Have you ever tried to pick up a pencil? Have you ever tried to take a drink of water? No you haven’t.  You just do it. Lack of commitment is the failure of most salespeople, and even their clients. “I tried” is the lamest excuse I have ever heard. I’d like to share an example that illustrates this point, using the example of advertising.   There are approximately 120,000 salespeople selling some form of advertising in America.  Each of those sales people will make “prospecting calls” to an average of three business owners per day. One business owner out of 12 will say, “Well, maybe it does make sense for my business. I’ll go ahead and buy a small schedule and ‘give it a try.’ And if it works, I’ll use your station/ paper product/ (fill in the blank) on a regular basis.”   Sounds pretty good, right?   This is perhaps the dumbest thing I have ever heard. Let me share a similar example with you to prove my point. Let’s say you are in Vegas standing at the roulette table and you think, “I’m going to place a small bet on black and if I win, I’ll start betting on black on a regular basis.”  Sounds a little ridiculous, don’t you think?   There are thousands of business owners who will be making a decision to “give it a try” today. Most of them will experience poor results. Will they be disappointed? Yes. Surprised? No. They will not be surprised because they have “given it a try” before, with very limited success.   Why would business owners do what they have done before and expect different results? Because bad salespeople have taught them to do this. Not every product or service works this way. But if you’ve ever heard the old adage “over promise and under deliver,” it gives the same result.   “I’ll give it a try” or “let me test the waters” is the signature of an uncommitted customer. I think we would be hard pressed to find these customers experiencing a high degree of reward from their efforts…because there is none. With risk comes reward. Show me a committed and focused client, and I will show you success in the making.  
 Greta Schulz is president of Schulz Business SELLutions in West Palm Beach, Florida. She is the best selling author of "To Sell is Not to Sell". Greta does corporate training for fortune 1000 companies and she has an on-line training course for entrepreneurs. For more tips go to: www.schulzbusiness.com click on Caffeine   Click here to share this post.