Getting a Knockback
We all know how it feels to hear when you have just won a contract. You feel like punching the air! The opposite of that is the knockback. It comes in many shapes and sizes. Perhaps you’ve had a day of cold calling and nothing good has come of it. Maybe the contract you had counted on this month went to your competitor at the last minute. It makes you feel down and the mind chatter gets going ‘You didn’t do this right’, ‘You idiot, if you had spent an hour longer getting the service part right…’ the list goes on.
• Control the mind chatter – stop yourself talking yourself down and find something good to say to yourself. If you can’t say anything nice then don’t say anything at all!
• Learn from it and move on. Don’t allow it to become a bad day or a bad week just a bad 30 minutes.
• Take a 10 minute break. Get outside and walk. Clear your head and come back to it.
• Focus on the last positive thing that happened and wallow in how that felt.
• Think about the next thing you are working on that will give you that feeling and get on to it now.
A quiet period
You’ve had three weeks of non stop activity. Have you ever noticed that the more you have on the more you do? Then it goes quiet – what’s going on? One day passes, then two and you start to get inactive and down. Your motivation dies and you stagnate, procrastinate and hide in passive marketing. You stop getting out of the house/office – it’s a downward spiral.
• Number one – do something. Immediately. Now. Anything at all that will get things moving again.
• Make the things you hate doing top priority every day. Hate cold calling? Do it first and save the other things for later. Far better that than to have it hanging over your head all day.
• Active Marketing. This means speaking to people. Not emailing, not sending letters but actually speaking. The more active you are, the better you feel and the busier your business will be.
Don’t know where you are heading?
When you don’t know why you are doing something, what it means to your business there is little motivation to do it. If you don’t have performance goals that are set in line with your end goal how will you know you are going in the right direction. How will you know you are succeeding? How do you feel good about what you do every day?
• Have you got a marketing plan? A business plan? Do they sound like huge tasks to you? They don’t have to be. Spend 2 hours putting together a plan and some deadlines.
• Use Outlook – print out the next month and put in some deadlines.
• It’s 90% about the ‘why’ and 10% about the ‘how’ when it comes to achieving goals. Make sure the ‘why’ is there and the ‘how’ will become easy.
Pain and Pleasure
Motivation is all about either moving away from pain or towards pleasure. Why would you be motivated if you have nothing to lose or nothing to gain?
• Identify what you will gain by doing whatever it is and what you will lose if you don’t.
• Everything you say yes to involves saying no to something else. What are you saying no to when you say yes to procrastination?
Fear of Failure
The biggest stumbling block to doing what we should is fear of failing. We don’t do so many things because we might fail. ‘I’ll look stupid and it will damage my reputation’ Sound familiar? How will you know if you will fail if you don’t try?
• Find a mentor – someone who has been there and done it. It will give you the proof you need to know that it works.
• Stop preparing presentations that may never get used. Get out there and find the opportunity and then prepare.
• Feel the fear and do it anyway.”
