747 Flyover NYC Airforce One

Shame Shame Shame. What a blooper. What were they thinking? I can tell you what they weren't thinking. They did not put themselves in the shoes of "the other guy".

In case you missed it, the United States federal leadership decided to fly Airforce 1 over NYC very close to where the World Trade Center disaster took place while two fighter planes protected its flanks recently. They wanted to take photos near the Statue of Liberty. They did it without notifying the mayor of NYC or anyone who might be slightly traumatized seeing this spectacle in broad daylight. (I guess the administration has not heard of Photoshop).

What does this have to do with Sales Execution. The direct correlation is that in this case, the administration failed to put themselves in the shoes of "the other guy". They didn't see things from another perspective. They were only concerned with themselves while making decisions.

Sales people fall into this trap all too often. They have quotas to make and a specific timeframe to do it in and often times they do shameful things without thinking of the buyers first.

I submit that in actuality, a great deal of time and money and effort can be averted if you think of "the other guy" first when making decisions. I wish the Obama administration had. And with Obama's apology, he wished he had too.