The other night, after going through total shock upon learning that I'd never read it, my wife handed me her copy of Who Moved My Cheese by Spencer Johnson. (If you haven't read it, read it!)
It's a story about two mice and two "littlepeople" who are the size of mice, but who are human and have human brains and emotions. The mice, on the other hand, act like mice - they act on instinct and are always in hot pursuit of cheese.
They're all camped out on Cheese Station C, enjoying their vast supply of cheese. Until it runs out one day.
The mice, being mice and unemotional, simply put their running shoes on and scurry back out into the world, in search of new cheese.
The littlepeople, being emotional humans, whine and complain. They yell and huff and puff, about how "This isn't right" and "We want our cheese back!"
It takes them a long time, but finally one of the two littlepeople gets out into the world, in search of new cheese. It's not easy, it's discouraging at times, and it takes time. But eventually he finds his new cheese, and it's a bigger and more delicious pile of cheese than he'd ever seen before.
The moral of the story? Anticipate, embrace, and adapt to change.
Are YOU Adapting to Change? Or Digging Yourself Deeper?
Change is a fact of life. It always comes, yet the lessons from Who Moved My Cheese, along with many other writings, point out that it's the one thing in life that is the most bitterly opposed.
However, if you don't anticipate change, embrace it, and adapt to it, you will be left behind, and you will fail.
And this is even more true in business than it is in personal life. Business changes rapidly. If you don't stay one step ahead of those changes, and adapt readily and quickly, YOU won't succeed.
It's Time for CHANGE!
One of the biggest areas where change is omnipresent is in sales. Twenty years ago, no one predicted that the bulk of business and commerce would happen on the Internet. And as little as five years ago, few people anticipated that you could do 100% of your sales prospecting with Social Media while generating huge sales numbers.
Yet, despite all that, most salespeople are still doing what their predecessors did a hundred years ago, and beyond: Cold calling.
WHY??!?!???!??
Sure, it'll get you an appointment here and there. If you're good at it, you might even make enough sales to scrape by your quota and keep your job another month.
But you'll never, never attain really huge sales success. All that will happen is that your supply of proverbial "cheese" will eventually dwindle and run out, and more and more people reject cold calling as they build relationships via Social Media and other Information Age avenues.
So do this right now: Resolve to stop cold calling forever. Accept once and for all that the time for change has come. And it's time to adapt to our new business world before your "cheese" runs out!
New York Times best-selling author Frank Rumbauskas is the author of the Never Cold Call Again® System and has won numerous accolades, such as Readers Choice for Business Book of the Year from 800-CEO-READ, and has been named one of Fast Company’s top 30 most influential people online. To learn more, and to download a free 37-page PDF preview of his Never Cold Call Again lead-generation system, visit http://www.nevercoldcall.com
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