You Have To Work Hard To Increase Sales?

Well, that’s what everyone says isn’t it? That’s what you believe, isn’t it? Confess. You’ve bought into the idea that you have to work long and hard and pay your dues in order to succeed.

If you aren’t producing the results you want now you think you just have to work harder and the payoff will come. Isn’t it also true that there comes a point where no matter how hard you work the returns on your efforts begin to diminish? You can only push so hard for so long before you begin to crack and everything begins to crumble around you.

The reality is that how hard you work how long you work isn’t directly proportional to the success you enjoy. As a child I was sent by my Dad to go do a particular chore outside, and after I finished the chore I was to be certain to close the gate. Sounds easy enough doesn’t it. Well I ran out did the chore, and was all set to close the gate. The problem was that no matter what I tried no matter how hard I tried no matter how much I struggled I just couldn’t get that gate latched so it wouldn’t come open if I walked away. I also couldn’t just walk away from the gate to get help because if I did the animals on the other side who were now highly curious about this little girl who was huffing and puffing pulling and pushing and lifting trying to get the gate latched. After what seemed like hours when I was at the point of absolute tears exhausted and totally frustrated along comes my big brother. At that point I was sitting on the ground in tears holding the gate shut with my body head down in my arms feeling completely sorry for myself. He comes along and says, “You better close that gate squirt,” flipping the latch with one hand as he walks past. I couldn’t close the gate because I had the latch upside down!

Now my frustration was even greater because I had struggled so hard to do something even I could have done with a simple flick of my wrist. The point being that it isn’t that you have to work harder or pay your dues to increase sales and enjoy the success you could be enjoying. In fact, when you’re really struggling really frustrated it’s nothing more than a clear sign that you need to step back and get outside help.

The more frustrated you are the more difficult it is for you to increase sales the more likely it is that you too are overlooking an obvious mistake. Unbeknownst to you you’re taking actions that aren’t working. And you don’t know what to do to make them work even though it’s obvious to others. There’s something upside down or inside out in your approach. It could be in the way you attract prospects, the way you speak with prospects in a sales conversation, how you work with existing clients, something isn’t quite right. In many cases seemingly small changes can have an enormous impact on your results. And when you discover what it is, like my childhood story, you’re flabbergasted that you could have missed the obvious but you did.