On Procrastination, Optimism, and Failing to Take Action

Ahh, a new year. For salespeople, it’s even better than a new month. It’s a time to start fresh, with a clean slate, and get back to work renewed and recharged.

I can see the trend just from observing traffic and sales volume to NeverColdCall.com – it’s literally explosive compared to the average volume we get any other time. Everyone has made those New Year’s Resolutions to improve, and they’re in a rush to buy my lead-generation system to make that happen.

But … how many people will really do it?

I thought of the subject of this post the other day while contemplating product refund rates. I’m fortunate that very, very few people ever return my products, but of those who do, there’s a very bizarre twist:

Over 50% of them send it back unopened, still in the shrink wrap!

In other words, they never even tried it. They bought it, let it lay around on their desks for a few days or weeks, then quit and said, “Oh, what’s the use? It won’t work for me anyway!”

When I was running a life insurance agency with a friend of mine a few years ago, we provided qualified – no, hot – leads to our agents. That’s how any smart business operates. You don’t have your salespeople wasting time with cold calls. You instead provide them with solid leads, and pay them to close sales. Not to do the job of a minimum-wage telemarketer.

Despite this, many of the more failure-conscious agents would ask, “Are the leads good?”

Our answer was simple: If you think they’re good, they’ll be good. If you think they’ll be bad, they’ll be bad.

That’s how my staff responds to people asking if my Never Cold Call Again system will work for them: If you think it will work for you, it will work. If you don’t think it will work, please save us both a lot of time and just don’t buy it.

It reminds me of a story that W. Clement Stone told many years ago. A professor at Northwestern University decided that his income was insufficient, and so we went into the life insurance business. He approached Mr. Stone, saying, “Since you are a very prominent man in the community, would you be so kind as to provide me with a list of referrals who I may call upon?”

Mr. Stone did just that. The man called every name on the list and said, “Mr. W. Clement Stone referred me to you.”

He closed all of them, on life insurance no less, one of the world’s most difficult products to sell.

He then went back to Mr. Stone, excited, told him that he’d closed all of the referrals, and asked for more. Mr. Stone then handed him the phone book and said, “Here, this is where I got them.”

Astonished, the man replied, “But Mr. Stone, that’s impossible!” Mr. Stone went on to explain that he picked names out of the book at random. The only difference was the man’s mindset in calling those people.

Finally, he gave in, went home, and began calling names out of the phone book. Not surprisingly, he failed to get even a single appointment, let alone sell any policies!

Why?

Well, the only difference is this:

When Mr. Stone gave him a list of names, he believed they’d buy from him. When he called names at random on his own, he didn’t believe they’d buy.

And that’s the moral of the story. I see it every time someone returns a product, unopened, because they’d given up before they’d even started.

Don’t ever make that mistake. It’s the curse of failures. On the other hand, expecting things to work for you means they usually will. So expect success in 2010 and beyond, and chances are you’ll get it!