Try Not But Once!!

There are no magic wands, or unicorns for some of my associates, hard work and persistence are still the cornerstone of good luck. Arnold Palmer the famous golfer is often quoted as saying that the harder he practised the luckier he got, but whoever it was they were right.

Why practice helps

When you sit at a seminar and see this presenter own the event, he has the audience in his hands and it all looks effortless. Well the speakers I have spoken to will tell you that it is repeated practice that makes it look like it is easy.

I am a great Chelsea fan and loved Gianfranco Zola, the guy was immense and a free kick artist. Why was he so good, because he stayed behind after training honing his skill?Persistence is what these masters had in bucket loads but alas I do not see that with many people I meet.

Now I am a great advocate for changing things if they don’t work, because you need to learn by your mistakes, but what if it is not a mistake, it is just your skill level at that chosen task?

An example in business that I am well versed in is networking. I have networked with literally thousands of people over the last decade and I am really alarmed at the lack of persistence. When I worked at the Chamber of commerce in the events department it was my duty to produce reports on attendance etc.

This threw up an alarming figure that 66%of people who came to chamber events never did more than 2 events!!! Why was this? There are many explanations, but the Chamber events were well run with decent speakers and it good venues. The answer that I discovered by following up with these people, some who I myself had signed up for membership was that got nothing from the events!! These people had often put as their number 1 reason for joining the chamber was to meet new businesses and promote themselves and their company. So, they had attended 2 events and decided it was not working for them!! I see this at other networking that I attend and its quite normal for me to hear this through my network. The reason I feel is that people are not trained to network or even given basic outlines on what to do and what to do expect. What these people have not done is practice or be persistent, they have made a rash decision based on going to a couple of meetings and met a few dozen people and failed to sell to them.

The reason for this is networking is not about selling, it is about building relationships, and this takes time. Yes, you can hit it off with someone quiet quickly but to get the relationship to the point of trust takes time and effort. It is a persistent attitude that is required and then all of a sudden you get lucky and you get referred to a company and yes you land some business. This is down to the effort you put in to build that relationship, the practice you did. Practice comes from learning from the regulars (they are regular for a reason) and applying the good practices that they use.

So, put in the effort and the rewards will come. If you don’t know how to do things well, seek out people who will happily help.

I love working with people new to my areas of expertise as when they learn apply and get results it is a massive buzz.