Life’s little instruction book - don't major in minor things.
When I was a lot younger my dad gave me a book called, “Life’s little instruction book”. I still read it from time-to-time.
The introduction reads … This book began as a gift to my son. As he packed his stereo, typewriter, blue blazer, and other necessities for his new life as a college fresher, I retreated to the family room to jot down a few observations and words of counsel I thought he might find useful. I read years ago that it was not the responsibility of parents to pave the road for their children, but to provide a road map.
There are 511 little tips and ideas. One of these landed me hot water.
I was working at a bank. We had a meeting to review results after a project. It was a quality assurance project (this was the first one and I was leading the project). We checked on processes done in branches. There were only 3 results … compliant, non-compliant or partial.
One of GM’s of the area that was in the meeting asked about partial compliance. How is that even possible? About 2% of results were partial. His argument was; a process is either done right or wrong. There is no partial.
My response which landed me in hot water; don’t major in minor things; one of the 511 lessons from the book. He was not impressed.
I have learned since then; many things are not that major.
I remember someone asking when something goes wrong; "Did someone die?". No … well; then it can’t be that bad!
We are preparing for 2018. Part of the plan is answering the question; "What value can we offer you?". What will have a major impact on your life?
Thing is; we do not know what we do not know.
Instead; my question to you today is … what marketing and sales lesson(s) did you learn this year? I would love to hear from you. What were those little tricks you found which work. Or something that just works fantastically well. Or even something that does NOT work; many of our lessons are from things that did not work.
… just one idea, one quote, one thought … something you discovered this year around marketing and sales.
I look forward to your insights from 2017.
To your success,
Johan Mouton
P.S. If you could go back in time and give yourself a great tip about marketing and sales; something that will give you stellar results, what will that tip be?