I was reminded while doing a presentation to a group of distributor managers that I wasn't having as much fun doing my job anymore. There I stood in a sport coat talking about how our business had grown nicely with them over the first four and a half months of this year. That is all wonderful, but people really do want to have fun...well most people anyway...
Harvey MacKay said, "Find something you love to do, and you'll never work a day in your life." There was a time when I wore a tie to look older. Those days have long passed! We have done themes at trade shows for many years, and I have worn all kinds of crazy outfits. My only rules are that there needs to be a reason for dressing this way, everyone needs to dress in the same level of craziness and I won't wear a skirt. Men just plain look awful in a dress. One of 
the two companies in the medical manufacturing world I always admired, and still do is Midmark. They were pretty famous in our industry for some of their costumes, but the one that didn't reach me was when they had half of their guys wear custom made wedding gowns and the other half be in a tux. They had a good reason for doing it, but those were some ugly brides in my personal opinion.
My first step at taking fun on the road outside of a trade show was when my good friend, and inspiration, Scott Fanning convinced me to carry a king size pillow to corporate offices of our distributors. (The best class in the world on owning the relationship and having fun while doing it was started by Scott and Jim Niekamp called 95 Share Marketing) Now these are big companies, divisions of Fortune 500 companies. I felt pretty ridiculous carrying this great big pillow from the parking lot into the reception area, and asking to see one of the senior vice presidents. The nice lady had a big smile on her face the entire time I waited. I was then sent up stairs for my appointment, and as I walked down the hall, other executives came out of their office to see what I was up to. Why the pillow they asked? My response was to tell them about our promotion, Sleep Well You Bought a Bovie.
This promotion that we run every year now, extends the standard warranty on some of our generators from 2 years to 5 for the doctor. So, the doctor sleeps well knowing he doesn't need to worry about his Bovie generator and the sales guy can sleep well too because of it. I told my promotion story half a dozen times before I got to my appointment and everyone had a smile on their face. When I did finally get there, he smiled too and I got a very nice order. The first time we ran the promotion we sold 18 months worth of product in six weeks. People want to have fun, and while doing it you get to have fun too.
Which brings me back to standing in a sports coat in front of these managers. In the past I had done sales training for their entire sales force wearing pajamas and a robe. Their division president at the time told me he didn't think it looked professional, as I was a president and a director on our industry's foundation board. My response was, Mike we are just having fun getting a point across... and his sales force loved it. Naturally, I worked into my pitch that their president hated my outfit and the sales guys liked it even more. So next time I get the opportunity to speak to a group, I am going to figure out how to put some fun back into it!
Let me know what you think! Feel free to reach out or leave a comment below.
J. Robert Saron
President Bovie Medical Corporation
Image courtesy of Ambro / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
