The Power of Negative Blogging

Here’s a story about creating something not as good as the creator intended, only to turn out to be the most common thing in offices around the world. From The Discovery Channel:

In 1970, Spencer Silver was working at the 3M research labs trying to develop a strong adhesive. What he actually came up with, was weaker than what had already been developed. It stuck, but then it easily unstuck.

From Wikipedia:

In 1974, a colleague of his, Arthur Fry, who sang in a church choir, was frustrated that his bookmarks kept falling out of his hymnal. He had attended one of Silver’s seminars, and, while listening to a sermon in church, he came up with the idea of using the adhesive to anchor his bookmarks. He then developed the idea by taking advantage of 3M’s officially sanctioned bootlegging policy. 3M launched the product in 1977 but it failed as consumers had not tried the product. A year later 3M issued free samples to residents of Boise, Idaho. 90% of people who tried them said that they would buy the product. By 1980 the product was sold nationwide in the US and a year later they were launched in Canada and Europe.

That invention? The post-it note.

Sometimes we don’t reach our goals. Sometimes, the outcome is less than we expected. But that doesn’t make it a failure. And by using what you’ve got, instead of throwing it all away and starting over…you might be more useful than you intended!

 Thanks to Sam Chan at Acquire Wisdom and Live with Passion for the suggestion. If you have a failure that was actually a success, email me or leave a comment. I’d love to hear from you!

Negative thinking is ingrained into our DNA. As this and other articles show the origins of why our brains have way of using our negative thoughts for a purpose. Our ancestor’s more basic instincts, basic skills and innate abilities skewed toward the negative to save their lives.

Why do deer and squirrels immediately run away when they hear any noise? They’ve been conditioned for generations to run or they will die. Why does our heart rate increase when we’re nervous? The flop sweat and flush feeling comes out of nowhere? That’s our bodies prepping our bodies to run. The heart accelerates to get more oxygen throughout the body so we can use that to escape. Animals eliminate any waste not only to lighten their load (so to speak) but also to leave an overwhelming scent to distract the predator while they run away. It’s why some people wet themselves when they get scared. It is instinct from a time long ago. It could also just be a weak bladder.

Our fears and doubts exist for a reason. While some may not be as relevant as it was when we roamed the plains, hunting wholly mammoths, they still exist. With a thoughtful, analytical approach you can use these basic instincts to your advantage. Harness them to show you what to avoid in life to make the process easier or to avoid outright catastrophe (notice I didn’t say failure, failure is not all bad).

So find your inner caveman. Allow his experience and skills to enhance your own so you too can evolve into something great.

PS - This blog was not brought to you by Geico. But if they’d like to sponsor it, I’ll cash that check, thank you very much!

Being a salesman is the perfect balance of positive and negative thinking. You must maintain a positive veneer when you talk to customers and when you meet with customers. Nobody wants to write a check to a jerk. So you need to be able to build relationships as well as maintain them. But negative thinking can be quite helpful.

It’s all about predicting objections. What reason will they give me not to buy my product or service? Why would they choose a competitor over me? What problems exist with my product/services?

By thinking about objections in advance you can prepare yourself with answers. Instead of being surprised by a question, you can easily respond with confidence. Answering objections puts people’s minds at ease. You build trust and trust, more often than not, will get sales.

Negative thinkers are constantly searching for leads. They know that leads don’t always fall into your lap. You have to go out and get them. If they’re business is seasonal or cyclical, they know to save while the going’s good so when a downturn happens they can survive. They constantly are trying to increase their sales.

Now, I’m not a big fan of salespeople. Some can be downright sleazy and dishonest. But if you are in business, sales are the lifeblood of the company. Without sales…you’re not in business.

We have let them down. We have abandoned them to devolve into crime and chaos. They steal and attack with a brazenness we have never seen before. They drink our wine and attack our women. They even terrorize innocent children in their own schools!!

What has happened to our monkeys?

Technically they are apes,but still. They are turning into true organized criminals.

From Timesonline.co.uk:

Over the past few months, the baboons have burgled houses, sometimes by pushing their babies through security bars and getting them to open a window latch.

That’s criminal masterminds at work!!

They even sound like hooligans out on the town:

“I tried to get rid of them, but they were having a party, eating all my bread, bananas and avocados and swigging bottles of wine they had taken out of the refrigerator,” said Carol White, who runs the Camel Rock restaurant in the quiet village of Scarborough near Cape Point, South Africa, at the very tip of the continent.

And manners? They have none:

“look at the mess they made on my Persian carpet. Baboon poo is no joke.”

We need to figure something out before they organize and take over. It’s not so far fetched.

This has to be the funniest article I’ve seen in awhile.

It sums up in 4 sentences exactly what is wrong with the press. They are petty, whiny, lazy people who felt snubbed enough to publish this useless message on their website.

Let’s complain about a snub, by writing about the snub and only the snub. Who needs context? Heck, who needs an article to comment about? All I know is a non-viable candidate for president did not respond to an open request for a comment about an article that had no topic.

Genius.