The Desert of Arizona
Clear 46 Degrees
“All that glitters is not gold…”
I did take a Shakespeare class in high school. But I missed the importance of this line from The Merchant of Venice when I ventured out into the business world.
Of course it is true… all that glitters is not gold. And that includes ME… and you.
But it’s far easier to attract clients when you DO glitter. For a long time, I had no idea how to do that… and even less of a clue about how to maintain that glitter as the client approached and moved into my world.
The trick is to realize that most things STOP glittering at all when you get too close. Even gold. But you have to get close enough to notice.
In other words, when you are attracting clients, it’s important to figure out how to maintain the distance required for the “glitter” to do its thing.
This is an extremely important human dynamic to remember in the attraction business. No one is special when you get to see them first thing in the morning, right when they wake up. Familiarity breeds contempt.
I didn’t make up this rule. But I did ignore it enough (out of pride) to get burned many, many times.
So here’s my train of thought:
There is a limit to how much you can help people who are not clients or customers. First of all, when there is no equal exchange of value, advice you dispense is treated as though it has little value. And really, how helpful can you be to a world of prospects who aren’t interested ENOUGH to hire you? Not very helpful. And finally, not being able to put food on the table is not really a sustainable way through life.
So……. the best thing you can do for the group of people you help is everything in your power to transform them into clients and customers. That way, you can deliver the maximum amount of value possible to them.
Part of “what’s in your power” is to maintain the necessary distance required to facilitate the hiring of YOU. That way, you glitter like the gold you are and people come and say, “I want some!”
Now if you’re a “nice guy” like me, you just can’t depend on yourself to do this. Every time I ever tried, I would go above and beyond to “help” people too much and end up driving them away.
So I proved to myself I was not born with this “maintain the glitter” capability. I can’t do it. But I can build a SYSTEM that can do it.
A system that offers PAID consultations… a system that offers a self-service scheduling setup requiring no chasing or phone tag… a system that has processes for how things DO happen and how they DON’T happen.
It’s like your own little playground where you get to make up the rules!
You do this on purpose. You do this deliberately and consciously. You do this so that, one by one, you start REMOVING the possibility for repeating problems you experience (like chasing prospects) to even exist in your system.
So just take a good look at what you’re doing. If you’re truly interested in serving people, are you doing everything in your power to “glitter” brightly enough to attract that opportunity to serve?