Greetings!
Happy Tuesday! I'm excited for the opportunity visit your inbox today. I understand you have countless numbers of personal and professional development newsletters to pick from and I appreciate the opportunity to serve you with mine.
This week we are going to take a closer look at opportunities to take advantage of opportunities. Like an iceberg, I can only scratch the surface with brief article, but hopefully it provides some food for thought and will be a springboard into more in-depth articles later on throughout 2010: The Year of Opportunity!
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Opportunity for Hard Work
By Scott Gillespie
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Thomas Edison once
said that "Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in
overalls and looks like work."
Jonas Salk once said "The reward for work well
done is the opportunity to do more."
Those are two of my all-time favorite
quotes for together they embody our entrepreneurial spirit whether we are small
business owners, sales reps, consultants, inventors, innovators or a
combination of any of these. I have a third one that I will sprinkle in later that
will wrap things up with a very exciting opportunity.
For the sake of this article, let's define
"hard work" as doing more than what is expected. Conversely, there are basic work
expectations that are placed on us. These basic expectations can come from a
boss, a written job description, or a colleague that depends on us so they can
do their work. Basic work expectations can also be placed on us by our
customers. Successfully meet these basic expectations and your customers will
be satisfied.
But satisfied customers are not what we
want, right? (Stay with me for a sec!) Let's use ourselves for an example here.
We all have countless products and services that we consume and use every day.
And for the most part we are pretty satisfied with these products and services
as well as the people we buy them from.
For each product or service we buy, we
have several choices from whom to purchase them. And for many of them, it
really doesn't matter where we go to get them, as long as we get them. With
these products or services, we are "satisfied customers."
But for a handful of things, you just
couldn't imagine going anywhere else but that one special place to buy it. With
these products or services, we are LOYAL customers. Why? Because someone saw
and took advantage of an opportunity to provide additional value to their
product or service. It may even just be the experience of getting it from that
particular place or from that particular person. Whatever the reason, it brings
you back without consideration of shopping elsewhere.
It is this distinction that I believe is
one aspect of what Edison and Salk refer to. It is the opportunity to give the
extra effort to go above and beyond that brings the reward to do it again and
again for all of our loyal customers.
The third quote I mentioned earlier comes
from Steve Pavlina, a leading expert on personal development. Steve writes that
"When you discipline
yourself to do what is hard, you gain access to a realm of results that are
denied everyone else." When reading that, I envision the doors to opportunity
slamming open for those that put in the hard work rather than slamming shut on
those that deliver basic expectations.
Here is the
exciting piece to these three quotes - Opportunity does not discriminate! It is
there for all of us to grab. And opportunity doesn't always have to lie
somewhere else. We all have hidden opportunities in what we currently do to
slam the door open and turn our satisfied customers into loyal customers.
Discover and commit to what you are going to do today to slam open your doors to
opportunity!
Now, Go Get 'Em!
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Wrapping Up
Well, I hope you picked up a few good ideas today and I look forward to being with you again next week. In the meantime, if you have a burning question, shoot me an e-mail and I'll shoot you a reply. Also, why not forward this newsletter to a few friends that may also like what you've read.
Helping You Sell You,
Scott Gillespie
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Copyright (C) 2009 Selling U, LLC - All rights reserved.
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Please call us at 989.546.7355 for written permission by Scott Gillespie before doing so.
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Selling U, LLC ~ 9825 E. Broomfield Rd. ~ Mt. Pleasant, MI 48858
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