When You Have to Make It Work

by

The Desert of Arizona
Clear 66 Degrees

Sometimes we get ourselves in situations that are less than desirable.

I remember too many times early in my business career when I had no idea where the next client was coming from. It was far too late to get together a direct mail campaign. That would take months to turn into anything.

Email is quicker, but it takes quite a wordsmith to craft an email that basically says, “Knock, knock, dear Prospect, want to send me money?” without looking dumb.

It’s a real problem, I admit.

But when you’re in a situation like that (which is relative by the way… “having to make it work” might mean you need to come up with $4,000 in revenue or it might mean a million, who knows…) you have a choice:

You can either figure out how to “make it work,” or you can figure out how to keep this problem from coming up again.

“Making it work” often means figuring out ways to manipulate people into doing the things you want them to do, WHEN you want them done.

Some people call this selling. I don’t. Because when you are in the client business, this type of behavior doesn’t bring you the best clients. That’s why I don’t do it.

The best clients discover you. The best clients choose to pursue you. The best clients show up pre-sold that YOU are the person for them.

This doesn’t happen by accident. It’s one of the benefits of creating your own media platform.

So being in a situation where you “have to make it work” isn’t actually the problem. It is a symptom of the problem.

You do not yet have a functioning system for steadily increasing the demand for you.

So build one.

It takes three things:

  1. A decision to do it.
  2. Consistent small actions.
  3. Refusing to allow short term obstacles derail your long term journey. (This, by the way, is often a sheer act of will.)

I never force anyone through the platform door because, to be frank, if you have to be convinced that strongly to begin, you simply don’t have what you need (yet) to see the journey through. And that would be an enormous disservice to you.

Once you choose to start down the platform road, however, you will have taken the first step towards getting OFF the hamster wheel most service providers are stuck on.

It’s ultimately a function of discipline:

Discipline is choosing between what you want NOW and what you want MOST.