Chance are good that you’ve downloaded one of these games on your phone or something similar. The chances are also good that you’ve heard of the Farmer Salesperson and the Hunter Salesperson. Lots of rah-rah about the Sales Hunters and stuff like “This is a SALES, we eat what we KILL!” or logical calm approaches about Sales Famers with advice like “Plant your seeds now and we will reap the rewards in the coming seasons.”

Surprise! This post isn’t about Sales Hunters & Sales Farmers.
This post is about real life.

THE RANT- 

What the frak *(it’s a Nerd Curse) have you been doing? Put your phone down and step away. It drives me crazy to see young (old, any age for that matter) sales people on their phone constantly during the work day. I get it. Someone probably posted a kitty-kat picture on your friend’s timeline or your base was just attacked by the clones. So what. There is a time and a place for that and I’m pretty sure it’s not right before a sales call. Before you blow me off as some older than dirt non-millennial, here me out. I am a Nerd. I love tech stuff and games. I played Star Wars Commander for 5 weeks before it threatened to destroy my life. I talked about it at work with employees and joined a Facebook group so I could chat about it online. Then at night I’d spend time researching the best strategy and looking up forums to see if there were some secret tips I could learn. I spent time watching ads so I could earn “Free” coins to spend in the game and then finally I was about to spend some real money. Spending money online is really the point of all those games, right? They want to SELL you on spending your time and MONEY in their world. It’s all just a ploy for your money. The reason these games are so popular right now is because we are afraid to pick our heads up and take a look around at what we are doing and who we are right now. The fantasy world is better, so we escape. Pick you head up and make real life better than the damn game.

THE PROBLEM – 

Playing these games or  just messing around online during the day screws with your mindset and your focus. It distracts others from what they are doing and your mind can’t keep up with the shifting gears anyway. If you think you can go from the pitch in FIFA to the sales pitch in 2 seconds you are wrong. If you are in a call center environment you literally have about .01 seconds to answer that phone. You know how it sounds when you call and wake someone up? You can always tell the difference, right? They sound groggy. Yeah, everyone you talk to thinks you sound groggy. If you are in the field and you pull up to a prospect’s place of business and take 10 minutes to check your game before entering the office for the appointment you look silly sitting in the car for too long and your brain isn’t ready for business when you finally get going. You are literally stealing time from your employer and if you work for yourself (which basically all salespeople do) then you are stealing from yourself too. If you are married and have a family you are stealing from them too. You have an obligation to provide for yourself and your family and to work when you work. You are stealing time and you are stealing production in the form of lost sales because you weren’t on your A-game.

THE FIX – 

The game has got to be about the business. Forget Pokemon Go! and just delete all of that crap off your phone. Replace it with a To-Do list like Swipes and give yourself 10 points in real life every time you accomplish a goal and swipe it off your list. Give yourself 100 points when you close a deal and 1000 points bonus when you go a week without playing some time-suck game during the middle of the day. Invest in yourself and read a sales article or read a book about mindset. Give yourself 250 points for finishing a book and 10 points for reading an industry or mindset article. If you are going to online anyway make it into a game that actually benefits you. The best game gets tallied up at the end of the year and the high score is announced on the W2. Seriously, grab your phone (if you aren’t already reading this on it) and go to your “apps” or whatever and delete them all. It will pain you at first, but next time you are on the toilet you won’t have Candy Crush or Mobile Strike Command to deal with. You’ll see a blog post or article that will help you make real money in the real world that can pay your real bills. Delete the temptation and replace it with something better. On a side note, I’m going to put apples inside potato chip bags until I quit eating junk food. On a side, side note – you should wipe your phone off with one of those Clorox wipes now and then.

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