Challenging Conventional Wisdom

Challenging conventional wisdom...what a concept! How few of us are willing to risk moving out of our comfort zone, learning to push conventional wisdom aside and grow. Why is it called conventional wisdom anyway? Why; Perhaps, because the very idea of it is associated with being safe and secure. Is that where we really want to be?

In today's fast-changing and ever-shrinking world, new ideas, methods, and processes are being conceived, installed and operated at breakneck speed like never before. There is little room for conventional wisdom anymore, unless of course you are content with living in a bubble, with little direction or growth intentions. I like the old adage, "if you are not growing, you are dying." Marketing and sales, as well as many other fields, require constant movement and adjustment.

The term "conventional wisdom" reminds me the old excuse "because that's the way we have always done it." This overly-used phrase is nothing more than a crude crutch for countless persons. Did you know that someone, in totally-blind ignorance, once had the audacity to say publicly that "all the inventions that will ever be invented had already been invented? There is no need for the patent office anymore." As ridiculous as that notion appears today, that particular statement was made at the turn of the 20th century. If anything, we can only dare to imagine the discoveries and advancements that will be made in the next 5 years, let alone the next century!

Certainly, there are instances where conventional wisdom is quite appropriate, such as well-accepted norms of behavior, testing procedures and religious practices. I challenge however, the notion of accepting conventional wisdom at the expense of personal and intellectual growth. That is where the element of fear enters in and restricts so many people. Generally, most fear at this level is simply imagined in our minds-eye, thus creating barriers to our progress, self-development and career advances. This is the point where we need to train ourselves to be conscious of our actual circumstances and work through this fear to find the rewards awaiting us. Franklin D. Roosevelt spoke in his first inaugural address "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself." He truly understood people and human nature. FDR would never settle for accepting conventional wisdom, and neither should you.

In the world of selling your own ideas, products and services, we must be continuously growing beyond our comfort zone, challenging conventional wisdom along the way. Our ability to persuade others to our point of view as well as our ability to match our goods and services to the needs and wants of others, depends upon living and working in a dynamic environment, not the static world of conventional wisdom.

Copyright 2006 Daniel Sitter

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About Daniel Sitter

Daniel Sitter, author of both the popular, award-winning e-book, Learning For Profit, and the highly anticipated book, Superior Selling Skills, has extensive experience in sales, training, marketing and personal development over a successful 25 year career. http://www.learningforprofit.com


And here is another random article you might be interested in...

What I Learned About Soda Vending Machines

Soda vending machines come in all shapes and sizes but the most common style are the stand-alone full sized machines.

Soda vending machines have lots of capacity. Even my old one that I paid too much for had a capacity of over 500 cans with 7 total selections. That's a lot of soda which also means that it could be possible that you don't have to visit a location too often if you are looking to vending as a part-time business.

The large capacity of these machines coupled with reasonable product costs and retail price can produce a decent business with healthy margins. I was paying an average of $.40 for a can of soda (tax and deposit included) and retailing that same can for $1.00. So with a $.60 margin multiplied by 5 machines each selling 200 cans of soda a month = a pretty nice little monthly return that doesn't require a lot of work because the machines have lots of capacity!

In theory at least.

Here is what else I learned about soda vending machines...

All soda machines plug into a wall because that's how the compressor works to keep the soda cold.

Older machines may not be multi-price! They may have a coin mechanism inside the machine but that doesn't mean that you can change the price of your product easily. If you insist on starting your vending business by dealing with Rip-off Bizop Vending Company because they give you the location with your machine, ask the salesguy to show you how to change the price of your soda machine.

Newer soda vending machines can sell bottled product that is either glass bottles or plastic. The glass bottles don't break.

Soda vending machines that allow you to change the price of any selection is the way to go. A can of pop where I live sells for $1.25 and bottle of juice will sell for $1.65 and up and both can be sold side by side out of a vending machine.

Lots of capacity and lots of selection is the way to go. If you are looking at a bubble front soda vending machine that has 12 selections and 500 can capacity (not including bottles in this example) you don't have to fill up the machine until it's totally full.

You might be able to get free soda vending machines if you know where to look. This was too late to save my business but I knew of a bottled water company that gave away free soda vending machines (that were good ones too!) with very reasonable restrictions on the operator.

You can get 27 cases of 24 cans of soda into a 1994 Pontiac sunbird. I don't recommend this at all. A car is not a good vehicle to use for transporting soda and I would expect that a van is likely the best vehicle to use even though I never used a van when I had my business.

I needed better storage space. Apparently cans of soda will "pop" the seal in warm conditions like a top floor storage room that get really hot in the summer.

But the number one thing I learned about soda vending machines was that having a relationship with a company that was an authorized distributor for several machine manufacturers was a reliable way to avoid vending scams. Although this lesson was to late for me having a relationship with a local authorized distributor is the best way to educate yourself about all types of vending machines.

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About Mike Corbin

Mike Corbin's website http://www.no-vending-secrets.com challenges would be entrepreneur's to think differently about vending and avoid the vending business opportunity scams entirely!