. Especially the years we have to positively influence the next generation.

May we not waste a single drop of the time you have graced us with. Amen.”

[Old Salty Marine @BamaSaltyMarine]

Islam has a problem with Gays, Jews, Sikhs, Christians, Buddhist, Hindus, Women, Non-Muslims, Atheists, beer, wine, bacon, and dogs

But if I have a problem with Islam, I'm the bigot and Islamophobic? Can you see how ridiculous it is?

[Tim Rethlake @rethlake]

Sales Pros:
It’s Friday, I bet even the best of you have a few “spare” minutes on your calendar, do this with them:

Call three customers that you’re not currently in a negotiation with, and tell them (or leave a VM) that says:

“Hey, don’t need anything pressing, I just wanted to call and thank you for the trust you have shown in me and our team here. We’ll work hard to continue to deserve your trust. Have a great weekend!”

This does two things:

1. They feel good when they hear it.

2. You’ll feel good when you say it.

It will set you in a positive frame of mind as you start your weekend being with those folks who mean the most to you.

[Tim Rethlake @rethlake]

Sales Leaders:

For the sake of high heaven and all things holy, please, please stop doing 1 on 1 accountability content in your sales meetings!

Tanya doesn’t give a rat’s fanny how Kevin’s pipeline health is looking, nor should she.

Group meeting agendas should be forward focused with education, practice selling tough situations, and motivation.

If your team doesn’t leave the meeting smarter, confident, and jacked up, you’re wasting everyone’s time.

[Western Lensman @WesternLensman]

Talarico wrote a tweet in 2020 saying white Americans spread a racism virus.

When asked to explain it recently, his response was revealing:

“Looking back at some of these old statements from years ago, would maybe word them differently or communicate them differently. But the values that I hold are still the same."

In other words: He will moderate his rhetoric in order to better disguise these beliefs that he still holds in order to get elected.

Then he will go full Spanberger.

[Tim Rethlake @rethlake]

It takes humility for a rookie sales rep to ask a senior sales rep for coaching.

It also takes humility for the senior sales rep to provide it.

No matter how you slice it, the healthiest sales teams are grounded in humility.

[Dustin Grage @GrageDustin]

@RepWolgamott You’re running for AUDITOR in MINNESOTA and have only mentioned the word “fraud” in two posts since 2019.

Brutal.

[Tim Rethlake @rethlake]

A prayer for us this week:

“Creator of all, you created us with uniquely human gifts. The gifts of imagination, free will, and speech.

Guide us to imagine a world of fairness and abundance, to use our free will to choose actions that bring that world into being, and to encourage others by speaking well to them and about them. Amen.”

[C3 @C_3C_3]

So…

There’s welfare fraud but no voter fraud.

There’s daycare fraud but no voter fraud.

There’s hospice fraud but no voter fraud.

There’s Medicaid fraud but no voter fraud?

Everywhere we look there’s major fraud but no voter fraud?

Voter fraud is the key to all the frauds.

[Tim Rethlake @rethlake]

A friend recently posted about a company who directed their team not to look at a particular website or engage with any of their content.

Of course the first thing everybody did was whip out their phones and go to that website to see what all the fuss was about.

We used to joke that if you wanted to keep something confidential, put it in the company newsletter, but if you wanted everyone to know, tell one other person and tell them not to say a word to anyone else.

The brain’s a funny place. It tends to react by doing the opposite of what it’s told. This is why an aggravated person gets madder when told to “calm down”.

Which is why it works when asking a prospect for their business, you can actually close it by ending with, “Of course you’re free to say no. . . “

Yup, the brain is indeed a funny place.