Stop Making This Expensive Mistake!
By: Kate Patulski
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In March of 2020, the world as we know it, changed. A Global Health Pandemic shook the foundation of every business operating in the United States. With the swift shift to sheltering at home, followed by the closing of so many business operations, it sent a shock wave through each State and every community within that State. No one was spared. This type of dramatic contrast always creates a sense of uncertainty at some level. What happened with COVID19 created the same response as trauma does in our brains. When your brain experiences trauma, it impacts the way you process information, which impacts your behavior.
Hesitation and second-guessing become a natural state when living in uncertain times.
Do you ever find yourself hesitating?
Do I call now or wait until later?
Do I reach out to that CEO that doesn’t even know me?
Do I knock on the door of that expired listing?
Do I reach out to that influential business owner I barely know through my kid’s school?
The amount of time spent seconding guessing or hesitating is one of the most costly behaviors in any business, especially if you are in sales. In our experience, salespeople that hesitate to generate and followup with leads lose about 15 opportunities each month, which could amount to well over $15,000 monthly! That’s $180,000 a year! What’s more costly, however, is allowing hesitation to become a habitual way of operating in your business. Anything that you do long enough, becomes a learned habit. For many, as result of working remotely, hesitation has become a learned habit and their “new normal.”
As if the lost income wasn’t enough, there is an emotional price tag. Long-term, this price tag can have a greater impact than the loss of income. Hesitation, due to uncertainty, prevents your brain from operating at an optimal level. The following symptoms are impacting the development of your brain:
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- Excessive worrying
- Frustration
- Unusual outbursts of anger
- Anxiety
- Doubt about your line of work
- Lack of sleep, leading to exhaustion
- Doubt about your competency
You might be wondering if hesitation is really having a significant impact on your business. The following symptoms are indicative of a hesitation problem and, as you can imagine, stop you (and your team) from performing at the highest level:
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- Too busy to lead generate yet still behind goal or not making enough income
- Discounting services
- Doing a lot of connecting and checking in but making no new sales
- Receiving team leads yet not converting the leads
- Complaining about lead generation
- A lack of confidence in lead generation and lead followup
- Failing to stand up for the value of your business
- Not asking for referrals
- Refusing to track numbers or daily behaviors
- Worrying about rejection
- Staying busy but not making forward progress
If you’ve identified at least 4 of these symptoms, it’s time to turn it around. Hesitation is a learned behavior. Just as you learned hesitation, you can unlearn hesitation and learn activation. Just putting a plan in place, begins to create new hope and a sense of certainty in an uncertain world.
Awareness is the first step to change. Identify the areas above that are currently running your days. Start with the one that is costing you the most.
Create a plan. Decide what steps you can take as it pertains to your identified area. Remember to focus on one change initiative at a time.
Enlist support. If you need to work on a skillset, who can provide training? If you need accountability or a shift in your mindset, seek the assistance of qualified coach or utilize a process like yppturnaround.com. If you need systems or processes, where can you find them? Change requires a lot of energy and having support to lean on becomes essential to your success.
Take action daily. The more consistent you are in taking action that aligns with your goals, the easier it becomes over time. Success is really just the result of consistent action.
In 2018, after working with some of the largest coaching organizations in the industry, she and her partners founded Your Performance People.The approach at YPP is to work from an inside out perspective allowing each individual to not only maximize performance, but thrive feeling fulfilled in the process.
Since her coaching career began more than two decades ago, she has been Master Certified in NLP, Certified in Emotional Intelligence, holds a Certified Master Coach designation (CMC) through the Behavioral Coaching Institute, an Executive Coach designation through Columbia University, is a Founding Member of the John Maxwell Team, and a skilled Axiologist.
Kate brings a wealth of knowledge, practical experience, and a passion for seeing individuals, teams, and organizations thrive.
