$600 Spent on Gas - Stop the Insanity!
Posted by: Cheryl Clausen in sales coaching, tags: increase sales, marketing, self-promotion
photo credit: Tambako the Jaguar
Are you cringing every time you fill your vehicle with gas?
Last summer I opened my American Express statement and as I scanned down reviewing all the charges it was obvious I’d spent a lot on gas. When I totaled up just how much I was shocked to see I’d spent $600 on gas alone.
It’s moments like this that appear completely negative at first glance where you have your biggest opportunities.
This shocking discovery caused me to think through something I’d had in the back of my mind for a while.
I realized the amount I’d spent on gas was only part of the story or part of the problem. And I know many of you are having the same problem and that’s why I’m sharing my experience and concerns with you.
You don’t burn through that much gas doing just a little driving. You burn through that much gas doing a lot of driving to and from appointments to and from clients to and from marketing activities. More resources than just money were being used.
My most valuable resource was also being used at a rapid pace, TIME. You can always get more money or devise plans to increase profits; however, you can’t get more time no matter who you are. We all have the same amount of time to invest and the way we invest that time determines your level of success and satisfaction.
You can assign a dollar amount to your time and that’s exactly what some of you may want to do to get yourselves to recognize the gravity of the time matter. For me it was less about the dollar
value, although the dollar value was certainly important, and more about the personal satisfaction value. Investing time in my car was not increasing my personal satisfaction AND it was not improving my dollar value.
I could either continue to line the pockets of the oil companies and throw away time I could never get back, or I could come up with a better way.
So my epiphany happened. I realized something had to change and change in a big way. I needed to do a little more discovery to really understand the full impact of what I was getting and what I
wanted. And so I clearly defined how I wanted my business to operate in the future, how it was operating now, and what would have to be different.
I had been leaning toward a significant change in my business, and this was the straw that broke the camels back. I would no longer work with anyone face-to-face. Plus I would be far more choosey about who I elected to work with focusing on the potential clients who are the best match and working with them one-on-one via the phone.
Like you at the time I wondered, could I do this? I knew how to market myself in the off-line world and attract the clients I wanted to work with, but could I do it online too?
Could I attract the right people and obtain clients who had never met me? …complete strangers?
Here’s what I had to do. I had to get qualified potential clients contacting me. I had to filter through those potential prospects and focus on the ones who wanted increased sales now. These are the people who don’t want to reinvent the wheel or waste precious time on trial and error hoping something will work.
And most importantly I needed to consistently, predictably, and profitably obtain those new clients.
It took me a little while to adapt and transfer what worked off-line online.
I also had to make adaptations to account for the differences between off-line connections and online connections.
I then had to turn this process into a reproducible system.
I wondered if I could do it and discovered I could. I did it and so can you.
Now you may not be looking to attract clients online. But whether you want to attract clients off-line or online you need a process to help you discover what to do, you need someone to help you discover how to do it, and you need a guide to help you speed up the process so you start attracting clients and increasing sales sooner than later.
When I get in my car now I’m very grateful I don’t use my car hardly at all anymore when I see how gas prices have escalated from where they were even just last summer.
You guys have told me how frustrating it is to drive over a hundred miles to visit a prospect and then have it turn out that either the prospect wasn’t a good fit or your earnings from the sale didn’t even cover your investment for gas let alone the time involved.
Drastic situations require drastic measures over and above just trying to cluster all your appointments in one area so you can see as many people as possible in the least amount of time and the shortest distance.
Just like me you’ve got to only invest time with highly qualified prospects who have a serious interest in doing business with you.
When I had my epiphany I needed to make things happen relatively quickly so I could make the transition in my business model without having a gap in revenue.
Some of the changes I made led to immediate results. Some of the changes and adaptations took time to work through and set-up a process to get the results I wanted. Some of the changes I made required a clear thought process so I could devise reproducible systems.
A number of my clients have tried “out-of-the-box” solutions and were frustrated because they didn’t work like they were suppose to work. Their frustration grew when they were asked to make additional investments that were supposed to produce better results. The box solution just didn’t seem to fit them and their business or get the results they wanted.
Any marketing expert will tell you the best person to market you and your business is you because no pre-packaged solution or marketing expert understands you and your business like you do. The best solution is one that takes you through the process of developing a marketing system that provides your personal best way to success.
I could have viewed myself as a victim when I looked at that AMX statement; but I chose to make myself a victor instead, and so can you. Like you I was smart enough to know no one could do it for me. I knew I needed to find the help I needed to get myself up to speed in the online world. That meant if I wanted to come out the victor I had to take immediate action.
And I did. Immediately. Successful people know the path to success requires immediate action.
Your success is directly proportional to the right actions you take. Rather than working harder you want to work smarter by focusing on the things that produce results.
Like always I was accountable for my destiny and my outcomes. I chose to build a stronger business rather than struggling from a weaker position trying to make things work.
The difference between those who are defeated in business and those who succeed is their determination to conquer. This requires persistence. You must stay focused on the prize and take right action to make it happen.
Keep your focus on knowing and taking the right actions.
So you can either continue driving up to the pump burning through money like water driving to appointments you shouldn’t even be investing your resources on, or you make a choice to change how you do business.
You make a choice to consistently, predictably, and profitably attract highly qualified prospects to you.
You decide to go through the process to make it happen and develop systems to make it happen automatically.
Or you decide to continue doing what you’re doing hoping for different results. We both know that’s by definition insanity.
So if you decide you aren’t going to sit back and be a victim to gas prices anymore, if you decide you’d rather increase sales and you don’t have a system for doing so now then…
GET THE HELP YOU NEED!
Realistically there are only a few options. You can work with a mentor who can show you how to do what they do. A mentor is great, but for some of you your mentor isn’t any better at marketing themselves than you are so it’s like the blind leading the blind.
You can go to seminars and workshops and register for training programs. You will get a lot of valuable information. Too much information to absorb and implement at once. Plus there is often a gap between your understanding and your ability to implement what you think you understood. I know I’ve sure felt that way before.
While I was at the event it was invigorating and motivating, but when I got home and tried to put the information to work I got stuck. Even when I got myself unstuck the things I tried just never
seemed to work like it was described in the workshop.
You could search for an “out-of-the-box” solution where someone has created a system for their business and now they are selling that system to others in the business. The problem with this approach is you are never in the exact same business, you aren’t the same people, and what worked for someone else may not work so well for you.
You can read books. The answer to everything is in a book somewhere. The problem is you have to locate the right books. Pull out what you need from each book and figure out how to put it all
together to make it work in your business. Very time consuming and frustrating.
Or you can work with a coach. That’s what I did to get my online business going and successful. I worked with two coaches, in fact, who were experts in different aspects of my online business.
I could have tried to hire someone to do it for me, but I’d already tried that too and was HUGELY DISAPPOINTED!
That’s why a coach was the only option for me.
When you’re looking for a coach you want to find someone who focuses on the outcomes you want. You want to work with that coach one-one-one. There is some value in group coaching, but far less than working one-on-one on your specific business working through your specific challenges. Your coach acts as your guide along the path shortening the process helping you develop a successful business based on what you want and your strengths.
And quite frankly I would never have had the patience to wait for my turn in a group coaching setting. Time is money and time is satisfaction. Every day that I’m not getting what I want is costing me a LOT of money and time I can’t ever get back.
In the end coaching is by far the most cost effective approach in terms of both time and money. And it’s certainly the least stressful option.
So make a decision. Are you going to continue to be a victim to high fuel costs or are you going to become victorious and succeed in spite of the current economic conditions? If you decide you’re not going to take it you’re not going to let someone else determine your destiny then start looking for the right coach for you TODAY!
Perhaps you already know that coach;-) There’s an easy way to know for certain. A simple conversation.
Here’s the link if that sounds reasonable to you…
Increase Sales Coaching
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