Your best salespeople are DRIVEN to WIN: They are competitive pros who know how to persevere and win big deals – they are Sales Champions.

There’s something about sales professionals that fascinates us. We have to admire the salesperson’s endless resilience in the face of constant rejection, their certainty the deal will close in the end.

Whatever your sales culture, you cannot be a top salesperson without being driven to win and compete. Money is not an unimportant factor in managing a sales force. In the right industry, salespeople can make 6-7 figure incomes in a single year. However, research shows money is not what drives exceptional sales people to succeed. It’s the value they place on competing and winning.

Sales champions meet their full potential by developing the following skills and techniques:

o    Staying relaxed under pressure, in what I call “good nervous.”
o    Focusing on what’s important (to the customer) and letting go of everything else.
o    Rebounding from mistakes, bad breaks and failures.
o    Eliminating self-doubts and negative thinking.
o    Using mental rehearsal for upcoming presentations and meetings.
o    Motivating by setting meaningful and compelling goals- for each action; every day and every meeting.
o    Developing self-confidence and a positive, go-for-it attitude.
There are, and always will be ups and downs in sales. They are found within a single competition for a deal, and throughout a sales career. Anyone can handle the good times with class and confidence. This takes no great discipline or character. How you handle the down times is what distinguishes you as a real sales champion from everyone else.

The mark of a true sales champion is that no matter what is going on, no matter how badly things are going, or how far behind they are, they never give up. A sale champion always operates on the principle that there is always an opportunity to win, no matter how daunting the competition.

Refusing to give in to the emotions of defeat (i.e. discouragement, hopelessness, frustration and emotionally quitting), sales champions always produce and surpass their performance goals.  This over-worked cliché; winners never quit and quitters never win holds true. Sales champions never quit.

Any press is good press right? Wrong! Making a complete spectacle out of yourself or your brand will get you attention, but is it the kind of attention you want. A well executed marketing stunt can put your company on the map… an ill-conceived one can result in embarrassment, trips to the unemployment office and even angry mobs.

Here are 10 of the most outrageous marketing stunts. 5 were killer campaigns that resulted in big wins for their respective companies and 5 were disastrous duds that left their marketing department saying “Whoops,’ or worse…

#1. WHOOPS: Starbucks Email Coupon

In an effort to supplement slumping sales Starbucks initiated a viral campaign that spread to an epidemic. On August 23rd of 2006 Starbucks sent an email coupon for a free iced coffee to a few employees in the south eastern part of the US and encouraged them to forward the email to their friends and family.

The problem was they did not take into account the speed & scope of email and the fact that their coupon could be reproduced an infinite amount of times. What resulted was a worldwide run on Starbucks. In a panic Starbucks yanked the promotion leaving lines of disgruntled customers. The swift action saved them millions in lost revenue but resulted in a PR nightmare and a $114 million dollar class action lawsuit. Thanks a latte Starbucks!

#2. WIN: Golden Palace and The Virgin Mary Sandwich

Barred from advertising through conventional media, Caribbean based online casino GoldenPalace.com has been forced to think outside the box, coming up with some outrageous marking stunts like paying people to tattoo GoldenCasino.com on their foreheads. In their most successful stunt, the casino bought a grilled cheese sandwich, that was adorned with the likeness of the Virgin Mary for $28,000 on eBay. The $28K not only got them a sacred sandwich but also coverage from every major media outlet across the globe.

#3. WHOOPS: Calling All ID Thieves

In a bold marketing move to show the power of LifeLock, an identity theft protection service, CEO Todd Davis published his social security number and dared identity thieves to try and steal his identity.

The campaign that featured truck side billboards, internet and broadcast ads bearing his social security number drew a lot of media attention… unfortunately, not as much attention as the identity thief that successfully stole his identity.

LifeLock claimed that the breach was an isolated incident and not their fault but according to court documents, over 20 fraudulent Driver’s license have been obtained with Davis’s social security number.

#4. WIN: Nathan’s Famous & Healthy Hot Dogs?

In 1915 Coney Island, Polish immigrant Nathan Handwerker worked as a hotdog bun slicer at Feltman’s Beer Garden. Dismayed that he and his fellow immigrant workers couldn’t afford to buy a Feltman’s hot dog, he decided to make his own reasonably priced dogs, and in 1916 he opened “Nathan’s Famous Frankfurter & Soft Drink Stand.”

Things didn’t start out so good for Nathan. The public was already growing weary of they spicy mystery meat tubes and Nathan’s low 5 cent price fueled rumors that his dogs were made from inferior dog and horse meat. In a move to win the publics trust, Nathan hired people wearing lab coats and stethoscopes to stand in front of his restaurant eating hotdogs.

The public bought it and he capitalized on it with signs that boasted “If doctors eat our hot dogs, you know they’re good!” So instead of fading from the streets of Coney Island, he was able to generate the momentum that lead to a Hot Dog empire and household name.

#5. WHOOPS: This One Bombed

In January of 2007 promote the new Aqua Teen Hunger Force (ATHF) movie, Turner Broadcasting hired Interference Inc. to generate buzz. Their plan, dubbed Boston Mission 1 involved planting Lite-Brite like devices bearing the likeness of an ATHF character “Er” in numerous high traffic areas like train stations and overpasses.

At 8:05 AM on January 31st someone noticed the glowing circuit board on an Interstate 93 Bridge support beam and rather than recognizing the obscure sinister cartoon character, they called the police, who brought in the bomb squad, shut down the highway and created hours of gridlock throughout the city.

The stunt sparked world wide media attention but ultimately resulted in several arrests, lawsuits, the resignation of the Cartoon Network GM, the federal Terrorist Hoax Improvements Act of 2007, and hardly a mention of the actual movie in the media.

#6. WIN: Half.com, Oregon

In 1999 Start-up Half.com had a great discount retail platform but struggled to standout in from the rapidly growing dot com retail crowd. To raise brand awareness they paid the city of Halfway, OR to change their name to Half.com.

The move attracted a flurry of media attention bringing them from the business section to the front page. Traffic to the site boomed and months later eBay swooped in a bought the rising star for $300 million. Reports indicate that Halfway was a little less fortunate. Their official website explained, “Half.com made many promises. Some of which were honored and others not.”

#7. WHOOPS: Disco Demolition Night or Comiskey Park Demolition Night?

Experience stagnant ticket sales at Comiskey Park, the Chicago White Sox decided to take advantage of Disco’s waning public favor by holding Disco Demolition Night. Hoping to bring in an extra 5000 or so spectators to a double header against the Detroit Tigers, the White Sox management encouraged fans to bring in their Disco records in exchange for $1 tickets.

The promotion did bring in 5,000 fans along with 70,000 more. When thousands were turned away from the 45K person capacity park, angry disco haters resorted to crashing the gates and scaling the walls. In between the two games, as scheduled, a popular local radio host blew up a crate of the Disco records in Center Field and the crowd went wild… literally. They rioted, setting fires and tearing the field to pieces resulting in the White Sox being forced to forfeit the second game.

#8. WIN: The Taco Liberty Bell… Just Kidding

On April 1st, 1996 Taco Bell bought newpaper ads with a picture of the national treasure, The Liberty Bell, announcing that they bought and renamed it the “Taco Liberty Bell.” The ad copy read:

“Taco Bell is pleased to announce that we have agreed to purchase the Liberty Bell, one of our country’s most historic treasures. It will now be called the ‘Taco Liberty Bell’ and will still be accessible to the American public for viewing. While some may find this controversial, we hope our move will prompt other corporations to take similar action to do their part to reduce the country’s debt.”

Of course outrage ensued and people not realizing that it was April Fool’s Day, began bombarding Liberty Bell Center and Taco Bell with irate complaints. At about noon, Taco Bell released a statement explaining the prank and the outrage turned to hungry laughter as the media outlets ate it up and Taco Bell experienced a $1.1 Million increase in sales over the next two days.

#9. WHOOPS: CK Edgy or Over the Edge?

Calvin Klein thrives on the attention they get from their boundary pushing provocative advertising campaigns, but in 1995 they pushed a little too far. The campaign in question featured a series of TV commercials featuring barely legal teens in a wood paneled room being interviewed by a creepy old man.

Unlike their ads featuring a sexy but underage Brooke Shields, these commercials looked like they were a pedophiles home movie reels. Yet again, outrage ensued, complaints poured in and the FBI even investigated Calvin Klein for possible child pornography charges. Although the FBI concluded that no crimes were committed the ads left a bad taste in the mouth of the public and the company ended up pulling the plug on the campaign.

#10. Win? The Paris Hilton Marketing Machine

Most people don’t think “Marketing Genius” when they think of Paris Hilton but she was able to take the public humiliation and subsequent media frenzy over the leak of her 2003 “Sex Tape” and leverage that fame to transform herself from an obscure spoiled socialite into a house hold name. By making a total spectacle of herself at every turn she has built her name into a multi-million dollar brand that has led her to financially successful fashion line, modeling career, acting career, speaking engagements and book deals.

Just about every one is well aquatinted with the words “Financial Crisis,”  yet despite round the clock news coverage and endless punditry, many of the people I talk with don’t fully grasp how this all happened.

Here is a great guide I found over at Mint for those who still feel lost in the sea of economic jargon.  It’s not perfect… It over simplifies some factors and leaves others completely out but all in all this is a rather accurate and detailed account, laid out in an easy to digest chart…

How it all happened:

For the rest of the chart head over to Mint Blog…

From a Business Week editorial by Newt Gingrich…

“It’s time to declare the end of adolescence. As a social institution, it’s been a failure… Adolescence was invented in the 19th century to enable middle-class families to keep their children out of sweatshops. But it has degenerated into a process of enforced boredom and age segregation that has produced one of the most destructive social arrangements in human history: consigning 13-year-old males to learning from 15-year-old males.”

Good ol’ Newt is always good for a little controversy, but he raises some interesting points. One idea that I find particularly interesting is the proposal he makes at the end of the article that reads a little less draconian than the title…

“High school students who can graduate a year early get the 12th year’s cost of schooling as an automatic scholarship to any college or technical school they want to attend. If they graduate two years early, they get two years of scholarships. At no added cost to taxpayers, we would give students an incentive to study as hard as they can and maximize the speed at which they learn.”

I like this idea. It’s a voluntary and incentive based way to encourage hard work in school. Plus it allows a particularly motivated young person to take a little control of their career path early on, hopefully bringing smart, motivated and hardworking people into the workforce sooner rather than later.

Read the whole article at BusinessWeek.com.

When Marie Lupe Cooley, 41, of Jacksonville, Fla., saw a help-wanted ad in the newspaper for a position that looked suspiciously like her current job, and with her boss’s phone number listed, she assumed she was about to be fired.

So, police say, she went to the architectural office where she works late Sunday night and erased 7 years’ worth of drawings and blueprints, estimated to be worth $2.5 million.

Cooley was arrested and charged with a felony, and needless to say, she lost her job. The irony, which you may have guessed is that her job was not in jeopardy. The ad was for a position at her boss’s wife’s company.

Clearly there is a hole in this woman’s marble bag, but I can’t help but wonder what else was happening, or not happening, at her company that would drive her to react this way. How effectively did her manager make her feel like a valuable member of the company? Beyond that, why was she looking in the help wanted in the first place? We don’t really know what went on behind the scenes so my point is not to draw conclusions about that company’s office culture, but instead to remind us to think about how we are managing people.

As managers, here are some questions we should periodically ask ourselves…

1. What are we doing to make our employees feel valued?
2. Do we know if our employees are happy at work?
3. If they are not, what are we doing to address this?

We can’t please everyone all the time and we shouldn’t try to, but we need to be listening to our people and addressing these issues. It’s easy to spend all our time managing projects and processes, but at the end of the day business is about people, and as managers we need to manage our people.