You know what you are supposed to be doing. It is that thing that you do not want to do. It depends on who you are as to what exactly that is. For me, it was making sales calls, for you it may be exercising or meditating. The thing is that you keep on putting it off and finding every excuse in the world not to do it.
Some of my excuses were that I did not know how to express my offer or that I did not even know what I was offering. I was also thinking that I would not be able to emotionally deal with rejection. I even imagined that I would be irritating and annoy the people I that called. The fact of the matter is this: I just plain did not want to do it.
Here’s the thing, though, not doing that which we do not want to do is actually keeping us from doing what we really want to do. I know in my life it is, for sure. I want to make sales and grow my business by helping people. Since I was not making calls, guess what, I was not selling much of anything to anyone.
Sure, I was still getting some business from people calling me. I was solving problems and helping people here and there, however, I was not doing it enough to reach the financial goals I set for myself. That was what was happening; I was keeping myself from doing what I wanted to do (earning more money, helping more people) because I refused to do what I did not want to do.
My mentor told me outright one day (okay, maybe it was through an email and a video on Youtube, it did feel like he was talking directly to me though) he said to do that one thing that you do not want to do and do it today. I put it off until the very end of the day and told myself, I will probably just get the answering machine. I misdialed three times before the phone started ringing…and then…Mark picked up!
I stumbled over my words and felt like I was reading a script as I said my name. Mark asked me why I was calling and I told him. We talked for a few minutes and I asked him one question that I had written down. I asked him what is working best for him in his business.
His answer surprised me, he said, “The economy”. Apparently, there is money for the type of construction projects that Mark supplies equipment for and so he is doing very well now. He went on to explain that he has been in business since 1989 and most of his clients come to him by word of mouth advertising. He also told me that the premise under which I had made the call was false.
You see, I had gotten his name and number from a list and I called Mark because I was told that the people on the list were planning on spending at least $3500 this year on video. I found it interesting that Mark had no intention of doing any such thing. Mark continued to tell me that the guy who I got the list from was full of crap and that he had never heard of him or his marketing list business before. It turns out that none of my thoughts or ideas about making that call had anything to do with the reality of it.
I discovered that even though this guy was not interested in what I had to offer, he was still willing to talk to me and tell me a little bit about his business. I found that to be profoundly encouraging. My fear of making cold calls was all in my head. I made the call on Friday afternoon and I’m glad I did, I think I’ll make another call (or two) on Monday.
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