Earlier this week, I was speaking with one of my friends.
I shared with her some of the business items I’d been working on the last month.
I shared with her that my main focus for the last two months has been on establishing a consistent sales process and building a consistent marketing system.
Over the last eleven years, I’ve taken a fits and starts approach to growing my business.
Here is a summary of how I approached business growth in the past.
I started getting low on work, which I knew would lead to lower income.
The thought of lower income would bring on anxiety, and I began doing marketing and sales activities.
As I did those sales and marketing activities, I started to get more work.
The additional new work would lead to me getting busy.
As I got busy, I ran out of time, so I stopped my marketing activities.
Then my workload would begin to get lower than I was comfortable.
Consequently, I would get anxiety and begin my sales and marketing activities.
This led to more work, and I would get busy.
Then I stopped doing my sales and marketing activities.
I found myself in a continual cycle of chasing revenue, much like a cat that chases its tail.
Earlier this year, I realized that my historical behavior of chasing revenue was not leading to me building a business I could scale.
I recognized that consistency was critical to other areas of my business, so I knew consistency would be important to my sales and marketing.
I decided that I was going to build my sales and marketing to be more consistent.
The first thing I did was build a set sales process.
In my set sales process, I have seven activities I perform for each new lead that comes into my business.
By having a predetermined sales process, I no longer have to wing it when it comes to my sales and marketing.
In the past, one of the weaknesses of my sales process was I had no system for taking a lead through my sales process.
The result of my lack of systems was I was winging my sales process with each and every new lead.
Now that I have the set sales process, I don’t have to reinvent the wheel with each new lead.
Now my only job is to execute on my predetermined plan when I get a new lead.
By knowing exactly what my next step is, I have done a better job of taking each lead through a consistent process.
The consistent process builds my credibility and leads to higher conversion rates.
I’m still struggling a bit at doing some of the sales activities.
At times I’m reluctant to do my sales and marketing activities because there is some emotion tied to these activities.
Even when I have a warm lead, I’m putting myself in an uncomfortable position.
Every time I contact someone new, a bit of fear of rejection starts to emanate from my soul.
This is still uncomfortable.
Logically I recognize the fear shouldn’t stop me from doing the activities.
However, emotions of fear and trepidation, at times, overpower my logic.
I have to remind myself that it doesn’t matter how nervous or anxious I feel about the sales and marketing activities.
I just need to do the activities.
Most of the time, I feel better after I begin my sales and marketing activities.
I also remind myself of the successes I’ve had because I moved beyond my fears and did the sales and marketing activities despite the fear I was feeling.
I remember when I first started public speaking many years ago.
I would get stage fright before stepping up to the lectern.
Over time as I did more and more public speaking, I became comfortable with public speaking.
Now I enjoy public speaking, and it has become a powerful way for me to grow my business.
If I had stopped public speaking, I would have stunted my business growth.
Many decades Franklin D Roosevelt lifted American spirits when he uttered the following words:
“We have nothing to fear but fear itself.”
Fear is just part of the process.
What I’ve come to learn is that fear can be a very powerful signal to me.
When I feel fear, this is an indication that I am on the verge of my comfort zone.
My comfort zone is composed of all the walls I’ve put up around my life to protect me from perceived dangers.
My comfort zone is comfortable.
That’s the reason why I like to dwell in the comfort zone.
However, staying in my comfort zone creates a false sense of security.
Staying in my comfort zone leads to complacency and stagnation.
Elenor Rosevelt stated the following
“Life is like a parachute jump, you’ve got to get it right the first time.”
I would rather live a life knowing I pushed myself beyond my comfort zone than live a life where I stayed in my comfort zone and squandered the precious moments of my life.
I’ve stayed in my comfort zone in the past, and it usually led to regrets of what could have been.
The only way to grow is to move outside of the comfort zone.
I have to be willing to experience failure in order to experience success.
Life is much like a game.
You can’t win a game without there being a chance to lose the game.
Every time one expends time, money, or energy on something new, there is a chance the results from those actions will not go as planned.
However, there will always be a result from the efforts I expend.
The result is valuable feedback.
John C. Maxwell teaches us a valuable lesson with his words:
“Sometimes You Win Sometimes You Learn.”
With this in mind, in reality, there is no such thing as a failure.
There is always something we can learn from our results.
By continuing to persist and learn from my actions, I will make incremental improvements that will lead to the results I desire.
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