Greetings Floor Dealers!
“The crowd is always wrong.” –Earl Nightingale
“If you can’t find a good role model to emulate, look at what everyone else is doing and do something different.” -Earl Nightingale
Good old Earl. I have built a number of businesses while keeping the above quotes in mind, and doing so has helped me find great success, and has kept me out of many and various kinds of trouble that happen when you follow the crowd.
When I look around and too many people are doing what I’m doing, alarm bells go off.
Conversely, when I’m doing something crazy and extraordinary, and I look around and I’m all by myself, I get a good feeling inside. Even if my crazy plan of action fails, at least I failed on my own terms. And I kept up the discipline of doing unusual things.
You absolutely cannot accomplish the EXTRA-ordinary by doing ordinary things. It’s a healthy practice to cultivate a high level of comfort with going against the grain. With having people think you odd.
Tim Ferris, author of The 4-Hour Work Week (which I highly recommend), goes so far as to recommend exercises for developing this attitude in yourself. (One of the exercises consists of laying down in the middle of a grocery store aisle for 30 seconds. If anyone asks what you are doing, just tell them you got tired.)
You could say that for our Flooring Success Systems members, their entire membership is an exercise in NOT following the crowd. They are asked to do things that no other flooring dealer would dream of doing:
- Mailing a wide assortment of odd objects to prospects (you’d be surprised at some of the things our members’ prospects get)!
- Sending out a monthly newsletter
- Sending out a connect letter to past clients “apologizing” for not staying in touch
- Putting humorous photos of yourself in marketing letters
- When someone walks into your store, instead of saying, “Can I help You?” like every other salesperson on the planet, leading them into… our trademarked sales closer system. At the end of which you…
- Visit their home carrying a brief case and wearing shoe covers. At the end of the visit you…
- Write a prescription.
- Handing out Movie-Themed gift baskets to clients after the installation.
- Etc., etc., etc.
All of these things should give you a warm, fuzzy feeling because you are most definitely NOT following the crowd!
To Tons Of Customers!
Jim Augustus Armstrong is The “Coach”
Jim Augustus Armstrong is the President of Flooring Success Systems, a program that equips dealers to double their profits, cut their work hours in half and beat the boxes! Many dealers have totally transformed their businesses and their lives for the better after joining Flooring Success Systems.
See what real, live dealers are saying!