Challenges = Opportunities

I shared a post on LinkedIn a bit ago on Belief. The importance of Belief, and how to accomplish anything we desire to accomplish, we must start with belief.

I firmly believe that is Principle #1 in business & life. Without belief, you won’t get anywhere.

I wanted to share another core principle I have. It’s actually not my #2, but is #3 for me. And I’m honestly just feeling writing about this more than #2 right now but #2 will come and is a super fun one too :)

My 1st few weeks in Solar I was doing Door to Door Sales and I vividly remember after enough people slamming the door on my face, telling me to get a real job, and looking down on me, thinking: “man, this is hard.” Not like the act of walking & knocking & talking because that was easy. But the mental battle, that shit was hard.

After those 1st few weeks, I started to really lean into how much of a mind game it was and started to play to win. I started to really latch on to the concept of “nothing worth doing is easy” and build a mindset that thrived off of challenges. I started to process a “no” or any hurdle as legitimate fuel. Each no filled up my gas tank to knock the next door as I knew I was getting closer to the “yes”. With each difficult customer objection or complaint I would naturally smile as people would give me these bizarre reason why they wouldn’t buy solar from me (it was a little psychotic imagine complaining/telling someone why you don’t want their product or service and they just smile wide as can be). But truly, I had trained my brain to hear & listen to the issues/negatives, but process them as positives.

Here’s how my brain started to process these challenges:

Early on…

• No from a customer = Opportunity to build more resilience in my brain.
• Customer that had an unlucky experience with the construction project (hole in roof, leak, anything & everything that could have gone wrong) = Opportunity for me to prove my reliability as a professional, defuse & handle the situation. Opportunity to ultimately build more confidence in me to my customer to get referrals & increase my client base. Opportunity to listen to the issues & give feedback to the construction team to find holes/issues in the construction process. Opportunity to build within myself a tougher skin on how to handle frustrated people overall.
• Top sales rep(s) leaving my team = Opportunity to improve as a leader. Figure out why I wasn’t providing enough value to them. Opportunity to learn the marketplace & ensure I always had an ear to the ground.

Fast forward and MAN was I glad I built that muscle early in sales & business before starting Better Earth. Because my problems then seemed so big but they were nothing in the grand scheme of things. But that muscle & lesson was imperative.

Since starting better earth…

• Employee getting hurt on the job = Opportunity to build more robust safety systems & processes so all our people can go home to their families and never worry about their safety while at work. Opportunity to deepen the culture of people first.
• Selling far more business than we could fulfill on = Opportunity to learn how to scale a business and balance both sides of sales & fulfillment. Opportunity to find talent that we eventually would need to take the business to the next level; this put urgency behind that :)
• Cash flow constraints = Opportunity to improve our data reporting, team, etc. to avoid the issue at a larger scale. Opportunity to understand deeper importance of forecasting.
• Disgruntled Employees = Opportunity to LISTEN and learn from the most valuable asset in the business, our people.
• Disgruntled customer experiences = Opportunity to get better. Opportunity to hear where we are failing from the end user perspective & ensure the priorities we have in the business execution roadmap align with delivering superb customer experience
• Pandemic hitting that disrupts our core revenue driving vertical = Opportunity to build a new sales vertical that allowed us in the long run to become more dynamic, more bulletproof, and elevate the business as a whole.

The list goes on.?

So. Challenges can be anything. Think of anything in your day and life that isn’t ideal or seems “hard”.?

I challenge (no pun intended) everyone, to adjust the way you process challenges. Don’t take it at face value. If you take it at face value you will become stressed, overwhelmed, and end up in a difficult spot. Process it in a manner that allows you to look at it as an opportunity. There is ALWAYS an opportunity in every adversity.

I was always curious how the most successful & influential people on our earth handled challenges. Well before that, I was first curious about what type of problems did they face on a daily basis. Once I pictured that (think leading a nation, or leading a company as critical as google, or individuals fighting for their country’s survival, etc.) I always thought “how do THEY handle those types of challenges”??

I’m 100% confident they aren’t able to without this principle.?

This is a Top 3 principle for me.?

It’s a core principle at Better Earth.?

This month will be about a 60% increase in sales from our largest month ever. Which was last month.

I already foresee the 100 challenges this will pose, and directly after that I look forward to the 100 opportunities this will present.

I love this topic so am starting a podcast to discuss this theme with other entrepreneurs and business leaders because it has taught me so much and I hope it can teach others the same, if not, more.

With love :)