Nugget #6 - Keep flipping chairs.
No, don’t get up from your desk and cause a scene. The cops may get involved.
I’m going to describe an analogy for outbound prospecting that should give a healthy perspective for non-stop effort. Let’s go.
Imagine you’re standing in the middle of your favorite sports team’s completely empty stadium. (For me I’ll be in Camden Yards or M&T Bank Stadium. Can’t take the Baltimore out of the kid.)
There you are, at the 50 yard line or center field, whatever visual works.
You are told that taped underneath one of the chairs is a $1 million dollar check. If you find it, the money is yours. If you’re like me you’re salivating now.
So you run over to the stands and begin to flip the first chair. Your adrenaline is pumping. You’re about to hit the jackpot!
First chair flips up… nothing.
Moving onto the second chair… nothing.
Flip the next ten chairs… nothing.
Next one hundred chairs… still nothing.
Pause. At this point you have flipped one hundred chairs with no trace of the $1 million dollars. Ask yourself: Did I give up and stop flipping now?
Hell no! You’re going to flip every single chair in that stadium. Nothing is going to stop you from finding the money.
Every single flip gets you closer to the money. You have unwavering faith that it’s just a matter of time until you’re a millionaire.
This is the same mentality we need to have towards cold outreach. Every call, email, LinkedIn message, handshake at a networking event, etc. is a flip of the chair for your fortune.
You get hung up on? No problem. Just a chair flip. Move to the next chair.
Personalize an email to your ideal prospect & receive an “unsubscribe” message back? Awesome. Flip the next chair.
You get the gist. Don’t be emotionally attached to every chair flip. Just keeping going. You will find your $1 million check if you refuse to give up.
Before we wrap this point please acknowledge the nuance here: seek to understand the lesson with each chair flip. Don’t just blindly do the same things over and over. There is a balance between discipline of just doing the work, and doing the work better.
It’s critical to debrief on the why behind how particular outcomes are generated. You can then tweak your targeting, your messaging, your technique. This is working smarter.
I’ll see you out there in the stands, flipping away with you (hopefully you’re in Baltimore with me).