PHONE POWER: (full story)
Eighty Percent Of Success Is Showing Up ...
The above quote, “Eighty percent of success is
showing up.” is from Woody Allen. It was
particularly appropriate this past weekend.
I went to take a dance
class. My favorite teacher was back in town for
a short time. I was thrilled and ready to dance!
This teacher is incredibly talented, an
excellent dancer, good choreographer and her
class is high energy and fun! I had often
wondered why she was not more successful as a
teacher or why she never got into a decent dance
company.
I rearranged my entire
schedule to be there. So did a number of her
students. One cut short her holiday weekend with
her parents to get on a plane and fly back in
time for the class. Another rearranged her work
schedule, going in to work at 4:00 a.m. in order
to be done in time for the afternoon class.
The class never happened. My
favorite teacher called in “sick” at the last
minute.
When she taught regularly in
New York City this teacher had a habit of
canceling classes at the last minute. She’d been
gone for six months and was scheduled to teach
only four classes over the holidays. So far
she’s only made it to the first class. She
called in sick for the second. Was she sick?
Perhaps and who cares?
I’ll never again rearrange
my day to take her class. I know several other
dancers who also will never again rearrange
their days for her and even more dancers who
will simply never take her class again! Now I
understand why this teacher never got very far
in the dance world.
I was raised on the old show
business adage, “The show must go on.” It has
served me well. As a young dancer it was drilled
into my head that the audience didn’t care how I
felt. They were there to see me dance. They’d
paid a lot of money to see me dance and it was
my responsibility to be at my best, no matter
how I felt.
While that “nobody cares how
you feel” message may not be the best message
for a child, in business and in sales it’s the
truth.
Your prospects and customers
want what they want when they want it. It is
your job to deliver. If you do not, they will
find another source.
The first rule of
prospecting and selling: Show up
Most sales are made between
the 7th and 12th contact with a prospect. Most
sales people stop at about three to four
contacts. All you have to do to sell more is
show up a few more times!
Want to build trust and
rapport? Show up. Keep showing up. Do what you
say you’re going to do when you say you’re going
to do it. No excuses. Prospects and customers
like and trust people who do what they say
they’re going to do, when they say they’re going
to do it!
Want to close the sale? Show
up and ask for the order. If you do not get the
order that time, show up and ask again.
It doesn’t matter how smart
you are. It doesn’t matter how talented you are.
It doesn’t matter how great your product is. If
you don’t show up, nothing else counts.
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