Nike really has it right with Just Do It!
We can find endless excuses for not doing something—making those prospecting calls, finishing that report, doing that forecast, updating our CRM system…….
There’s always an excuse or a rationalization for not doing something:
- Marketing materials aren’t complete.
- We don’t have all the information we need.
- We have other things that we need to (or prefer to) spend our time on.
- The customer doesn’t want to meet with us.
- We don’t have things perfect yet. We just need more preparation.
- The dog ate my sales call plan…….
- My computer died…..
I have neither the time nor patience to list all the creative excuses I’ve heard—sometimes people spend more time coming up with the excuse than it would have taken to just complete whatever it is we are avoiding.
Fear drives many of the excuses—we’re afraid to pick up the phone, dial a number, and get someone who doesn’t want to talk to us.
Avoidance drives many of the excuses—we’re don’t ask for the order because we know this really isn’t the right deal and the customer will probably say “No.”
Drudgery drives many of the excuses. Sales is lots of hard, detailed work. It’s research, preparation, more research, reporting, more preparation. We don’t want to put in the work it takes to get the sale done, we just want to get the result.
Anticipation drives a huge number of excuses. We anticipate rejection, we anticipate our manager disciplining us, we anticipate all the difficulties we might encounter.
Nothing happens until we start “doing it.” We won’t get that meeting unless we pick up the phone. We won’t understand what it takes to get that order until we ask. We won’t get that order until we complete all the work of configuring a solution and completing the proposal. Our manager will not stop hassling us for the forecast until we get it done.
Pick up the phone, start dialing. Ask the customer what more they need. Just spend a few minutes getting that report done. Once you start, “doing it” starts becoming easier. Sure you’ll fail at something–but you’ll also learn from it and revise your approach for the next time. You may get your teeth kicked in, you may have problems–but now we have something we can take action on.
Are you sitting and waiting? Are you making excuses–to yourself or others? Are you avoiding, are you afraid? It will never disappear until you start doing it.
FREE eBook: Understand How Your Customers Make Decisions, email [email protected] for a copy
