How can a 21st Century computer game character help you in selling? Read on and I’ll explain.
I’ve been a sucker for computer games ever since I bought Doom in 1991 for my first computer. And for the next 5 years I played them non stop – Doom 1, Doom 2, Duke Nukem my absolute favourite, I played them all to the early hours. Until my first child arrived, my mortgage doubled and life became rather more serious.
I haven’t played a game since. Until this year, when Duke Nukem Forever was announced. I bought it without hesitation to reminisce and bring back those good times and for the next few days I played it constantly, much to my wife’s annoyance.
I started speaking like Duke, acting like him. You see, Duke Nukem is a total hero, bristles with muscles, sports a six pack, kills baddies with ease, is utterly attractive to women and has a massive ego. But Duke’s ego is different to ours; it’s his health and well-being. When he gets shot up, blown up with grenades, falls down tower blocks he loses ego so has to quickly replenish it otherwise he’ll die.
Get the metaphor with salespeople?
Doing things, achieving tasks give him extra ego. Here’s some examples:
- Clear Pool Table – In Duke’s apartment. +2 Ego
- Mirror – Admire yourself in Duke’s bathroom mirror. +1 Ego
- Autograph – Sign the fans autograph. +2 Ego
- Score With Basketball – In gym after conference call. +1 Ego
- Bench Press – Need 6 weights on bench total. +3 Ego
- Punchbag – Punch the bag. +1 Ego
- Dumbbell – Curl the small weights. +1 Ego
- Slot Machine – Play until you win.+1 Ego
All the time you can see a dial which shows how much ego he has.
Duke’s health is his ego. Salespeople’s health is their ego or, as I prefer to call it, their self esteem. Salespeople must have self esteem, or self belief, confidence in themselves. It’s not arrogance that’s self belief on steroids. Duke gets away with arrogance, modern salespeople don’t.
Can you measure your own or your salespeople’s self esteem levels, do you coach them in improving their self esteem, do you coach attitudes and beliefs rather than just skills.
How do you preserve your own self esteem? Duke plays games to win things, succeeds as often as he can, do you? What do you do to maintain and increase your self esteem? Believing in yourself, being confident, handling negative self dialogue, harvesting praise, coping with negatives. Only then will you have rock solid self esteem, just like Duke.
Did I finish the Duke Nukem computer game? No way, my wife took it away from me; she couldn’t cope any longer with me acting like Duke Nukem. “Watch out world its Duke here,” “I’m the greatest,” “Everyone loves the Duke”.
