Top Performer: A Bold Approach to Sales and Service is a fresh, insightful, and surprisingly provocative new way to think about your work and your life.

Top Performer is about what is perhaps the most powerful energy in the world -- Natural Energy -- the energy that is released in any authentic human encounter.

Co-authored by Stephen Lundin, PhD, (author of the mega-bestselling series of FISH! books), and Carr Hagerman, (writer, filmmaker, leadership consultant and former professional street performer), Top Performer is a simple parable that illustrates how top street performers partner with their audiences in surprising ways to create a memorable experience. This approach can be adopted by any company, and can transform any transaction into something remarkable and, ultimately, more personal.

Access to the Top Performer approach can come through the book, the breakthrough DVD of the same name, or through our training materials. The most in-demand access is through a live presentation, event, or training program, each uniquely developed in partnership with our clients.

The Language of Energy:
Street performers have a language that expresses the power and potential found within the audience. We’ve adapted their language to the world of business, and molded it into a meaningful conversation for everyone from entry level associate to CEO.

Natural Energy:
Natural Energy™ exists in every authentic human interaction. Where interactions are unforced and authentic, the energy rises naturally. And when the energy rises, people become genuinely engaged and energized. Top Performers recognize that Natural Energy is not found in the gag, gimmick, trick, or routine, but in an honest connection with the audience. It’s what makes each performance a unique experience.

Claim Your Pitch:
A street performer calls the stage or space in which they perform, the "Pitch" (not to be confused with our contemporary definition of a “sales pitch”).The “Claim” is a choice and decision about who we want to be while we are in the “Pitch.” The Pitch is where we stand. The Claim is what we stand for. The bold decision to Claim Our Pitch, even in the face of distraction, disruption or discord, can transform any job into a source of energy and inspiration.

Juice the Jam:
A “Jam” is the unexpected obstacle, breakdown, or objection. The “Juice” is
the Natural Energy released when we skillfully engage the “Jam.” A Top Performer looks at a “Jam” not as a problem to be solved, but as material for a heightened experience, both for the performer and the audience. Learn to Juice The Jam and the world is far more interesting and a lot less frustrating.

Pass the Hat:
“Passing the Hat” is how a street performer gets paid. For a Top Performer, it's also the gift the audience gives back to the performer. “Passing the Hat” provides instant feedback for a Top Performer, and measures how successfully the audience was engaged.

Q&A with STEPHEN LUNDIN and CARR HAGERMAN
Creators of Top Performer discuss leveraging the talent of street performers for business success

Q: What is the Top Performer philosophy and how does it differ from other business strategies? A: All businesspeople interact with other humans and they’ll be most successful – they’ll have the most natural energy - if they create real connections with those humans. Once those connections are built, there will be loyalty, trust and eventually new business. Traditionally, businesspeople rely on scripts, protocols and routines, not realizing that those things get in the way of authentic interactions, stifle natural energy, and create more distance between business professionals and their clients or customers. Top Performer teaches businesses to understand the limits of traditional sales and relationship tools; they cannot ever replace the power of human connection.

Q: At the most basic level, isn’t your philosophy about knowing how to find happiness, both professionally and personally?

A: Our philosophy does help people find happiness because it is centered on natural energy,” the self-generated, naturally-occurring happiness that results when we reach out and connect with another human being. Whether performing for audiences on the streets, or customers, clients and coworkers in office buildings, it’s the ability to connect on an internal level that creates natural energy.

For street performers who step out into city parks, their primary resource is their ability to read internal cues and turn them into energy: knowing when to step forward, who to use as a volunteer, how to keep the audience focused, and how to deal with hecklers and other distractions. Those skills are both what make good street performers, and good businesspeople, stand out, and what makes their jobs more enjoyable and fulfilling.

Q: Your philosophy takes insights from professional street performers, but many businesspeople don’t possess the confidence, poise and comfort in front of a crowd that seem innate in successful street performers and allow them to harness natural energy. What is the most effective way of creating natural energy in the corporate world?

A: The beauty of natural energy is that everyone possesses it. We can feel it whenever we genuinely connect with another human being. Top Performer doesn’t teach anyone new skills; it teaches them how to unleash what they already have. In business, people often fail to show their real selves. People just go about their routine, present their material in dry charts and forced speeches, and hope for the best. Businesspeople need to abandon control and simply be real, creating true engagements with their customers, clients and coworkers. The very best way to release natural energy in an organization is creating a talk, because everything that employees already have the tools they need to become Top Performers.

Q: Can you describe, for example, how a sales manager at a brand-name electronics store could develop that winning personality, create those connections, and become a Top Performer?

A: What a Top Performer does is create a performer’s “pitch”: the space in which the performer works. In this case, the pitch is an electronics store. It’s the performer’s responsibility to create a pitch that allows people to show up in a fundamentally human way. We tell people to “prepare less and show up more.” Claim that space as your own, and make it somewhere that the natural energy of yourself and your customers can flow freely. Then invite the customer into the pitch and blow them away with your energy and ease when inside it.

Q: Without preparation, can we still create those connections and find that natural energy?

A: Yes, there’s energy in every potential encounter. If we can’t find it, preparation can only take us so far. In fact, many times our preparation – the strategies and techniques we traditionally use to succeed in business – get in the way of our major goal: to connect in a fundamentally human way. When we use a strategy rather than just being ourselves, the interaction becomes unnatural and alienating.

Q: But we typically rely on those traditional sales strategies – our planning and preparation – as our crutches when something goes wrong. How do we make due without them?

A: Like street performers, we Juice the Jam. Let’s consider how politicians, who face jams publicly everyday, create juice or energy from the obstacles that come along during their campaigns. Hillary Clinton faced a jam when she lost the Iowa primary, but she rallied back to a leading position in the 2008 election by “finding her voice,” which led to connection and natural energy and popularity. She tuned out the machinery who tell her what to say and do, stepped out from behind all the prep and the scripts, closed the distance between herself and the voters, and made that important personal connection with them. As Hillary learned, jams are often an exceptional source of juice, or natural energy.

Q: How can ordinary business leaders without firsthand performance experience teach the Top Performer skills to their workforces?

A: In Top Performer, the Language of Energy is the vehicle for building conversations with workforces. The language enables a fresh conversation between business leaders and their teams, requiring interpretation and discussion. And that conversation doesn’t just repeat the same old thing. It says something new and provocative – being human, being vulnerable, is okay.