Operations, Sales & Marketing, V10I1

Become a Quitter and Develop Amnesia  

(Image courtesy of Gerd Altman from Pixabay)

“It’s a slow process, but quitting won’t speed it up unless you are quitting bad habits that are holding back your success.”

For those of you who know me, you would more than likely say that I am a positive person. I normally look at things as “the cup is half full,” and most often I have a can-do approach to challenges. 

Please do not be confused by the title and think that I have suddenly become a negative person. I definitely have not.

I have often heard that successful people say being able to say no is such an important trait to maintaining success. If you are like me, you are open-minded to new ideas, and you genuinely want to help others succeed. 

Being able to say no to ideas that do not have your best interest at heart, or do not fit in with your goals and aspirations, is not only smart but necessary for growth. 

With that being said, I am going to focus on the following for 2024, and I encourage you to do the same.

Become a quitter. This sits atop my New Year resolutions for 2024. I plan to quit procrastinating on things that need to be done to move my business forward. I also plan to quit making excuses to myself and confront challenges with courage. 

One example of me quitting was when I had to “quit” hanging around toxic people. A few years back, I had a couple of customers who would stop by my business and want to hang out and chat/argue about sports and politics. 

As you can imagine, this would really ruin my focus and take me away from money-making activities, and it would also darken my mood. I eventually worked up the courage to tell them that I couldn’t take time away from my business anymore just sitting around shooting the breeze. 

Thankfully they understood, and we are still on good terms to this day. I call it addition by subtraction.

Develop amnesia. This is important for sales success in the shed industry. 

Life is hard sometimes, so wear a helmet. What I mean by developing amnesia is to immediately remove from your mind a sales presentation that did not go your way so it doesn’t completely consume you. 

Early in my career, I would always beat myself up when a potential customer would not buy from me. You see, I took it personally, and you absolutely cannot do that.

 Instead, I developed a kind of “amnesia” to where I can always forget and move on from an unsuccessful sales presentation.

I recall working with a customer on a multi-shed deal a few years ago for some rental properties. I went to the client’s site and met with him on at least five occasions to nail down the details. 

The customer agreed to the price, and the time came to close the deal and order the sheds.  My client suddenly ghosted me and would not answer calls or texts. I remember struggling trying to figure out what had gone wrong. 

Since then, I have developed amnesia where I simply just move on to the next prospect. I always strive to give my best presentation but realize that “Some will, some won’t, so what?”

  Jim Rohn said, “Don’t wish it were easier, wish you were better,” and, “Don’t wish for less problems, but wish for more skills.”

I encourage all of us to quit things that are not benefiting our businesses and develop situational amnesia when we experience customer resistance.

Let’s make 2024 our most successful year for the shed industry to date. I believe our best days are ahead.

God Bless!

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