Many years ago, when I was a teenager, I discovered that girls inhabited the planet. It happened all of a sudden. For most of my life, at least up to my teenage years, I knew girls existed but I pretty much ignored them. Then one day, my eyes opened wide and I couldn’t believe that I had been surrounded by these wonderful people. I wanted to be closer to them but I didn’t know how. They struck fear into my heart. I was afraid to talk to them. Didn’t know what to say. When I finally decided to ask a girl out on an actual date I was in terror. It took all of my strength and courage to make the phone call. What I didn’t realize was that all of the teenage girls were in fear too and waiting for the teenage boys to ask them out!
Thinking about business… isn’t it similar to teenage dating?
There are companies and people out there in the marketplace that we want to do business with and they, in turn, want to do business with us but because we are so afraid to pick up the phone because we think we may get rejected, we just sit around and complain about how bad business is and how hard it is to get a sale these days.
Oh, if I could only go back to those teenage years. I would have a grand time as a teenager, if only I could have just understood there was really nothing to be afraid of.
All I had to do was show up, be myself, be on my best behavior, be interested in my date and what she had to say… and the weekends would be filled with dinner, dancing, movies and fun!
If you want to increase sales at your company, think back to your teenage years and all the things you may have been afraid of that seem amusing today. Call that potential customer. Push away that feeling of rejection and get into action! If a prospect says “no”, so what?! You’re just that much closer to your next prospect that will say “yes”. If you contact a hundred prospects a week and only one becomes a customer, imagine how significant that would be at the end of the year to your company’s bottom line.