Ray Lewis the famous linebacker for the Baltimore Ravens of the NFL played his last home game this past weekend in Baltimore, USA. After 17 years of being the one of the best defensive players ever in the league Ray Lewis is retiring. A recent documentary on Ray Lewis has turned out to be very timely with the announcement of his retirement this year. In this documentary Ray Lewis made a simple statement, “He lives to impact people.”
Success to Ray Lewis is making a difference in people’s lives. Greatness is making a true impact; leaving an ever-lasting impression with a person they will never forget. Translating the idea of making an impact to selling forces us to move well beyond making the sale and understand how we impact people.
Do you feel in your sales career you have made an ever lasting positive impression on someone?
In my career I have made an impact in my last position during the launch of the company’s largest marketing program ever launched. I’ll share this story with you as an example of making an impact that may help you come up with your own ideas.
The company I worked for at the time was launching their single largest marketing campaign ever. The program was leveraging a major NHL Superstar to endorse the product. I was a field sales manager responsible for over-seeing the execution of this program at the retail grocery stores in my region. I knew this marketing program was BIG and I wanted my contribution to the program to be noticed.
The NHL superstar was the main driver of this marketing program; I thought of ways to make my execution the BIGGEST and BEST the company would see. I settled on my idea, I was going to build a hockey rink display in a grocery store in my region.
As part of the program I had Point of Sale displays to hold the products and a cardboard cutout of the NHL superstar. If I was going to build a hockey rink display I would have to do it myself.
I designed the layout of my display; the dimensions were 20’ wide x 10’ deep this would be a huge display. I purchased plywood sheets and painted them white in my garage to make the ice surface. When the white paint had dried I added the blue and red lines for the hockey rink markings. I purchased actual size metal goals to be placed at each end of the hockey rink.
I had been able to convince the manager of a major retail grocery store to allow me to build my hockey rink display inside his store. The day of execution I arrived at the store before opening and worked for hours building the display out of all the materials I had prepared at my house for the display.
Finally the display was complete and the store manager was amazed at the hockey rink display. The first shoppers through the store were blown away by seeing a hockey rink display inside their grocery store. One child actually laid down on the ‘ice surface’ and had his mother take his picture. Enthusiasm and excitement were high.
I took several pictures of the display and sent them into the marketing department to share my work. I wasn’t sure what to expect in terms of the response. The usual response was a ‘good job’ or ‘nice work’ from a marketing manager.
However, the response I got was much different. Emails started coming in one after another with strong words of praise for the hockey rink display. Each email was forwarded on to a higher and higher level of management at first the brand manager, then director of marketing, then the VP, CFO and ultimately CEO and President.
I received an email from the President and CEO of a $5 billion company congratulating me on my creativity and passion. Later that week the same President and CEO included my Hockey Rink display pictures in his weekly newsletter to the entire global workforce.
While this praise and admiration did not result in an immediate raise or large stock option. It did result in me achieving my goal of making an impact.
There is no one single way for someone to make this type of impact on people or an organization. You should focus on trying to set your sights high and strive to make the largest positive impact possible in your position to put you on the path to greatness.
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