In the week that “the Last Jedi”, the new Star Wars film is released, I have unashamedly borrowed a quote from Yoda in one of the early films. The thought though was triggered by another excellent blog from Seth Godin , how does the ball know? where he talks about follow through.
What both are really driving at is the importance of intent and belief. When we really go for it, the result is generally far more impressive than when we hold back a bit, unsure if we will succeed or fail. A sales coach I know sometimes asks the question “if you knew you couldn’t possibly fail, how would you do this differently?”
In Seth’s blog he uses the analogy of striking a ball in sport. Whether we are using a club, bat, racquet or foot, the advice we are given is invariably to have a good follow through. Seth points out that the ball we are striking doesn’t hang around to admire our follow through, so why does it make a difference? Of course the answer is that if we focus on a good follow through, the contact with the ball will be much sweeter and more powerful than if we are already decelerating as we strike it.
Does the same apply in business and our life in general? I think so. Doing something with intent, and real enthusiasm generally produces a more rewarding result. Playing safe is often a self-fulfilling prophecy of failure or at best an outcome that we know could have been better.
So as you plan your marketing programmes for 2018 to help deliver those wonderfully ambitious sales targets, think about your follow through. Don’t do a single small ad in a new publication and expect miracles. If a prospect is worth adding to a database, make sure you contact them more than once of twice, try them with email and post. And most crucially of all, when someone responds to your marketing activity make sure you follow up – quickly!
If the follow through looks altogether too daunting, we can take care of your marketing for you, call us or email us or a confidential discussion
Chris