You can’t make money sitting on your ass

If you want to know the secrets to business success – it’s not really a secret.  One of the key factors to business success is follow through!

Follow through as in “you can’t make money just sitting on your ass.”

It’s been estimated that 75% of internet leads are lost because of lack of follow through.  If I had to point to  the single most common reason for marketing failure – it would have to be lack of follow through.

There’s an upcoming movie called Yes Man based on the Danny Wallace book of the same name.  In the book, Wallace describes how he spent six months “saying Yes where once would have said No”. He embarked on this experiment in an effort to make his life more interesting and positive.

It should be noted that when Wallace said, “Yes” in his experiment, he obviously followed through because simply saying yes  won’t change your life.

Saying “Yes” is one thing, PERFORMING the action of “Yes”  is another!

Jim Carey stars in the movie version and it’s being marketed as a “comedy”.  Obviously there are zany consequences to saying yes to everything that comes your way! If I were actively pimping the movie, I’d include a video trailer here.

When opportunity comes knocking – it’s one thing to say “YES” – it’s another to follow through and not only open the door, but walk through it!

There’s a saying that goes along the lines of, “If you want something done – give the task to a busy man.”  I frequently think of this quote when I ask for information from someone and they never get back to me because more often than not, it’s the people who aren’t DOING anything who don’t get back to me.

For example,  I remember when I was composing a newsletter and the natural “call to action for the article was to offer more information.  The problem was while the newsletter was VERY relevant to what was showing up in my practice at the time, I had neither the desire nor the resources to fill this need for my clients and/or newsletter subscribers.   Fortunately, I had recently been introduced to someone who claimed that this area WAS his area of expertise and it was somewhere he wanted to dedicate his time and energy.

So – I wanted to offer my readers access to a resource and I had recently been introduce to someone who wanted to offer these services.  (In case you didn’t know – this is one of my FAVORITE things in life.  I just ADORE introducing people who need each others services.)

So,  I contacted this fellow and asked if he had a free e book or white paper which I could offer my newsletter readers to close the issue.  He replied that he didn’t have anything prepared, but he’d get something to me in a few days.

At that moment, I was feeling REALLY good about my place in the universe.  Talk about “flow”.   I mean, not only am I about to connect my readers with someone who can really solve their problems, but I’ve also helped put a fledgling service provider on the right “marketing” track as well.  Since this guy was just starting out, I gave him some slack on not having this piece prepared.

If you’re going to be selling your services (a.ka. nothing but air), part of your marketing strategy must be to have some sort of “virtual brochure”.  There’s nothing better way than to start establishing trust with your potential clients  than a white paper on “10 Things you must know about [insert service provided here].”   Such a resource is literally a must have resource as part of your marketing strategy!

I made the request for that white paper over a year ago and I’m still waiting.  Don’t get me wrong,  I’m not upset.  On the contrary, I feel like I dodged a bullet.  I mean, the last thing I want to do is to introduce people to a flake who can’t or won’t follow through.

Unfortunately, this post wasn’t inspired by a year old event.  It was inspired by deja vu all over again kind of thing that just happened.  Maybe December is just a bad month to try to get anything DONE!

Follow through is one of the key factors in business success.

Follow through is more precious than gold.  Follow through is more precious than any gemstone.   Sometimes follow through is called by another name “persistence”.

I guess that’s yet another reason why a blog is a GREAT internet presence to judge someone’s”follow through” factor.  What better way to observe someone’s “follow through” and vision than through a blog.  I mean, it takes a certain level of dedication to commit to a blogging schedule and stick to it.   It’s one thing to have a business vision – it’s another to follow through and make it a reality.

If you want to know the secret to success – you should know it’s not a big secret -it’s follow through.

Thomas Edison is credited with saying, “Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.”

When opportunity knocks, get off your ass and answer the door.  Oh – and if opportunity isn’t knocking – get off your ass and start knocking on some doors!!!  Once someone answers – FOLLOW THROUGH!!!