Earlier this week, I made a huge mistake, that could have ending up costing me north of $60,000 over the next 3 weeks.
Before I go into the details, I want you to resist your urge to dismiss this when you hear what I did. You’ll probably think “What does this have to do with ME?” and want to move on. If you hear me out, you might learn a valuable lesson, that has EVERYTHING to do with you!
Earlier this week, I announced a new webinar I’m going to be hosting on May 10th.
Something felt off to me and I couldn’t put my finger on it.
Apparently, my audience felt the same, because I only had about two dozen people register. NOTE: I typically sell my first 150 seats within the first 48 hours.
I was busy as heck working with my corporate clients and quite frankly, I really didn’t want to deal with it.
I began feeding myself a bullsh*t excuse which was something like “OK, so this one doesn’t do as well. You had over 900 attend your last one.”
Today, I decided to put the brakes on and deal with it!
I stepped back and really thought about what the problem could be and then it came to me;
I was completely off message!
What I had intended to communicate, and what I was ACTUALLY communicating were two different things.
That’s lesson #1 for you . . .
Do you think you might be misunderstood with your messaging?
When was the last time you reviewed your messaging whether it be in the form of recording your calls, checking the sent file of your emails or even (if you’re a small business owner like me) the copy you use to promote a product or service.
So upon further reflection, I realized, that I was positioning my product, as a Time Management System which quite frankly, most sales reps could give a sh*t about.
What I meant to communicate, was that my program would help you create a plan to sell more.
Plain, simple and really to the f’n point!
The thought of having to redo EVERYTHING involved in this launch sickened my stomach, but it had to be done.
That’s Lesson #2 . . .
Act quickly!
Business moves at the speed of light and we don’t have time to dick around with any of those “I’ll deal with it tomorrow” lies!
So I changed the title of the webinar from How To Find The Time To Grow Your Book Of Business to . . .
A Simple Plan To Grow Your Sales.
That’s Lesson #3 . . .
Keep It Simple Stupid!
Just look at the title of the first program vs the title of the second one.
Are you over complicating things like I was?
Do you ever take the “scenic route” instead of getting to the point?
But wait, there’s more . . .
I had my designers redo the banner on my website.
That brings us to Lesson #4 . . .
Care more about your clients than anyone else EVER could!
My graphic designers demonstrated that one!
They replied quickly to me.
I asked for them to have it ready on Friday, that had it ready for me in 90 minutes.
When I asked them to send me the invoice, here’s how they replied;
“Let’s just say in this instance you ‘didn’t like the first submit’ and this is a second concept (although we know you did like the first version).
So it’s covered by the first invoice, no addl charge.
Besides, when a client makes a mistake we don’t feel right profiting from that. Company policy.
Have a great evening!”
They had every opportunity to not only charge me, but tag on a rush fee. I would have gladly paid it.
But they didn’t!
We need to watch for opportunities like this with our clients and if, by chance, we serve clients, who don’t appreciate awesome gestures like this, we need to find new clients!
Lesson #5 . . .
Comes in the form of a “Flashback”.
A few years back, one of the top reps in my company agreed to teach my class his best practices.
He told us that when you visibly screw up, own it and ask for a “Do Over”.
I’m about to do that one but first . . .
Lesson #6 . . .
Your ego will absolutely screw you over if you let it!
If I listened to my ego, I would have blamed this on people being cheap or not knowing a great webinar if it beat them over the head.
This webinar would have crashed and burned but more importantly . . .
I would have missed an opportunity to be the humble student!
So in the spirit of asking for that “Do Over” please consider joining us on May 10th for A Simple Plan To Grow Your Sales.
Please CLICK HERE to have a look at the new sales page I created to tell you all about it.
Or click on the brand spanking new banner below!
