"Pass that white icing would you, Hon?"  Silvia asks of her husband.

"Sure, Hon.  Whacha making over there?"

"A white reindeer with a cinnamon nose," she replied.

Brown paper bags - the kind one now has to buy instead of simply collecting from a grocery store - were cut open and spread across the kitchen table.  Holiday cookie accoutrements - stars and santas and gingerbread men were strewn about.  The media of cookie artists - glittery sugar, tiny candy beads, cinnamon dots and miniature snow flakes were scattered across the paper where they had bounced off their hosts.  My wife and I were icing cookies.

"I've got a new blog post in mind," I mentioned as I reached for the red icing.

"Are you going to spend a lot of time talking about what you and Dick were eating or drinking in this post?" she asked disapprovingly.

"First of all, Dick isn't in this post.  Secondly, I don't spend a lot of time talking about food and drink in my posts.  I try to set a scene to draw in the listener and make it easy for them to understand and appreciate the lesson I am conveying."

"I think you spend too much time describing the food.  Who cares what you were eating when you learned a valuable lesson from Dick?  Why not just tell them what you learned and be done with it?"

I finished my bit of artistry and turned the cookie to face my wife.

"What do you think of my Santa?" I asked.

"Why did you put suspenders on him?"

"To hold up his pants, of course."

"Not funny.  Anyway, what is the topic of this post you have dancing around in that pea brain of yours?"

"Well, do you know that new song by Kris Allen?"

"The winner of American Idol?"

"Yeah."

"Oh, yeah, I like that song.  Something about living like you're dying.  Can I have the little snowflakes?"

I passed the snowflakes and took a sip of my eggnog. 

"What is the point of this eggnog?  Honestly, it's barely tolerable with liquor.  Without it, I feel like I'm drinking nutmeg sludge.  Why aren't we drinking again?" I whined.

"We aren't drinking because every time we drink and ice cookies we end up with purple reindeer and brown Santas.  So, your post is going to be about how we should all live as if we don't have much time left and we should enjoy every moment, blah, blah-blah."

"Not exactly.  No.  That's what the song is about but my post is going to draw a distinction between living that way and selling that way."

"How so?" she wondered.

I noticed that she was using the yellow icing knife in the green icing and was now unwittingly making a blue gingerbread man.  I glanced at the cookies in front of her and saw a Santa with one eye, an elf with what looked like a bloody knife wound in his chest and a black star.  When she reached for another color of icing, I grabbed her glass of eggnog and took a swig.

"Hey," I declared, "I thought neither of us was drinking!"

"I never said that.  Besides, I can drink and ice cookies at the same time.  Tell me more about your post.  For some reason you're becoming more interesting."

"Yeah, I wonder why."  My eyes rolled.  "Well, sometimes sales people act as if each sale is the most important sale they have ever made.  So much so that they come across as desperate.  As if this sale determines life or death.  Selling that way is counter- productive to long-term sales relationships."

"I thought you wanted your sales people to try as hard as they can to make every sale."

"Kind of, sort of.  We want sellers to try as hard as they can to find qualified prospects and then gain access to the key decision makers.  We want sellers to work hard to uncover needs.  If we offer solutions that will help a prospect with the achievement of their marketing goals then we want sellers to never give up trying to persuade those prospects that we can help them.  What we don't want them to do is to act as if our products and services are a perfect fit for everyone.  We don't want pushy sellers who keep on trying various sales angles and techniques in an attempt to unload more product.  We don't want sellers to sell as if their primary focus is their own quota."

"So, what does that have to do with Kris Allen?"

"Simple.  In the song, Kris recommends that we live like we're dying so that we get as much out of life as it has to offer.  My advice to sellers will be to sell as if they plan on living for a good long time.  Prospects will appreciate their long-term approach and be more willing to engage in meaningful conversations.  By acting as if they are going to be in the business for a long time, sellers become more attractive to key decision makers who are interested in investing in media that will help their businesses grow in the long run.  Also, this approach differentiates the serious solutions-oriented seller from the short-term, product-pushing kind of seller."

"Great!  Got it.  Live like you're dying but sell like you're living.  Now, do you suppose you could do that without a lot of unnecessary scene setting?"

"I'll do my best, hon."