I worked in my first sales job during the recession of the early 1980s. Unemployment rates were more than 20 percent and interest rates were 18 percent where I lived and worked. In hindsight, I probably should have moved, but I didn’t have any money to do so. One out of four people could not buy the product I was selling due to the simple fact that they were out of work. I was lucky if seven or eight prospects showed interest in my product in a week. My survival was based on the most basic of actions: Generating opportunities and then learning how to handle all the objections, stalls, and reasons that individuals come up with not to buy. This was my learning ground, and I had nothing else for comparison.
When you don’t know, you simply don’t know. If you grow up in poverty in a remote location surrounded by other poor families, you don’t know you are poor. The only people who know you are poor are the people who have more than you. You won’t be aware of your state of affairs until you have something with which to compare it. You don’t know until you know! When you’re trying to sell during a period of economic contraction and don’t have anything to compare it with, you’re almost blessed by not knowing. You will do and adjust to whatever is necessary in order to succeed.
The biggest challenge most people face today is their tendency to keep comparing the current situation with yesterday’s and wishing for yesterday to return. The only thing that works, though, is concentrating on the future and forgetting the past. Those who continue to compare themselves with others in the market by claiming that they’re “doing better than the rest” must remember that the goal is to dominate, not compare yourself with those who are doing badly. A surefire way to make sure you never get to first place is to compare yourself with others who have no intention of ever being first.
Surviving Recessions
Since I began my career in the early 1980s, I have built three businesses and have endured—and even prospered—during periods of economic contraction. Most people reading this book have also survived tough times before; you simply might have forgotten that you did come through each of them. For instance, I was born during the 1958 recession that lasted two years. I survived it; in fact, I didn’t even know we were having one. I survived another recession from 1960 to 1961 when I was three years old. In 1973, there was an oil crisis that lasted two years, and I worked all through school and during the summers when other people couldn’t get a job. From early 1980 to 1982, the Iranian Revolution caused an increase in the price of oil around the world, leading the country into another recession. Survived it! In the early 1990s, the country experienced another recession that lasted a little over a year that included the housing bust, after which people swore they would never get back into real estate. I survived it. The year 2000, brought the collapse of the dot-com bubble, followed a year later by the September 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, causing tremendous economic fears around the world, especially in the United States. Survived both. This was followed by two years of accounting scandals and another contraction in our economy, which I also made it through. Then, in 2007, the world experienced the start of another major contraction, this time led by the collapse of the housing market, extending to bank collapses in the United States and Europe. This resulted in bank failures, bankruptcies, foreclosures, and the subsequent failure of entire industries. We will all survive it. The question is can you thrive in it as well?
A recession, by definition, is basically a drop in the gross domestic product of a country over two quarters, or 180 days. Individuals and companies cannot actually experience a recession per se since they don’t have gross domestic product. However, they can certainly experience the effects of recessions, and the degree to which they make or refuse to make adjustments will determine how well they endure it. I say all of this to give you encouragement and to remind you that you have survived, can survive, and will survive any economic contraction. But I do want to show you how to advance, conquer, and seize market share during these times.
While I would prefer to experience economic expansion, of course, the reality is that I have always done better during periods of contraction—as funny as that might seem. It’s a bit of an odd phenomenon, but some people actually perform better when challenged because it triggers their need to survive and stimulates higher levels of performance. This in turn causes them to become more creative in the marketplace and more productive when others are throwing in the towel. So don’t be hopeless. Contractions are not the end of the world; you can succeed regardless of the state of the economy.
Understand as well that economic contractions don’t last forever. Those who don’t quit but instead dig in and get through them will come out the other side with a better work ethic, an increased customer base, and a bigger piece of the market. And survivors are instilled with the confidence that they can prosper, regardless of the conditions in which they’re doing business. So don’t throw in the towel. Understand that you have a choice in what you do to counter a pullback. You don’t have to suffer the financial consequences others will experience if you act intelligently.
I live by the following motto: “Problems are opportunities, and conquered opportunities equal money earned.” Remember that when you face a problem, it’s an opportunity in disguise. Stay in the game, push forward, never retreat—and look for creative ways to solve your problems. A situation you’re able to overcome won’t even look like a problem later; you’ll simply recall a situation that just needed to be handled properly. Unfortunately, people who pull back and retreat to the point that they almost disappear during economic downturns won’t remember problems this way. They respond in a habitually negative way and become overwhelmed to the point that they’re essentially blind to prospects and solutions. When the market recovers, these individuals will have less money and fewer clients and will be forgotten by the marketplace, leaving their business and identity damaged. Your great advantage in this market is that less competition gives you the chance to stand out and capture market share.
What follows in this book are the tactics that you must use to ensure that your business grows, survives, and prospers during all times but especially during economic contractions. These are proven techniques that, when used exactly, will get you results. They are tried, true, tested, accurate, and precise formulas that will make your goals a reality. I encourage you to use them exactly as detailed and avoid being “reasonable” when you do.
Reason means proper exercise of the mind, sanity, the sum of the intellectual powers, and the possession of sound judgment. Being unreasonable here means that you won’t allow yourself to be governed by or act according to reason. I don’t want you to use your intellectual powers to make sense of this; after all, the world is filled with intelligent people who never do anything significant. Instead, I want you to operate as though you are without reason, without judgment—more like a madman or madwoman whose only goal is to make things happen. Do not reason with these actions; just take them. Do not apply your common sense when employing them. Use them in exactly the way I state them here. The biggest mistake you can make in using these techniques is to attempt to make them fit your personality or mind-set. Do not alter the actions in any way; you’ll just end up with a watered-down version of what works.