Hey guys. Dean Mannix coming to you from my place on the Gold Coast. Just had a fantastic workout on the spin bike, but don’t worry. This is not about exercise. On the spin bike, I was watching a really fantastic video, which is part of a series I bought, from a guy called Roger Love. He’s a world-renowned voice expert. The way that he broke down voice, and the way that he taught me it could be used so much more effectively—even right now I’m realizing there are so many things I could be doing better—has really blown me away.

It made me think about this, as some of you probably know, I’ve been doing singing lessons. One of my goals this year is to sing publicly before the end of the year. I realized I’m actually not really ready for singing lessons, because going to singing lessons right now, it’s kind of like going to sprint club when you haven’t learned to walk or jog properly.

What I need to do is go back to those basics, relearn how to use this thing called my voice, my diaphragm, understand how air flows through my body, get my speaking to the front of my mouth, which is a really big challenge. But I’ve understood that I have to go back to the basics and create a platform built around really strong basics, because until I do that, I’m never going to maximize the value that I get out of singing lessons, and I’m never going to become great at singing, or even good at singing, in reality.

It made me think, for you salespeople out there, how relevant this is, because so many salespeople are out there are chasing the advanced course, or the latest persuasion technique, or the latest negotiation technique, while they haven’t really mastered the basics. They don’t have a platform to operate from, so when they go to try something new, they fail at it, they get frustrated, and they stop. That’s kind of the way I’ve been feeling about singing—I’m going to singing lessons, but it’s hard work, and I’m not getting the results, and I’m finding things difficult, but the problem is not my instructor, the problem is not the singing lessons, the problem is not the exercises. The problem is I don’t have a strong platform to work from, and I don’t have the basics handled. I’m going back to those basics and relearning how to use this thing called my voice, relearn how to understand what creates voice, and that’s going to give me that platform.

As a salesperson, you need to go back and really re-examine some of the basics to make sure you got a very strong platform from which to operate. Maybe you need to go back and consider your questioning plan, and ask yourself, “Do I really have a solid plan that enables me to do great leads analysis?” Maybe you need to think about the way that you frame or set up a meeting so that you got a solid platform for every single meeting you have. Maybe you need to go right back to the start, and think about, “What is my compelling story? Do I have a really strong and compelling story, and do I understand the fundamentals of that from a customer perspective, so that any time I’m in a situation, any time I’m marketing, any time I’m speaking to someone, I’ve got this amazing platform or base to work from.”

Let’s get back to basics. Let’s get back to some fundamentals. This week, just think about this: how many of your challenges and issues and problems are actually being caused because you don’t have a great set of fundamentals in place? Think that one through. “Do I have the basics handled? Do I have a platform to operate from?” Because in order to get better, the stronger the platform, the faster the acceleration occurs.

Back to basics for me, hopefully for you too. All of us deserve a better life, but we got to work for it. Here’s to a better life for you!