We’ve all heard the expression that life works in harmony when the stars are aligned. In the business world, it’s exactly the same. When businesses are aligned with another business or a customer that’s when exciting things start to happen.
Why am I talking about the stars? Well, I’ve had a bit of a frustrating couple of months recently, spending time pulling together pitches for potential new clients, delivering proposals and knowing that I can make a positive impact on their business in terms of clarity, turnover and the all-important profit.
However, rather than these fabulous potential new partners literally biting my hand off, waving flags and blowing trumpets because I’ve delivered an outline of exactly what they need, business happenings got in the way for them. Their own clients, travel, board meetings being delayed, staff issues all contributed to their decision about moving forward with me being delayed.
Years ago in my ‘corporate life’ I would have found this highly frustrating and spent the rest of the day generally being a bit grumpy about it all. Don’t get me wrong, having the decision set back for an amount of time is frustrating because I want to work with these businesses, I want to help them & I can see that they need the support.
The difference now is that I can view their situation from their ‘mountain’. I know what happens in business and that day to day issues really do distract people from the larger picture, the planning & decision-making time and any quiet thinking time.
So rather than getting grumpy about the fact that they are not yet ready to ‘align’ with me, I am empathetic to their situation, patient and know that when they are ready, if they decide to bring me on board, the plans I have put forward will create impact on their business and we will create a fantastic partnership.
When their star & my star are finally aligned, harmony between businesses is going to happen.
So if you find yourself as a business owner, partner or team member getting frustrated because a customer won’t commit to ‘buying’ straight away, consider that there are probably other elements that are stopping them finally committing. Elements that you may not have any influence on and are probably nothing to do with you. Be gracious, patient and offer as much support as you can do in the here & now before they make their decision, knowing that if they decide you have the product or service that they want, they will choose your business to support them. If they decide not to, they aren’t the perfect customer for you now anyway. But you will have started to build a relationship and reputation with them which, you just never know, may just work in your favour in the future.
Looking for growth or turnaround in your business? Give me a call so we can have a chat about how we might be able to help you.
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