A Week Full of Excuses
There's a story of a man who went to his next door neighbor to borrow an axe. The neighbor said "No, I'm planning to make some soup today". This puzzled the first guy who asked what making soup had to do with borrowing an axe. The neighbor said "Nothing, but if I don't want to loan you my axe, I think one excuse is just as good as another."
All excuses are the same.
I don't think many of us, whether in sales or not, would disagree with the idea that you must, with VERY FEW exceptions, talk to people in order to do business. Yet making calls seems to be the most basic activity avoided by sales professionals. There seem to be unlimited reasons (excuses) why we put off making calls. I'm sure I've heard more than I can remember. And I have probably used more than I care to admit. :)
Still, I thought I would have some fun and see if I could come up with a simple list of reasons NEVER to make a call ANY TIME of ANY DAY:
"It's a bad DAY to call"
Monday
Everyone is trying to recover from the weekend.
Everyone is in sales meetings.Tuesday
Everyone is traveling or seeing clients.Wednesday
Everyone is too busy trying to get over "hump" day.Thursday
Everyone is under a deadline to get work finished before the end of the week.
Everyone is too busy trying to get their weekly sales reports out.Friday
Everyone is trying to leave early for the weekend.Saturday
C'mon...no one's in on the weekend.
"It's a bad TIME to call"
Before 8 AM
No one’s in the office.8:00 - 10:00 AM
Mornings are not a good time to reach people. They’re all in meetings.10:00 - 11:00 AM
People are usually involved in projects and are really tough to reach.11:00 AM - 2:00 PM
People are getting ready to go to lunch.
People are at lunch.
People are coming back from lunch.
Everyone is short-handed because they are covering for people at lunch.2:00 - 3:30 PM
People are in meetings, making deliveries, still working on projects, in training, under deadlines.3:30 - 5:00 PM
Why call now? Everyone is trying to wrap up the day, finish their projects and trying to end the day and go home.After 5:00 PM
Everyone’s gone home. I think I will too.
OK, now I have an excuse any time I want one. I could also add:
- It's a tough economy.
- We aren't competitive in this market.
- The competition has an edge on us.
- I have more business than I can handle.
- I have too much on my plate right now.
- People just don't understand what we do.
- I'm really tired and I'm not effective when I'm tired.
- It's a gorgeous day! Who would even be in to talk on a day like
- this? I'm going out to play golf/tennis/etc.
- yada-yada-yada..........
The point is that all excuses really are the same. They are insidious gremlins that can pick away at our hopes and dreams and intentions. This is probably not news to you. So what do you do with them? Struggling, you may have noticed, doesn't seem to be very effective.
There is a simple strategy described in the book "Taming Your Gremlin: a Guide to Enjoying Yourself" by Richard D. Carson. It has three steps:
1. Simply notice. Noticing is not fighting with, nor approving. It is SIMPLY awareness.
2. Be at choice. Acknowledge you have options to dealing with the gremlin. You can do and feel as you typically have. That's OK. You can also be creative. You can be out of character; you can have fun, be adventurous. It's YOUR CHOICE.
3. Be in process. To quote Lao Tzu: "Notice the natural order of things. Work with it rather than against it for to try to change what is so will only set up resistance." So just go with the flow.
I suggest you read the book to get the full impact of this simple and brilliant process.
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