I have been on a non-stop marathon tour.

Two weeks ago, I was in AZ for a one-day launch with a client. I was in Nashville, where I spoke at a high-level mastermind meeting, I’m in West Palm Beach for a speaking gig, and tomorrow, Karen and I go to Orlando to check out the hotel where we’re holding what is going to be a kick-ass event in October of 2020.

I was home for a few days last week and, believe it or not, did one-piece of “handyman” work. If you didn’t know it already, I am as far from being a handyman as you can imagine. Changing a lightbulb is a significant accomplishment for me. I’m only slightly facetious.

Anyway, Karen unplugged the coffee maker, and when she tried to plug it back in, it wouldn’t go back into the socket. If you knew how important it is for Karen to have coffee immediately upon waking in the morning, you would understand we were in an emergency situation.

So, “Mr. Fix It” gets to work. First, I try to use brute force to make the plug go into the socket. That failed. Then I went to YouTube to try and find a solution. Not wanting to get electrocuted, I opted against some of the advice I found.

Finally, I decided to take a different approach. I used finesse and gently pushed the plug into the socket at a different and quite strange angle.  Lo and behold it popped in, and before long, Karen was sipping on her morning brew.

As I was beaming with pride over my “accomplishment,” I realized two things.

First, I followed the formula for success in almost everything. I knew what my outcome was; I took action and tried different solutions until I reached my goal.

Second, there are two types of salespeople. The ones who use brute force, manipulative sales techniques to try and make the sale. And, folks who follow my sales methodology, which is to use finesse to get to the “yes.”

Yikes. It’s almost time for me to get on stage.

Later, gator.

Dave “Mr. Fix It” Dee