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In speaking with a long time friend and business associate today, he shared an insight that was shocking to me. He said that quite a few of the agent partners he knows have decided to just “wait out” the pandemic. They are effectively “laying down”, rendered paralyzed by fear, apathy, uncertainty.

Now, the reason this was shocking to me is I cannot imagine taking such a posture. From the 1^st day of sheltering in I’ve felt a tremendous sense of urgency to use this time productively. Customers I’ve supported for years were suddenly under tremendous pressure to enable remote workers, to shore up their network security, to identify and implement new platforms for unified communications. In some cases, these needs were not necessarily sales opportunities but nonetheless I was highly motivated to share knowledge, contacts and strategies to be of service.

Now that we are moving into a new phase of business beginning to re-open and we’re seeking to bring the future into focus, I’m leaning into the basic principles I’ve known and used with success throughout my career.

Have a Vision. Enroll others. Connect and communicate, which means listen more than talk. Create KPI’s and structures to manage and measure. Solve problems. Be generous. Now more than ever technology plays the central role in enabling business, use this time to learn all I can and leverage relationships to put those core principles into practice for the good of my customers, my industry and my community. The Chinese symbol for danger is the same as opportunity. This is a time to lean in, not lay down.

“Have a Vision. Enroll others. Connect and communicate, which means listen more than talk.”

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