Helping A Young Spark Ignite The "Impossible"

What Can A Motivated Teen Achieve?
Ask Bill Gates!

One of my all time favorite quotes is:

"I try to believe in as many as six impossible things before breakfast."
- Lewis Carroll

The belief in the "impossible" is not something I taught myself to do, it just was something I do naturally.  Every morning from the moment I wake up, to the second I finally fall asleep my mind races with ideas of the "impossible."

Today was no different, except for the fact that today I am sharing one of my "impossible" ideas here on my blog so the world can ponder it with me.  This morning my thought was on the youth of the world, and how can we help foster the eager spark of our youth to ignite change in the world.

This idea come from my memories high school.  During that point of my life the last thing I ever cared about was school.  Mainly because I was board out of my mind, and found myself constantly finding fault in the curriculum and teaching methods used.  Looking back, I know what could have cured that was a self set goal, not good grades, but something more tangible.  Something like a real business that I was part of, that my high school experience was built around to support.  Which leads me to my idea:

What would happen if we went to local high schools and started a competition for business ideas, with the top ideas being funded to start, assigned mentors, and their high school class schedules built around the education to support their business interest?  Further more we would design a track for any post high school education and mentoring that would help them continue to support their business ambitions so they can achieve their business goal.  Finally, since the business idea would be their own, they would be building financial security for the future through the equity steak they would have in the organization.

I do not believe there is a single person in the U.S. that can argue that our system of education is suitable to prepare our youth for the world of tomorrow.  This simple idea could be what is needed to help start a new way of education, by allowing a child to be apart of something so much larger than them self, which will provide them guided path to follow for the rest of their life.

So that was my thought.   It does not require government funding as the business could take care of all the cost.  All it would take is the willingness for a few people to come together with me and be willing to believe in the youth of America, and our abilities to mentor them into the leaders of tomorrow.

This idea is fresh and new, and needs your input.  Please feel free to use this as your spark and share your thoughts by commenting below so maybe, we can make this "impossible" idea a real thing.

To The Success & Prosperity of Our Youth!

Qtr. 1, Day 1 of 3 ACA Sales Summit

Good Evening Everyone!!!

Well this evening marks the beginning of one of my favorite events in sales, our summit.  Now just to catch all of you up the ACA Sales Summit simply put is a training & creative planning retreat.  This is when I get to sit down with my entire sales force outside of the stress full environment of our office and get them ready for an amazing 1st Quarter.  The entire event last 2 full days with Friday being the first as we leave at noonish from the office and then go out to dinner and talk sales all night. Saturday is our training focused day where we start at 8am and go till 7pm and do nothing but review the basics of what we do.  Finally Sunday we talk strategy and pull out our creative homework we assigned before the summit to share with the team.  

This summit program started 2 years ago and has been such a success that for 2009 we are now moving it from an annual event to a quarterly event.  This is when sales gets focused in on just what we need to do and how we are going to get there.  We create strategy to kill our competition in focused markets or industries and improve on current working strategies already in place.  Basically is similar to sharpening your knife before you butcher an animal.  It makes the whole process that much more enjoyable and smooth.

I know there is not much to talk about as far as content today but I promised this 3 day blog will be well worth the read.  So check it out each day as I will make entries each day of the summit and a finial entry Sunday night to wrap up the entire event.  And, since we are taping the whole thing I may even share a small video and pictures with all of you.  

ENJOY!!!

From Sales Life Style

Bio: Michael McMillan is the director of Sales & Marketing for Answer Center America, Inc. “Qtr. 1, Day 1, Sales Summit 2009” IS part 1 of 4 reviewing the ACA Qtr. 1 Sales Summit. For more information on ACA's services please visit http://www.goacanow.com

Learning Never Stops

Tonight I had the great honor and privilege of attending my first ever Toastmasters Meeting.

For those of you not familiar with the organization may I strongly suggest visiting http://www.toastmasters.org to learn more about them and find a local meeting to attend.

I have heard of the Toastmasters for many years but never really took the time to really look into what this organization had to offer me as a sales person, and more so as a leader of my sales team. Toastmasters quite possibly may be one of the single most important goals I am so happy I am accomplishing in 2009 for myself, and almost more importantly for my team and all of my readers. The knowledge I have gained in my first ever meeting alone has made me completely rethink the way in which I perform presentations. I now understand to present correctly it takes a ton of preparation, research, and most importantly PRACTICE!

Now I know many of you are going to say, "Mike I give presentations and run meetings all the time why do I need this silly club?" My answer to you is simple, you may be running these meetings, or giving presentations but, are you performing at the absolute performance? That answer would be no buckaroo!

We have all heard the sayings a million times, guess what here is 1,000,001:

Tiger Woods did not just wake up one day and become the best golfer in the world, he practices, got constructive criticism, and had coaches teach him how to be the best.

Olympic Athletes do not just send in a resume saying they would like to compete in the Olympics. They have to train for years to hone their skills to perfection for the very slim possibility they MAY get picked to compete.

These sayings are things we say but very rarely act on. My primary goal for my self this year was simple, "Become a Better Follower, So I Can Become a Better Leader!" Yeah sounds weird right, that is what I thought when I first wrote it. But, then after reviewing my goals over and over again in December I realized it made perfect sense. I have to first learn how to follow (TRAIN) before I can lead. So this year I am getting myself in front of the experts and begging for teaching and guidance so that I can then become the best leader for my sales force.

In closing always remember if you are a person you thinks you know everything about everything, you are never going to succeed in life. The faster you can come to understand that with continual education comes the success you seek, the faster you will find the happiness you seek.

From Sales Life Style

Bio: Michael McMillan is the director of Sales & Marketing for Answer Center America, Inc. “Learning Never Stops” talks about how the learning process must never end if a person is to be successful. For more information on ACA's services please visit http://www.goacanow.com.