Got an email response from an irritated coaching client the other day about some sales advice I gave him and thought you might benefit from the unadulterated but uncomfortable advice I gave him.
Steve,
I am not arguing with you. (oh yes he is) I am merely trying to learn and discuss what works best and I have been willing to try most everything.
I am simply trying to discuss what I learn and talk about with other top advisors around the country.
I do not claim to have all the answers, knowledge, and authority and I never have. I am also sure that you know a lot more about it than I do. And I try to make that point on a regular basis.
Irritated Client
PS You probably don’t mean to, but sometimes it seems as if you feel the need to set me straight through your responses.
Dear Irritated Client,
I am not trying to “set you straight”. I am trying to help you gain clarity of thought. Sometimes the price of clarity is the risk of offense.
When you say things like:
“most of the time people will not come to an advisors office or go to a seminar especially without dinner” you are stating an opinion based on your own experience or the experience of those you talk with.
Your experience does not make it fact. It only makes it true for you.
Truth is there are advisors who are very good at attracting people and making them stand in line for an appointment.
These are the people you should seek out and talk with – not the ones who are failing to do what you want to do. Most of all don’t let your personal experience color what is possible. The only reason that you can’t get enough people to come to you and refer to you is that you have not “cracked the code”. It can be done but only if you want to do what is required.
If you want to do an exercise that will help you gain clarity of thought I suggest you get a legal pad and begin to write down all of your beliefs and things you think to be true of the Financial Services industry. When you have written these down; go back and make a list of all of the industry standards, practices and norms.
Once you have done this go back and look at the two lists and make a conscious but painful effort to violate every standard, norm and the things you think to be true. (I am not advocating doing anything unethical or illegal but I am advocating breaking all of the self limiting rules that you have set for yourself or the rules of others that you have accepted as truth)
Your current belief system is responsible for your results. If you want to work with me on this project be advised that you will experience great psychological discomfort as you change your belief system. If you want to dramatically change your results you must be willing to embrace discomfort and shatter many of the beliefs you have about business.
Just to leave you with one more thing to think about. We live in a dual universe where the physicists can’t agree whether light is a particle or a wavelength. Turns out these two polar opposites are both true. How can that be? How can two opposite things both be true simultaneously?
If this universal polar opposite concept is true in physics it must therefore also be true in every other aspect of our life. (Granted this is a hard concept to wrap your head around)
For every night there is day. For every sunrise there is a sunset. For every winter there is a summer. For every incoming tide there is an outgoing tide. For every right there is a wrong. For every up there is a down. And for EVERYTHING you think to be true the opposite is also true simultaneously.
What you and I call truth is simply what we choose to believe is true because all things exist simultaneously.
Steve