Scramble!!!

A new football season is upon us.  I love to watch when the quarterback drops back and looks at his options downfield to throw the ball.  But what happens when he gets into trouble, how he responds and reacts.  The best in the business, be it high school, college or the NFL have a plan of action when the called play fails. We call it “scrambling.” We all love to see the athletic ability of all involved as everything seems to be going wrong and all of a sudden one of his receivers downfield comes back, gets open and all works out.

What do you do in the field when most of your appointments cancel or no show you.  This all came to mind just a few weeks ago when it happened to me.  I know what you all think, Jim has been doing this since 1988, he never has a bad day or week.  For the most part that is true, but sometimes, for reasons no one on earth can understand, this business decides to work us over. In the first few years it seems to happen a lot.  As we learn and grow, not as often.  Regardless of when it happens, it is very frustrating.  WHAT DO YOU DO????

SCRAMBLE!!  You do everything in your power to get in front of people.  I was knocking on doors of leads that had told me on the phone they were not interested or had not mailed a card in. I was leaving sticky notes on every home that no one answered the door.  I was setting appointments with spouses and anyone that did answer the door in hopes that I could get fact to face with anyone as soon as possible.  By the end of the day, all had worked out and my goal had once agin been accomplished.

As I was driving two hours home I was re-capping this crazy day.  I had started my day with ten, what I thought were, good, quality appointments.  Just like every other week.  I normally close seven to eight of these appointments.  This day I had seen three of my ten appointments and sold two.  The other seven called and cancelled or just outright no showed me.  My other five sales came from “scrambling.”  As I have said for many of the years in this crazy business, be prepared for all your plans to fail, so you won’t.

Good luck and great selling.

Jim