Do You Take the Stairs?
Gail Davis, 03 March 2012
Rory showed up at Jan’s Highland Park Village office at 6 a.m. to wait for someone to arrive. Jan was out of town, but her ace employee Nena Madonia arrived at work to find Rory. She later told me it was impossible to resist his charm and determination, so she listened and sent him off with a to do list for making his dream come true.
Later that day Rory arrived at our offices. We told him all the things he needed to do if he was serious about making it on the speaking circuit. Rory wanted to prove to us he knew his stuff. He offered to come back to my office and do sales training for our entire team. That really isn’t what Rory speaks about, but it was what we needed. So a few months later, Rory was back teaching my entire team the correlation of discipline and sales results.
When the economy took a nose dive and so many businesses suffered, our business grew. Every time someone asked me how that was possible, I smiled and said, “Because we take the stairs.”
Truth be told, we had moved upstairs in a two story building that did not have an elevator. What I really meant was we never stopped calling and cultivating new clients. We never left our basics. We were disciplined and we “took the stairs.”
Fast forward at more than three years. The “Take the Stairs” philosophy for GDA is paying off. We have increased our staff and moved our offices to the top floor of a seven story building in the heart of Dallas no less! And Rory realized his dream with a New York Times Bestselling book!!
Our team was ecstatic when Rory arrived last week on his book tour bus. We rushed out to greet him. We wanted to show him our office so we went inside. Out of habit we all started the elevators. Rory kindly asked, “Which floor are we going to?” I immediately said, “Only seven, let’s take the stairs.”
My great team in their high heals all bounded up the 7 flights with Rory acting as if it was no big deal while he shared the story of climbing a 117 story building. When it was time for a photo session by the bus, we took the stair down. While we were outside, Rory had a chance encounter with a fan. A man had a meeting in our building and saw Rory’s bus. He came up and was in shock. He had seen Rory on Fox and Friends. He was so impressed that he had already downloaded the book. He is currently reading it. It was amazing to see it all “click” in the mind of someone outside the business. Rory signed copies of the book for our team and headed to his next stop.
As we entered the building I said, “Can anyone really take an elevator holding this book?” So we climbed seven flights again.
Thanks for the party favor Rory. What a great reminder: when you combine hard work, discipline and a dream anything is possible. That might even include killer legs!
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