My clients all ultimately want to achieve 3 things. More money, more time and eventually the freedom to do what they want, when they want to.
Achieving this relies on 3 foundational principles. Your leadership – knowing where you want to get to and who’s going to be involved, sales – which brings in revenue, and delivery – the experience your clients get working with you.
Having said that, nothing happens without sales.
Which means having a message which speaks to the problems of your target market and reaching out to them to garner interest.
And this is where I very often see people getting unstuck, confusing activity with outcome, a profound lesson I learned almost 40 years ago.
Back then, I’d joined Amway, full of hope (and a good dose of Kool-Aid) that if I showed enough people the plan, I’d soon be living the lifestyle of the rich and famous. Amway thrived on motivation—rewarding activity, not necessarily achievement.
One award was the “Gold Eagle Badge.” To earn it, you had to show the marketing plan to 30 different people in a month. A huge effort by anyone’s standards.
I decided I was going for it.
Every spare minute was spent showing the plan to anyone who fogged a mirror. I hit the 30 presentations and proudly accepted my Gold Eagle award.
There was just one small problem: not a single person signed up.
The lesson? Activity for the sake of activity is meaningless. What matters is outcome.
I see the same thing today. People send out 10, 50, even hundreds of emails. They make endless LinkedIn connections, hoping someone will raise their hand.
Most of it’s a complete waste of time.
Why? Because without targeting the right people with the right message, all the activity in the world won’t move the needle.
To succeed, you need to:
- Know exactly who your ideal target market is.
- Craft a message that resonates—speaking directly to a problem they want to solve.
- Show that you deeply understand them and have the best-fit solution.
Otherwise, you’ll burn energy with little to show for it, feeling frustrated—and so will the people you’re contacting.
Oh, and that Gold Eagle? It’s still pinned to a suit jacket I haven’t worn in over 25 years.
Remember: it’s not about how busy you are. It’s about what you achieve.
