National Clothesline

Question: Five frogs are on a log. Four decide to jump off. How many are left?

Answer: Five, because there’s big difference between deciding and doing.

Just last week I received a call from a cleaner who inquired about a product I offer to help generate traffic and boost sales. His name sounded familiar so when our conversation ended I decided to check my database and discovered that he had been sent information packets on two previous occasions.

Both packets had contained detailed information with a full assortment of samples and both had been sent in UPS second-day air express envelopes.

I checked the tracking page on my UPS site to see if the packets had been delivered. They had. In fact, his signature popped up in my software. The cleaner had actually signed for both deliveries, himself.

He obviously received the information so why was he calling to ask for more?

Simple. He’s one of the frogs on the log. He’s “decided” to jump more than once… but never has. Meanwhile, his business probably needs to grow, yet he’s still trying to muster the courage to pull the trigger on something. Anything!

It could be that he’s a perfectionist and is putting off doing a task until he has every angle figured out. Typically, a perfectionist won’t start a project until he’s absolutely sure it will fly. And because there must be no room for error, the project never gets launched. I know plenty of perfectionists.

Years ago, Stan Golomb gave me a piece of advice, which I’ve harkened back to many times since. He used to say that a less-than-perfect plan, which is implemented, is far better than a perfect plan that never gets put into action.

How true. I’ve remembered his words many times and have launched marketing programs, on a number of occasions, that were far less than perfect, but still got good results.

At least to some extent, we’re all guilty of procrastination. We all put off doing what has to be done for a variety of reasons.

Crisis-makers, for example, assume they operate at their best when they are under pressure and so they put off doing things until the very last minute.

My editor has learned a very useful little trick. He likes to give me a heads-up a week before my article is due in his e-mail box. He knows I’m a crisis-maker in need of a little reminder.

And guess what? He always gets it… at the very last minute! After all, I’m at my best when I’m under pressure. (Yeah, sure!)

Another type of procrastination is defiance, which goes something like this, “So who’s the government to tell us we have to have our taxes in by April 15?”

Although I’m not one to defy authority or thumb my nose at responsibility, there are many out there who do.

I am, however, an over-doer, which means I sometimes take on more responsibility than I can effectively handle. When that happens, I have to write a strict timetable and keep to it.

So what’s your reason for not getting around to doing what needs to be done?

Now is when people like to reflect on what they did in 2009 and consider what they can do better next year. The key here is the two-letter word “do.” It’s one thing to talk about it and quite another thing to do it.

I have a neighbor, Tom, who has a very serious disability. In fact, it's so severe that he can't drive. He also has limited motion in his arms, and walks with a pronounced limp.

Does Tom spend his days sitting around feeling sorry for himself?

Hardly. He learned about the importance of staying in good shape during his years of playing college sports and he's not about to give up now.

He has built a pretty nice little business out of doing yardwork in the neighborhood. And Tom's a natural marketer and salesman. Every week, I can count on getting a "Got any work" telephone call from him.

There’s nothing like keeping in regular contact with your customers, and asking for business.

Lately, he's been working next door. He's using that project to get more business. You see, there's this property across the street that's a bit run down, and a couple just bought it as a fixer-upper.

So, while they're working hard on their house and yard, guess who's across the street, doing a great clean-up job on another yard?

And, yes, our new neighbors have admired Tom's work. Which means that it's only a matter of time before they hire Tom to help them with their renovation project.

There’s an important lesson to learn from my friend, Tom.

Don't spend a lot of time worrying about what you don't have or what you can't do. Be more like Tom. Use what you have and do what you can. Remember, the key word in that last sentence is do.

Very often, I get calls from cleaners who tell me that they've been thinking about promoting their business. In some cases, they've been thinking about promoting for years but they’ve never actually done anything yet

The fact is, you can never succeed by thinking alone. You must act.

Even as you are seeking new customers, it’s vitally important stay in touch with your existing customers! Tom contacts me regularly with "Got any work" calls. And as is so often the case, there's yet another yard project that I just haven't had time to get to. So I hire Tom to do it instead.

As a cleaner, your mission is to show people what you can do… then ask them from time to time if they’ve “got any work.” First, make a plan then implement it. Don’t be content to sit on the log. Jump!