In times of adversity great things can happen. In hard times great people and, more importantly, great teams can do great things--rise to the occasion, as the saying goes. I love hard times; I love the challenge of getting things done on a deadline. I love working against tremendous odds. No, it’s not because I am a glutton for punishment, a masochist, or just someone who likes to see people suffer. I like hard times because it is in such times that you can really see how great people function. You can get an understanding of why companies are great.

Anyone can do well in boom times when things are going great for all. We have had times like those in our industry's history: not enough, but we've had them. But we've had more difficult times for sure. Times when the market went down; times when offshore competition was literally eating our lunch; times when crazies on Wall Street were messing with our market; and times post-9/11 which ended up being a perfect storm with everything going wrong at once. Remember after 9/11 when the market dropped from $40 billion to $33 billion in one year? Now those were hard times!

But the thing about hard times is that they can cause great things to happen. Cream rises to the top and great innovators come to the forefront. Whether it be with new and exciting products and services or new and creative ways of doing things; hard times force us to be creative and develop new processes so that we will survive.

I love sales and I love salespeople--I'm fascinated by good salespeople, those that find a way no matter what's going on around them; those who have what John F. Kennedy called “grace under pressure.” These are salespeople who have the courage to weather the storm and the fortitude to hold out without getting discouraged and the strength to go on no matter what happens around them.

You don’t hear these salespeople talking about offshore competition, or what is going to happen in the next election, or what the competition is doing. They calmly play the cards they are dealt with a certain air of confidence enhanced by quiet genius. For the most part these folks love a challenge--they love facing it with a calm fortitude based on an understanding that if they work hard and smart, and if they do the right things, they will succeed. They have the patience to understand that what they do today might not get them the sales they need in 10 minutes or even 10 days. They understand that if they have the persistence to perform the job correctly time and time again they will be guaranteed success no matter the odds.