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Tag Archives: writing

Surviving a Dead Calm – Resisting the Urge to Force Sales

Have I mentioned that I’m married to a salesman? Yep, two people in our household dependent on the approval of others to make a living. I could say a lot here about the insanity of that, but the truth is, it works for us, except when we let the pressure to make a sale take over.

This was a topic of heavy discussion as we wound down from a tough day recently. Long drive, no sale. Blank computer screen, no sale. Over no-sugar-added, fat free vanilla frozen yogurt sundaes (by the way, it sucks getting healthy) we acknowledged the temptation to forget who we are in order to make a sale.

Here’s the picture – you’re out in a sailboat and suddenly the wind dies. I’ve never been sailing, but I hear you deal with that phenomenon by waiting out the wind. When your monthly budget depends on a constant breeze of new sales, it’s hard to be that patient.

dead calm no sales

Dead Calm of No Sales

We acknowledged we could maybe make things happen faster by cranking out more appointments, more ads, more pitches to editors. We could hurry through the appointments/inquiries we do have, looking over their shoulders to the next one. After all, sales does comes down to numbers at some point. But does a frantic flurry of new activity always equal more sales? No, and here’s why.

Whether it’s the words/tone we use to persuade or our eagerness to shift the pressure to the client, giving in to the urge to force sales is rarely  successful. Someone said once that the best salesman is a hungry one; we would submit that signalling, however subtly, that you’re a starving artist or salesman isn’t a great sales tactic.

What can we do, then, to stir up the wind again? The logical answer came to me this week in the form of Jeff Goins’ Writer’s Manifesto. Brilliant little ebook, everyone in sales/writing/artistic endeavours should read it.

Because he tells us we should “stop writing to be read and adored” and simply write to the best of our ability, because that’s what we do as writers. Insert “selling” or “painting” or whatever your art is, and it makes sense. We may be dependent on the approval of others to sell our products, but if their approval (and the need for more sales) is the whole reason we do what we do, we can’t help sounding a little desperate.

Stay with me here. The discussion I had with my husband about surviving a dead calm really has more to do with who we become when sales slow down. If we switch from offering our best to the world, best writing, best connecting with customers and finding out what they really need, etc., into panic mode, it just doesn’t work. We cut corners, we crank out garbage or we offer things we can’t deliver when it comes down to it. We get that whiny edge to our voices that says “You need to feel sorry enough for me to give me money.”

Not an attractive way to build a client base. I am a writer. He is a salesman. We are good at what we do. It isn’t helpful to forget that fact every time we hit a dead calm. We’re fortunate enough to hold each other accountable to keep doing our best every day, no matter how little wind seems to be hitting our sails.

What, faithful readers, are you doing to stay accountable when the wind dies? I’d love to hear your ideas for surviving a dead calm.

photo credit: Elsie esq. via photopin cc

 


About ADHD & Entrepreneurship…

On this morning’s walk with the dogs, I had some time to think about the static that keeps us from succeeding as entrepreneurs. With a little thought, I decided that the same traits that keep us from succeeding in the corporate world may be the very things that get in the way of making it on our own.

Entrepreneurship & ADHD

Bored Employee

Here’s what got me to this point: I was thinking about how many of us leave the corporate world because of boredom. We may have uber skills in our chosen areas, but we find the environment stifling. We twitch and shiver and maybe stir the pot all day long in an attempt to relieve the anxiety that’s destroying our focus.

I’m convinced that many of the talented adults I’ve seen failing in highly-structured work environments are undiagnosed sufferers of Attention Deficit Disorder. We want to play well with others. We want to contribute. We simply can’t function in the same enclosed space, on the same old work details day after day without feeling the fallout of anxiety. Insomnia, compulsive eating, irritability, stress-related illness. Bosses aren’t happy, we aren’t happy. And then we leave and start the cycle over somewhere else.

That brings me back to the whole reason I’m writing this post. If we go through this frustrating cycle of starting and ending employment often enough, we may wonder if it would be better to work for ourselves. Freelance. Start a new business. But if we can’t figure out what’s triggering our anxiety about work and how to structure our lives in a way that reduces it, we’re back in the same muddle of unhappiness before too long.

So what to do if ADHD (or general anxiety about work) and entrepreneurship aren’t mixing well? I’ll give you my cure in one sentence: we structure our lives in ways that make sense for us. After all, we’re working for ourselves. We’re responsible to create the product or service that pays our bills. So it makes sense, doesn’t it, that the structure we create has to fit who we are, ADHD symptoms and all.

One of the biggies in my self-structuring list is that I don’t work in the same place every day. If my focus is wandering badly and I have a deadline to meet, I pack the laptop and walk to the corner coffee shop. That change in environment always puts me back on track (and the Mayan Latte adds spice to my writing!)

Another important way I compensate for what I refer to as “the buzz” is to work shorter blocks of time. I find I am more productive when I break up the day into two hour blocks – writing, walking, writing, working on website, etc. Maybe for you, it means walking out of the place of business you’re running and forgetting about it for thirty minutes. Could mean playing basketball at the Y in the middle of the day.  Maybe you take a nap at 2 p.m. or do fifteen minutes of Zumba.

Whatever it takes to break up the day and relieve the anxiety of maintaining focus, it’s okay for us to do it. We’re the boss, we know what makes us tick and we are not flaky. We have gained the self-knowledge to know how we are most productive. No apologies necessary.

I’ll ask a question to end: if you’re having trouble maintaining your focus during your adventure in entrepreneurship, what can you do to reframe your time? Here’s a bonus question: what will you build into your workplace as it grows to allow your employees the same freedom? It could become a movement – can’t wait to hear your ideas.

photo credit: RBorello via photopin cc

 

 


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