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    From the Flight Deck: Thoughts on Sales, Life, and Personal Development
    From the Flight Deck: Thoughts on Sales, Life, and Personal Development
    From the Flight Deck: Thoughts on Sales, Life, and Personal Development
    Ebook104 pages1 hour

    From the Flight Deck: Thoughts on Sales, Life, and Personal Development

    By Cmdr Alex Pettes

    ()

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    About this ebook

    Alex Pettes is the President of TFI Food Equipment Solutions, a Toronto based specialty restaurant equipment distributor. Alex has spent his career in sales and sales management, and this book is a collection of thoughts gathered along his own personal and professional development journey.

    Included in the book are thoughts on sales, sales management, self-development and serving others. Youll learn:

    the importance of developing a personal mission statement,

    the method of idea canvas and why it might help you;

    ways to use lists to focus and achieve your goals;

    the nine keys to succeed in love and life;

    ways to harness concentration, consistency, and cooperation to succeed.

    Known as The Commander or Cmdr Pettes, Alex has developed this persona as the Sales Fighter Pilot Squadron Leader over the past dozen or so years. His enthusiastic, positive and Super Good approach to all he does has been well received by those he has had the privilege to serve.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisheriUniverse
    Release dateJan 13, 2011
    ISBN9781450280761
    From the Flight Deck: Thoughts on Sales, Life, and Personal Development
    Author

    Cmdr Alex Pettes

    Alex Pettes is the President of TFI Food Equipment Solutions, a Toronto based specialty restaurant equipment distributor. He has spent his career in sales and sales management, and is known as “The Commander” or “Cmdr Pettes”, Alex has been happily married for over twenty years and has two teenage daughters. He lives in Burlington, Ontario Canada.

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      Book preview

      From the Flight Deck - Cmdr Alex Pettes

      From the

      Flight Deck

      SKU-000172345_TEXT.pdf

      Thoughts on Sales, Life,

      and Personal Development

      Alex Pettes

      iUniverse, Inc.

      Bloomington

      From the Flight Deck

      Thoughts on Sales, Life, and Personal Development

      Copyright © 2010 by Alex Pettes

      All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

      iUniverse books may be ordered through booksellers or by contacting:

      iUniverse

      1663 Liberty Drive

      Bloomington, IN 47403

      www.iuniverse.com

      1-800-Authors (1-800-288-4677)

      Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any Web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

      Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

      Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

      ISBN: 978-1-4502-8158-4 (sc)

      ISBN: 978-1-4502-8076-1 (ebk)

      Printed in the United States of America

      iUniverse rev. date: 01/06/2011

      To my girls, Tabitha and Nicole. I always told you that you would have the weirdest dad of all your friends. Daddy loves you.

      To my wife, Tammy. I love you more now than I did when we got married. Thank you for your support in all I have done. I am who I am because of you.

      Contents

      Preface

      Introduction: Who Is Commander Pettes?

      Notes from the Idea Canvas

      The Best Ideas I Ever Took…

      Put Your Own Oxygen Mask on First

      Even This Shall Pass Away: Enjoy All of Life’s Fleeting Moments

      Lessons on the Wing

      Goal Setting: How Can You Hit a Target You Don’t Even Have?

      Sales Signs along the Way

      The Cmdr’s Perspective on Sales Management

      Parenting 101: A Collection of Ideas for Parents

      The Lessons of the Pump

      Final Comments

      Preface

      I have wanted to write a book for quite some time now. I actually started with a blank journal on January 2, 2005, and planned on this being my idea journal. I recorded some ideas, and the next entry, on December 31, 2005, started with Here I am again, one year later reflecting on the past year and wondering why I made no progress on this book? I guess I was not ready then, but now I think I am. What is different?

      In February 2009, I made a decision that I would actually commit to writing a book. I had publically declared this to many people, so I could not go back on my word! And for a variety of reasons, I think I was ready to actually begin the process. On April 2, 2009, I started an Idea Canvas (more on this later), where I visually recorded ideas and insights as I discovered them, and that was the real catalyst for what you now hold.

      The book is primarily written for me and my family, as part of my personal journey of discovery. I hope that whoever reads it can glean a few nuggets of wisdom from the pages within. I have been a student of the science of personal development for almost twenty years, starting when I was offered to become the General Sales Manager of Atlantic Speedy Propane in October of 1991. I had never been in sales before, and that new position started my journey on the road to self-discovery and wisdom. I am thankful that my first foray in the world of personal development led me to Zig Ziglar, as much of what I have learned from Zig comprises who I am today.

      From Zig I first realized that there is no such thing as a self-made person. All of us have had help along the way. And if you believe as Malcolm Gladwell wrote in his book Outliers, our personal and cultural history has a big impact on where we are today. I hope that what follows does justice to those whom I have learned from and imparts some of what I have discovered along the way to those who will read this.

      If nothing else, the journey of this book writing has been of benefit to me, and for that I am thankful. I have been blessed my entire life, and I hope this book blesses you as well.

      Introduction: Who Is Commander Pettes?

      I have been known as Commander (Cmdr) Pettes since 2000. But who is Cmdr Pettes? Cmdr Pettes is the persona that I have used for over ten years when I have done sales meetings or training for the company I am now President and co-owner of, TFI Food Equipment Solutions (TFI). TFI is a specialty restaurant equipment distributor located in Brampton, Ontario, Canada, a city near Toronto. The Cmdr Pettes persona is a Top Gun–style military fighter pilot. Whenever I do a Cmdr Pettes presentation, I come out with the music of Top Gun blaring, dressed in my uniform of a military flight suit, parachute harness, and my fully painted fighter pilot helmet. Cmdr Pettes is the Sales Fighter Pilot Squadron Leader of the USS TFI. And Cmdr Pettes has also become my personal brand.

      I have consciously developed this brand and identity through a number of marketing efforts and materials. I have had my youngest daughter develop a series (now three) of personalized thank-you cards that she designed, all with Cmdr Pettes imagery of various sorts. If I meet you for the first time and get your address, you will get one of these cards. The envelope is even mailed with a Cmdr Pettes postage stamp! My license plate reads THE CMDR, and in my home is a

      6’ X 8’ painting that my wife, Tammy, and I commissioned of a country scene, with a house on a hill, surrounded by vineyards and a gentle stream rolling down the front. The words Pettes Winery are labelled on a stack of wine barrels in front of the house. And in the top right hand corner, coming out of the clouds, is the Cmdr Pettes fighter jet!

      thank you card.tif nicole thankyou 1.tif

      soaring to serve thank you card.tif stamps.tif

      A selection of Cmdr Pettes thank-you cards and stamps.

      So where did all this start? In grade eleven, I had been involved in Junior Achievement (JA) for two years already. JA allows high school students to start up and run a business for a twenty-six-week period, starting with raising capital by selling shares, developing and creating a product, manufacturing and selling it, and eventually producing a shareholders’ report and winding up the company. In my third year at JA, I was elected President of GEMCO, one of about twenty JA companies in our area. Our company was sponsored and advised by employees of the local GM plant in St. Catharines, Ontario. Part of being President meant presiding over our quarterly (every six weeks) board meeting for the whole company (about twenty or so Achievers). In my third board meeting, I came up with the idea of using a skit to present our board meeting message. It was based on Star Trek, and I was Captain Pettes.

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