Some years ago I was trying to start a new business from scratch. Most of the initial business plan had fallen through, and I was trying my best to work with Plan B, C, or even Plan Z. I had a product to sell, and I had customers to sell to, and I knew in my heart of hearts that the two together made perfect sense, for all three of us: the manufacturer, the customer, and me the agent. So, I continued to trod along week in and week out, trying to land this one large, particular customer.
One Friday evening, as I arrived back to my home office, after another positive meeting with my prized potential customer, I reported to my wife that "things were looking very good. We should know something by next Friday." (Keep in mind that this was about the 5th or 6th such report that I had given my wife, each on a Friday evening about this same time.) To which she shouted in my face: "Don't you get it, there is NO NEXT FRIDAY! You need to get out of this!"
All these years later, those words are still burned deeply into my memory. We were struggling financially because of the shifting business plan. We had no income on the horizon, most of our capital to get us started was running out, so she had every right to question my navigation of what seemed at the time like a cruise on the Titanic. But, I held steady and continued on.The next week, and for weeks thereafter I continued to call on that customer again and again. But, I also started spreading my efforts out into the market and reaching out to some smaller customers. Slowly but surely we began to add these smaller distributors, and our business started at last to become a profitable enterprise. And then one day, after we had created a decent presence in the market, that original, next Friday customer called me, with an order. The buyer asked no questions about pricing or terms. He just gave me a P.O. number with a large quantity of product.
The moral of the story? Stick with it; but maybe at some point reevaluate and adjust your strategy. Keep going forward, but if you run into a wall, adjust your approach. Maybe there is a door just to the left or right of the wall you keep walking into. But by all means, don't give up. If you are self employed, maybe you can create a tracking system to make you accountable for sales calls made, or phone calls, or appointments set. The company I represent now, has a great tool we call the Daily 8. It sets out particular tasks to do each day, and the tasks are assigned points. The goal is to get 8 points each day. Some days you may hit more, some days less. At the end of the week if you've hit 40 points you most likely will have your reward.
Maybe you are lucky enough to have a friend or a spouse who can support you and act as a sounding board when you think you are going crazy because no one in the world seems to see the value of your product the way you do. I am lucky to have both. I have a good friend who keeps me on track, and helps me sharpen my approach to selling my product and programs and he cares about my success. And my wife still wonders sometimes about next Friday, which still seems to be an issue on occasion after all these years. But she is a wonderful life partner who helps me stay centered and grounded.
Keep in mind: no one who ever achieved success, did not experience failure as well. It was not meant for this world to only enjoy success. So, the failure, or hard times you may now be experiencing are just preparation for you to truly enjoy the successful reward awaiting you, as long as you keep trying! Isn't that what life is all about, working through our failures, to reach our success, and then enjoying our reward.
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