Sales Training: The Keeper of the Spring

Hi Folks!

How are your sales today? Well, here is a little story to put a boost in your motivation and a little strategy for your sales. Enjoy!

Mark Bowser


Sales Training: The Keeper of the Spring

By Mark Bowser

I came across a story one time which I think illustrates beautifully how we need to take care of our prospects when selling. The story goes something like this. It is about a man who lived in a forest in the eastern Alps overlooking an Austrian village. This old man had been hired years ago by a wise town council to make sure the mountain waters flowed freely into the wonderful spring which flowed into the quaint village.

The old man faithfully year after year removed leaves, twigs, and everything that could contaminate or clog the flowing water. As a result, the village spring was an attraction for vacationers and swans alike. The village was peaceful, happy, and blessed.

One night, years later, another town council began talking about the almost mythical keeper of the spring. They wondered, “Why are we paying this man? Does anyone ever see him? This money could be used for better purposes.” As a result, they decided to terminate the services of the old man.

For a while, everything stayed the same. The spring was beautiful and the village blossomed. But then came autumn. The trees began to loose their grip on their leaves. Twigs and branches broke off the trees and fell into the stream.

One day, someone noticed something different about their wonderful spring. It was changing to a different color. Soon a haze came over parts of the spring and a sickening smell began to hover around it. The vacationers left the lovely village. The swans decided to look for a new home.

The town council called an emergency meeting. They realized what a terrible mistake they had made by firing the old man of the forest. They immediately hired him back. The old man got to work and performed the miracle again. Within a few weeks, the life-giving water was flowing freely and surely to the village spring. Soon all was normal, healthy, and blessed.

Many times we treat our prospects and customers much like the town council treated “the keeper of the spring.” We appear to have no use for them and we take them for granted. Remember this, without them, we have no sales. My dad used to tell me all the time growing up in our family business. “Our customer (and prospect) is our life blood.” I leave us today with a sales thought to ponder? Are we taking care of the “keeper of the springs” in our lives?

Sales Training: What Have You Put into Your Mind Today?

Hey Folks!

I hope you are having a great sales week. Here is a thought that I believe can help boost you to outstanding sales this week and every week.

Successful selling is about the mental game. Make sure what goes into your mind is positive because what comes out is always what went in.

Most of us have probably heard the statement “garbage in; garbage out.” Well, that is a realistic representation of how our brains work. If we continually think depressing thoughts then we will begin to live a depressing life. But on the other hand, if we continually think happy, positive thoughts then we will live a happy, positive life. This is why it is vital that we pay attention to what we are putting into our brains. It is vital that we fill our brains with the good stuff of life.

Begin reading good books. Begin watching moral entertainment. Begin focusing on what is positive, hopeful, and good. If we will do these things, then we will live a fulfilling, empowering life and we will close more sales.

Now, go out there and make it a great sales day!

Take Action Sales July newsletter

Hi Folks!

I thought you would like seeing this month's issue of the Take Action Sales Newsletter. You can get a free subscription at www.TakeActionSales.com.


Welcome to the July 2008 issue of the Take Action Sales Newsletter

with Mark Bowser

Summer is a great time not only to rest, have fun, and fellowship but also to work on ourselves and to dream about our victorious future. We have two articles this month to help you become the person you were created to be and to push towards the achievement of your greatest sales dreams and desires. Enjoy…and have a great summer!

God bless,

Mark Bowser

In this issue
1. The True Height of a Person by Mark Bowser
2. Achieving Your Dreams by Jim Rohn

THE TRUE HEIGHT OF A PERSON

By Mark Bowser

Abraham Lincoln was an exceptionally tall man. He stood an impressive six feet, four inches tall. That is tall even for our day, but in his era, he must have seemed like a giant. He then would wear a tall top hat made of silk. When he had it on, he stood close to seven feet tall from toe to top hat.

President Lincoln loved to stand back to back with people to measure height. One day, President Lincoln stopped at Aquia Creek, Virginia in order to review some of his troops. Almost immediately the President's attention gravitated towards a very tall young man. This young Pennsylvania seventeen year old seemed to tower over his comrades.

The President got the young man's attention. Mahlon Shaaber stepped forward. When the young man reached Lincoln, it is believed that the President said, "Turn around, young fellow and put your back against mine while I take off my hat." Almost immediately, the President knew he had been bested. Shaaber was much taller than the President. This lanky young man hovered over Lincoln by two and half inches.

But what does height really mean? How does it impact our sales success? Well, I believe that the true height of a person is not in how much we tower above the ground, but in how high our integrity towers over immorality. In Lincoln's case he seemed to tower in physical height, as well as integrity height.

One time, an over night White House guest heard great groans and moans coming from another room. The guest quietly slipped out of bed to investigate the mysterious sounds. What was discovered comforted the guest's heart and mind. The noise was the President. The guest saw Lincoln prostrate on the floor pleading to Almighty God for His help in this national crisis, the Civil War. The guest was comforted because he knew the country was in good hands because the height of its president was flat against the floor. A height that looked straight up to God. That is the height of integrity. My friends, you and I need to live lives that will tower over life's challenges. Let us be giants of integrity. ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­


Achieving Your Dreams

by Jim Rohn

While most people spend most of their lives struggling to earn a living, a much smaller number seem to have everything going their way. Instead of just earning a living, the smaller group is busily working at building and enjoying a fortune. Everything just seems to work out for them. And here sits the much larger group, wondering how life can be so unfair, so complicated and unjust. What's the major difference between the little group with so much and the larger group with so little?

Despite all of the factors that affect our lives - like the kind of parents we have, the schools we attended, the part of the country we grew up in - none has as much potential power for affecting our futures as our ability to dream.

Dreams are a projection of the kind of life you want to lead. Dreams can drive you. Dreams can make you skip over obstacles. When you allow your dreams to pull you, they unleash a creative force that can overpower any obstacle in your path. To unleash this power, though, your dreams must be well defined. A fuzzy future has little pulling power. Well-defined dreams are not fuzzy. Wishes are fuzzy. To really achieve your dreams, to really have your future plans pull you forward, your dreams must be vivid.

If you've ever hiked a fourteen thousand-foot peak in the Rocky Mountains, one thought has surely come to mind "How did the settlers of this country do it?" How did they get from the East Coast to the West Coast? Carrying one day's supply of food and water is hard enough. Can you imagine hauling all of your worldly goods with you... mile after mile, day after day, month after month? These people had big dreams. They had ambition. They didn't focus on the hardship of getting up the mountain.

In their minds, they were already on the other side – their bodies just hadn't gotten them there yet! Despite all of their pains and struggles, all of the births and deaths along the way, those who made it to the other side had a single vision: to reach the land of continuous sunshine and extraordinary wealth. To start over where anything and everything was possible. Their dreams were stronger than the obstacles in their way.

You've got to be a dreamer. You've got to envision the future. You've got to see California while you're climbing fourteen thousand-foot peaks. You've got to see the finish line while you're running the race. You've got to hear the cheers when you're in the middle of a monster project. And you've got to be willing to put yourself through the paces of doing the uncomfortable until it becomes comfortable and until you realize your dreams.

To Your Success,
Jim Rohn
Reproduced with permission from the Jim Rohn Weekly E-zine - http://www.jimrohn.com

Sales Training: Created with Greatness

By Mark Bowser

Sales success and inspiration go hand in hand. Now, what do I mean by that? To be successful in the world of selling, one has to have a healthy self image. To do that, we have to develop a healthy belief of who we are and why we are here. Let’s learn from sales and leadership expert Mark Bowser as he shares with us that we are created for greatness.

Take Action Sales Editor
www.TakeActionSales.com

Here is an inspirational thought that will improve your sales, your relationships, and your life. In the beginning of time, God created the earth and along with it man and woman, and He bestowed greatness with each one, greatness unique to each individual that, if developed, will shape the world to righteousness. Have you developed your greatness?

I know something about you. I may not know you personally but I still know something about you. That something is this: YOU were born with the seeds of greatness and created by the Creator of the universe to be a champion. If you choose to tap into your greatness, then you will live an extraordinary life. We may not all be famous. We may not all be financially rich. But we all have greatness to make a difference in this world. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., said, “If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.”

History tells us a wonderful story about the greatness of individuals. It goes something like this. The year was 1815. The date was March first. This was the day that all of Europe will remember. It was as if all their nightmares were coming true. On that day, a small British ship sailed very quietly to dock on the French Riviera. A man stepped off the boat with a fire in his eyes. The man looked as if he were on a mission. All of Europe shivered at the thought of the return of this man. The nightmare was back. His name was Napoleon.

Napoleon had been exiled to the island of Elba, which is off the coast of Italy. During this period in his life, Napoleon didn’t want to live and he attempted suicide. He carried a pouch around his neck that contained poison. He swallowed the poison but he did not die. He suffered cramps and convulsions and then he recovered.

Napoleon spent less than a year on Elba. He knew that the Allies had many differences and couldn’t solve them at the Congress of Vienna. Napoleon hoped to exploit this weakness to regain what he thought was his right to power. After his recovery from the poison, Napoleon escaped from his British captors and stole one of their ships. Now he had just stepped off this stolen ship to begin his revenge on a frightened Europe.

The Allies immediately put their differences aside and joined forces to confront the tyrant. One of the men Europe looked to defend them against Napoleon was the Duke of Wellington. Wellington was a British hero determined to stop Napoleon. Wellington commanded the combined forces of Great Britain, Prussia, Belgium, and The Netherlands. A line was drawn in the sand and a battle was fought. That battle was to become one of the greatest military victories in all of history. The battle was called “The Battle of Waterloo.”

Before the battle, Wellington was in Brussels preparing for his standoff with Napoleon. Accompanying the Duke was a member of the British Parliament named Thomas Creevey. As they were walking through Brussels Park they noticed a lonely British redcoat staring at a statue. Wellington grabbed Creevey by the arm and said, “There, look at him! It all depends on that article whether we do business or not. Give me enough of them and I am sure of victory.”

On June 18, 1815, the line was drawn in the sand. Wellington had with him 67,661 men and 150 artillery guns. Napoleon had 71,947 men and 246 artillery guns. Because of heavy rain the night before, Napoleon chose to wait till close to noon to attack. This decision may have cost him the victory. The battle began at 11:25 in the morning and would last until 10:00 that evening. Napoleon pummeled the front of Wellington’s line. Wellington’s troops fought earnestly. Finally, all hope for victory was put on the British infantry. These solitary redcoats put together made an impressive stand. These boys stood their ground. They would not give up. They believed in their leaders. They believed in their cause. They began to believe in themselves. They did have greatness within them. The line in the sand stood and finally Marshal Gebhard von Blucher came and reinforced Wellington with his Prussian troops. Napoleon was forced from the battlefield licking his wounds. This battle finally closed the book on Napoleon’s quest to rule Europe. Europe was safe again.

YOU, like the British redcoats, have greatness within you. Tap into your sales greatness and be the best YOU you can be!

Sales Training Resource improvements on Take Action Sales

Hi Folks!

I hope your weekend has started out to a great start. Just a quick note to encourage you to check out the improvements we have made on Take Action Sales. We have made the FREE Sales Training Articles page and the category buttons on the Home page much more user friendly. Check it out at http://www.TakeActionSales.com .

Have a great weekend. God bless!

Mark Bowser
JEREMIAH 29:11

Sales Training: The Discipline of Reading

Dear Sales Friends,

We just posted a great article by Brian Tracy titled Sales Training: The Discipline of Reading on our website www.TakeActionSales.com. I thought you would benefit from reading it as much as I did. The format was a little challenging as I put it here so feel free to read it at our website if you prefer.

Have a great sales day! God bless!

Mark Bowser

The Discipline of Reading

by Brian Tracy

Some things in life are optional, and some things in life are mandatory. Taking your next vacation to the Caribbean is optional. Building a personal library and becoming an excellent reader is mandatory. It is no longer something you can choose to do or not do. It is absolutely essential and indispensable for your success.

A great many people do not read very much. Fifty-eight percent of adult Americans never read a nonfiction book from cover to cover after they finish school. The average American reads less than one book per year. In fact, according to a Gallup study of the most successful men and women in America, reading one nonfiction book per month will put you into the top 1 percent of living Americans.

It takes regular, persistent reading and studying for you to improve, to move to the front of your field. It is not optional.

There are a variety of reasons why people don’t read as much as they should. One is that probably 50 million Americans have been graduated from high school with poor reading skills.

Another reason why people don’t read is because they have not been told how important reading is. Lifelong learning, lifelong reading is the minimum requirement for success in any field today. If you are in sales, management, service, administration or any other field that relies on the written word to convey information and data, your ability to read well is absolutely critical to your success.

Some people don’t read because they are simply lazy. They are surrounded by so many distractions, especially television, radio, socializing and other activities, that they just never get around to doing any serious reading. They are so busy and caught up in day-to-day activities and amusements that they put off reading and then never get around to it. If continued, this pattern could have devastating consequences.

Another reason why people don’t read is that they probably are not working in the right field. One of the best tests for compatibility with your work is your desire to read and learn more about it. If you are doing the job that is right for you, you will naturally be eager to read everything that you can possibly find about your field. You will want to get better and better. You will be hungry for new knowledge. You will be determined to become excellent. And every single bit of new information motivates and stimulates you and makes you excited about learning even more.

However, if you are in the wrong field, you will look upon reading about it as drudgery. If the reading and studying is a required condition of your job or profession, you will do it, but only under duress. You will want to get it over with, like a visit to the dentist. If, for any reason, you are not eager to learn more about what you are doing, it could very well be that you are wasting your time and your life in the wrong field.

In one 22-year study of self-made millionaires, the researchers found that one of the common characteristics of those special men and women who went from rags to riches was that they were absolutely fascinated by their work. They didn’t think so much about making a lot of money. They were more concerned about becoming better and better at what they did. Their work absorbed them completely. In almost no time at all, because of their commitment to reading and self-development, they were paid more and more. And once they reached a high level of income, their fascination with their work still continued. Instead of drawing extra money from their business and spending it frivolously, they reinvested it in themselves and in their career. As a result, they became more and more proficient and wealthier and wealthier. Then, one day, they opened their eyes, looked around and found that they were worth more than $1 million. And the continuous learning, the nonstop reading, was the key ingredient.

Some years ago, a young man came to me and asked for advice. He had been graduated from high school without the ability to read. He told me that reading a whole paragraph actually made him tired. His problem was that he was working at a dead-end job at minimum wage, and he had been there for two years. He was living in a small apartment on a limited budget. All his friends from high school, none of whom could read either, were in pretty much the same predicament. They all were working at low-level, low-skill jobs with no future. He had been out of school for two years and had made no progress. What advice could I give him?

I told him that he had to learn to read, and read well. He said he didn’t like to read, and he wanted to be successful at something that didn’t require reading. I told him that this was not a matter of choice. The only jobs that didn’t require reading were the kinds of jobs that he and his friends were already doing. And even they soon would be surpassed by younger, more eager people with better educations.

Much to his credit, he thought about this for a while and then accepted the fact that he had to become a good reader. He began taking community-college courses in remedial reading. Eventually, he applied for entrance to a technical institute, and he managed to get in by the skin of his teeth. Because of his poor high-school education, it took him almost three years to complete a two-year program in biomedical engineering. He stuck in there and worked hard, and he finally came up with a degree.A small company hired him as a sales representative, to call on hospitals and clinics in a rural territory. It wasn’t much, but he took it and ran with it. He continued to read and studied sales and communications. He started at $22,000 per year, and within two years, he was up to $30,000 per year. In his third year, he was hired away by a rival company and paid $40,000 per year. Two years later, an international company heard about his success in the marketplace and hired him at more than $50,000 per year, with a company car, an expense account and substantial benefits.

In seven years, he went from being a semiliterate, minimum wage worker to a highly paid biomedical technical representative working for an international corporation. And he was back in the big city with a town house, a new car, a wife, children, and a great life. The interesting thing was that as he went around to renew his old friendships, he found that most of the people he had graduated with were still working at dead-end jobs. Seven years seems like a long time in the course of a life, but it passes in a flash when you are busy doing something you enjoy and getting continually better at it.

The last great obstacle to regular reading and continuous learning is that most people have been brought up with what we might call the old paradigm, the outdated way of viewing education. It’s likely that as you grew up, education was looked upon as something that was done to you by other people. For the first 18 years of your life, you went off to school and education was done to you as though you were a passive object. Even when you went to college, you signed up for the courses that were recommended, you learned the subjects that were required, and you took the exams that were given. When you came out, you were the product of an education. It was almost as though the education had "just happened" to you, while you merely went along and did your share at the right time.

However, after you finish school, you are responsible for your education. From that moment onward, you are responsible for buying your books, planning your courses of study, learning your subjects and continually upgrading your skills. It’s not the responsibility of anyone else. You are in charge. It’s all up to you.Many people think that it’s up to their company to educate them if they need additional training. Well, if your company provides training, you should take every minute of it that you can get. But if it doesn’t, and most companies don’t, you are still solely responsible for maintaining and increasing your value through continuous reading. There is no other way.

Let me share with you some ideas that helped me to go from high-school dropout and dishwasher, working in the kitchen of a small hotel, to chief operating officer of a $265 million company. These are practices of most of the successful men and women in America. Their cumulative effect on the quality of your life can be amazing.

First, if you are not a good reader, make the decision, right now, that you are going to go any distance, pay any price, overcome any obstacle and spend whatever amount of money it takes to become an excellent reader. If you do not know how to read particularly well, stop everything else that you are doing outside your work and dedicate yourself to reading. Spend every spare minute reading as if your future depended on it, because it does.It may take a week, a month or a year to become a better reader. It may take even longer. But it doesn’t matter. Your becoming an excellent reader will kick open doors of opportunity for you that you cannot now imagine.

Second, if you are already a good reader, or when you become a good reader, learn to speed-read. The Evelyn Wood Reading Dynamics program is probably the best that has ever been developed. Also, many communities throughout America offer speed-reading classes. Speed-reading is like touch-typing. In typing, you can use the hunt-and-peck method all your life, or you can learn how to do it right and increase your speed to 50 or 60 words per minute. In reading, you can take your speed from 50 or 60 words per minute up to 300, 400, 500 or even 1,000 words per minute, with no loss of comprehension. Speed-reading courses are absolutely essential to the success of really ambitious men and women today.

Third, build a personal library. Although public libraries are extremely helpful for research, you should buy your own books.

People often ask me what books they should buy. To decide this, you can use the Law of Relative Importance. Buy the books that are most important to your life at this moment. The key word here is relevant. Adults learn best when what they are studying is extremely relevant to their needs, their work, their life, and their present situation. If you read material that is not relevant to what you are doing, you will find it difficult. You will not be drawn to the material, and you will forget most of it as you go along. But when you read material that is both relevant and applicable to your work, your mind sparkles with all kinds of ideas on how you can use this new information to be more effective. The prospect of learning new methods and techniques that you know will improve your life is both exciting and highly motivating.Next, in building your own library, ask the most successful people in your field what books they would recommend. Then, go straight to the bookstore and buy them.

One of the marks of the professional, and professionalism is a state of mind, is that he has a library in his field. If you are in sales, you should have a library of sales books. You should be reading at least one hour per day in sales, one book per week, 50 books per year. You should be a consistent, persistent student of your craft. You should know more about the field of selling than anybody within 500 miles does. You should set a goal to become so knowledgeable about your field that you would be able to give advanced classes in your profession within a few years. With this idea as your guiding star, you will find yourself learning and remembering far more than you would if you were just browsing through the material.Should you buy hardcover books or softcover books? I recommend that you purchase any book, of either kind, that can help you. Some books cost $20 to $30. The average person complains that he can’t afford such a book. The superior person recognizes that the information contained in that book can save him a year or two of hard work.Remember, it may take an author 10 to 20 years to learn his subject. It may take him two to three years to write a book on it. It then may take one to two years to get the book published. By paying a few dollars for a book, you probably are getting the results of 20 or 25 years of effort by one of the smartest people in your field.Never scrimp on your education. It is one of the most damaging things you could ever do.

Get some good bookshelves, and begin categorizing your books by subject. Have a section on sales. Have a section on management. Have a section on family and child raising. Have a section on personal motivation and success. If you like novels, have a section on fiction, or on history.

Organize your sections in alphabetical order, either by the title of the book or by the author. You don’t have to make it too formal or structured. The point is to set up your library in such a way that you pretty well know where each book is, you know whether or not you have a book, and you know where to go to get a piece of information when you need it.

Once you’ve bought a book, read it with a red pen in hand, underlining and making notes at every key point you find. If you read a book twice, use a different-color pen to underline points you may have missed the first time.I have books that I have read 10 or 20 times and that look like rainbows from page to page. They are literally covered with all kinds of colors and marks. Needless to say, the information and ideas in those books has soaked so deeply into my psyche that I can recite much of the material in my dreams.

You need to read an hour or two each day just to keep current with your field. You need to read newspapers, magazines, newsletters, correspondence and other materials. But you don’t get ahead with regular reading. You must invest in the future while you keep current with the present. If you want to get ahead, you must read things that give you new ideas and insights, not merely things that confirm what you already know.

Becoming a proficient and persistent reader may not be easy to do so, but it’s certainly possible. The future does belong to the competent. Those who know more will always win out over those who know less. The more you read, the better you get. The more you learn, the easier it is for you to learn. And the more you challenge your mind, the smarter you get.

Brian Tracy is one of the world's leading experts in sales. He can be reached through his website at www.BrianTracy.com.

Sales Training: Having a Sales Road Map

By Mark Bowser

How do you succeed at sales? By having a sales Roadmap. You see,the roadmap is the dream; the road is the goal; and putting it into action is the vehicle that makes your sales career go.

It has been said that 90 percent of all people have no set goals; 5 percent of all people have set goals; and the remaining 5 percent of all people have set goals and write them down. My friend, we want to be part of that last category of people who have set goals and write them down. That is the group of sales professionals who are reaching their goals and living their dreams.

Goals keep us focused on a better tomorrow. That hope is a very important part of goal setting. Because without a goal to stretch you forward, many times the hope is not seen. Better tomorrows are in store for you. Those tomorrows start today with a sales goal. In five years, where do you want to be in your life, career, and relationships? How about 1 year? How about 6 months. Set those short term and long term goals and before you know it, you will be on top of your Victory Mountain.

Sales Training - Self Image and Sales Success

By Mark Bowser

Sales success and inspiration go hand in hand. Now, what do I mean by that? To be successful in the world of selling, one has to have a healthy self image. To do that, we have to develop a healthy belief of who we are and why we are here.

Here is an inspirational thought that will improve your sales, your relationships, and your life. In the beginning of time, God created the earth and along with it man and woman, and He bestowed greatness with each one, greatness unique to each individual that, if developed, will shape the world to righteousness. Have you developed your greatness?

I know something about you. I may not know you personally but I still know something about you. That something is this: YOU were born with the seeds of greatness and created by the Creator of the universe to be a champion. If you choose to tap into your greatness, then you will live an extraordinary life. We may not all be famous. We may not all be financially rich. But we all have greatness to make a difference in this world. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., said, “If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.”

History tells us a wonderful story about the greatness of individuals. It goes something like this. The year was 1815. The date was March first. This was the day that all of Europe will remember. It was as if all their nightmares were coming true. On that day, a small British ship sailed very quietly to dock on the French Riviera. A man stepped off the boat with a fire in his eyes. The man looked as if he were on a mission. All of Europe shivered at the thought of the return of this man. The nightmare was back. His name was Napoleon.

Napoleon had been exiled to the island of Elba, which is off the coast of Italy. During this period in his life, Napoleon didn’t want to live and he attempted suicide. He carried a pouch around his neck that contained poison. He swallowed the poison but he did not die. He suffered cramps and convulsions and then he recovered.

Napoleon spent less than a year on Elba. He knew that the Allies had many differences and couldn’t solve them at the Congress of Vienna. Napoleon hoped to exploit this weakness to regain what he thought was his right to power. After his recovery from the poison, Napoleon escaped from his British captors and stole one of their ships. Now he had just stepped off this stolen ship to begin his revenge on a frightened Europe.

The Allies immediately put their differences aside and joined forces to confront the tyrant. One of the men Europe looked to defend them against Napoleon was the Duke of Wellington. Wellington was a British hero determined to stop Napoleon. Wellington commanded the combined forces of Great Britain, Prussia, Belgium, and The Netherlands. A line was drawn in the sand and a battle was fought. That battle was to become one of the greatest military victories in all of history. The battle was called “The Battle of Waterloo.”

Before the battle, Wellington was in Brussels preparing for his standoff with Napoleon. Accompanying the Duke was a member of the British Parliament named Thomas Creevey. As they were walking through Brussels Park they noticed a lonely British redcoat staring at a statue. Wellington grabbed Creevey by the arm and said, “There, look at him! It all depends on that article whether we do business or not. Give me enough of them and I am sure of victory.”

On June 18, 1815, the line was drawn in the sand. Wellington had with him 67,661 men and 150 artillery guns. Napoleon had 71,947 men and 246 artillery guns. Because of heavy rain the night before, Napoleon chose to wait till close to noon to attack. This decision may have cost him the victory. The battle began at 11:25 in the morning and would last until 10:00 that evening. Napoleon pummeled the front of Wellington’s line. Wellington’s troops fought earnestly. Finally, all hope for victory was put on the British infantry. These solitary redcoats put together made an impressive stand. These boys stood their ground. They would not give up. They believed in their leaders. They believed in their cause. They began to believe in themselves. They did have greatness within them. The line in the sand stood and finally Marshal Gebhard von Blucher came and reinforced Wellington with his Prussian troops. Napoleon was forced from the battlefield licking his wounds. This battle finally closed the book on Napoleon’s quest to rule Europe. Europe was safe again.

YOU, like the British redcoats, have greatness within you. Tap into your greatness sell much, much, more