Pesky Persistence – Part 1

Nothing in the world can take the place of Persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.

The slogan “Press On” has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.”
- Calvin Coolidge

Persistence is the fifth and final pillar of self-discipline.

What Is Persistence?

Persistence is the ability to maintain action regardless of your feelings. You press on even when you feel like quitting.

When you work on any big goal, your motivation will wax and wane like waves hitting the shore. Sometimes you’ll feel motivated; sometimes you won’t. But it’s not your motivation that will produce results — it’s your action. Persistence allows you to keep taking action even when you don’t feel motivated to do so, and therefore you keep accumulating results.

Persistence will ultimately provide its own motivation. If you simply keep taking action, you’ll eventually get results, and results can be very motivating. For example, you may become a lot more enthusiastic about dieting and exercising once you’ve lost those first 10 pounds and feel your clothes fitting more loosely.

When to Give Up

Should you always persist and never give up? Certainly not. Sometimes giving up is clearly the best option.

Have you ever heard of a company called Traf-O-Data? What about Microsoft? Both companies were started by Bill Gates and Paul Allen. Traf-O-Data was the first company they started, back in 1972. Gates and Allen ran it for several years before throwing in the towel. They gave up. Of course they did a little better with Microsoft.

If they hadn’t given up on Traf-O-Data, then we wouldn’t have such rich collections of Microsoft and Bill Gates jokes today.

So how do you know when to press on vs. when to give up? We will deal with that question next week! Until then…Be Persistent!

Major in the Minor

It is better to be the best in a niche than just a face in a busy crowd. I met a realtor who markets himself as an expert in the disposition of real estate for those in divorces. Why would he do this? 1) There are 5,936 Realtors in San Antonio, 2) The divorce statistics in America are 45%-50% of first marriages end in divorce, 60%-67% of 2nd marriages and 70% – 73% of third marriages all end in divorce, 3) This is a unique situation with particular complications that most realtors will not want to deal with – he did his research and became an expert, 2) He represents both parties – so each needs a new place to live.

In your business – what is your specialty – you can have more than one. Be a specialist – market yourself heavily to that vertical and watch magic happen!

Be the best!

To your success!

Vanilla is Awesome – unless you are a small business!

According to the International Ice Cream Association in Washington, D.C Vanilla is still the runaway most favored ice cream flavor in the United States with a 29% approval rating vs. number two, Chocolate, with 8.9%. Just to finish the thought – because I know you are dying to know – butter pecan ekes out a third place victory over Strawberry.

McDonald’s and Pepsi can serve vanilla. So can Charles Schwab, a Presidential candidate or General Motors – but can a small business? My short answer is “No” unless you have the type of money to market the “All-things-to-all-folks” message.

For us little guys, however, we can’t afford to be vanilla and be a break out success. We must be strikingly relevant in unique and contextual ways. If a business has competitors that do precisely the same thing – and we all have a bunch of them – then all of us fade into the background. Our quest, then, is to either out-spend them or out-market them. Since most of us will raise our hand for the latter strategy, this will force us to do a little homework.

Why do our loyal customers choose us?
What do they think makes us unique?
When they refer us – what are our qualities, or the things that we do, that they tell their friends about?
What are the most important benefits that they seek when they choose a vendor in our space?

Once we understand this – our marketing must scream this messaging – in our ads, our postcards, our invoices, our phone work, our networking and, of course, our websites.

Without uniqueness, we are just another scoop of vanilla in a 31 Vanilla Flavors display case. You know we are there – we are just hard to find! So as the customer strolls along the freezers with their nose up against the glass, they can’t see a difference between the vanilla offerings except for the price per scoop next to each tub. We are then subject to the only quality we have given the opportunity to compare against. Nobody wins in a price war.

Stand out or stand down!

To your success!

Why quit so quickly?

We have all heard the Woody Allen saying, “80% of success in life is just showing up.” I would like to append his quote so as to remove any ambiguity. “80% of success in life is just showing up, again and again and again!” I read the following statistics recently and felt compelled to share them with you,

48% of sales people don’t follow up
25% make two contacts with a prospect and stop
12% make only 3 contacts and stop
10% of sales people make more than 3 contacts

Now compare the above with the realities of sales:

2% of sales are made on the first contact
3% of sales are made on the second contact
5% of sales are made on the third contact
10% of sales are made on the forth contact
80% of sales are made on the 5-12th contact – depending on the many variables of a particular sale such as size and frequency of the transaction, geography, seasonality, etc.

Nevertheless, the data is staggering. Most outbound sales efforts are meaningless in the absence of a process that allows for sustained contact with a qualified prospect. The truth is that just because you are ready (because you have a quota to fill or payroll to meet) doesn’t mean that the prospect is quite there yet. Consider that most of the time you are typically talking to the 90% that aren’t ready. That doesn’t mean you drop them in the everlasting search for the 10% that are ready now. It means that you must engineer your sales process so that you can have a meaningful and value-steeped contact leading up to their preparedness. If you wait till they are ready – then you are coming into the process too late and will likely have to be competing on price.

Stay relevant and when they are ready – most of your work will have been done!

To your Success!

The New Networking

Reid Hoffman and Ben Casnocha, the authors of “The Start-Up of You”, wrote an excellent treatment of networking and the value of connections. Hoffman is a partner at Greylock (a Leading Silicon Valley venture capital firm) and founder and Executive Chairman at LinkedIn. He was also a prophetic early investor in Facebook, Zynga and others. So, he might know a thing or two about this subject. He writes about the transactional nature of “old school” networkers who are in a relentless quest to pick-up business cards. He contrasts this style to the “new age” connectors that are more focused on the care and feeding of those relationships that they value most.

Their premise is that based on the limits of the human capacity, we can either have fewer high quality connections with pivotal leaders that can fundamentally improve the quality of our business or personal lives, or we can have infinitely more surface contacts, each with very little skin in the game. Think about your photography mindset when you set out to capture an important event on a memory card – if you desire truly high definition photos for later use and enjoyment, you know that fewer of them will fit on the card. Relationships, in essence are the same. However, to be truly successful, you must take a “pay-it-forward” approach. Relationship-builders try to help others first. They don’t keep score – they simply offer a “gift” before they ask for one. That “gift” can be an unsolicited idea or contact or even gratis work in a perceived area of need. The “gift” shouldn’t be an expensive offering from a high-end merchant – that looks like graft. Instead it is a meaningful gesture that sincerely helps that targeted individual in a way that demonstrates your potential value to them.

So look around. Who do you value? Who do you want to value you? Extend the hand of friendship before you extend your hand of need.

A Man is what he MAKES of Himself!

Alexander Graham Bell was quoted as saying that “A Man, as a General Rule – Owes very little to what he is born with – a Man is what he makes of himself. So the real opportunity for success in a business lies within the person and not the industry, the business, nor the job. It goes without saying then that success, and ultimately happiness, is not a matter of chance – but of choice.

People go through life thinking and doing. You mostly do what you think about. You are who you are, and you are where you are because of what goes into your mind. The path of our outcomes are mapped above: 

So this week think about what you are thinking about. It is said that what is most important is what someone says to themself when they are by themselves that really matters!

Own and direct your mindset and you will achieve the outcomes you seek!